DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE,
BUREAU OF THE CENSUS,
Washington, D. C., February 18, 1941.
SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith for publication the sixtysecond issue of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. This annual volume is a compilation of authoritative statistics relating to the social and economic condition of the population and to the industrial, commercial, and governmental activities of the Nation. It is designed to serve as a convenient reference work for businessmen, economists, statisticians, students, and others who may have need of a statistical compendium covering a wide range of subjects.
The present volume was prepared in the Division of Territorial, Insular, and Foreign Statistics, of this Bureau, under the supervision of Kathleen H. Dugan, editor, and under the administrative direction of LeVerne Beales, Chief Statistician for the Division.
The first 34 issues of the Abstract were prepared and published by the Bureau of Statistics, originally a bureau of the Treasury Department and later of the Department of Commerce and Labor; the next 25 by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, now of the Department of Commerce; and subsequent issues by the Bureau of the Census.
The statistical tables contained in the Abstract are compilations of data collected by the various statistical agencies of the Federal Government, by several State agencies, and by a considerable number of nongovernmental organizations. Many of these agencies have rendered valuable assistance not only in supplying advance data but also in the actual preparation of tables for inclusion in the Abstract. Special mention on this account is due the following-named agencies of the Federal Government: The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, and the Weather Bureau, of the Department of Commerce; the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, the Farm Credit Administration, and the Forest Service, of the Department of Agriculture; the Office of Education and the Social Security Board, of the Federal Security Agency; the Bureau of Fisheries, the General Land Office, the Bureau of Mines, and the National Park Service, of the Department of the Interior; the Immigration and Naturalization Service, of the Department of Justice; the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the Department of Labor; the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, of the Treasury Department; the Federal Communications Commission; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System the Interstate Commerce Commission; the Railroad Retirement Board the United States Maritime Commission; and the Veterans' Adminis tration.
VERGIL D. REED, Acting Director of the Census.