Racial Misclassification in the WW2 Enlistment Records

Sven E. Wilson, Brigham Young University
Doug Atkinson, Brigham Young University

Efforts to understand geographic patterns of military enlistment during WW2 according to race rely on 1) the ability to reliably link the enlistment records to the US full count census records and 2) the accuracy of the records themselves. Our preliminary linkage of the enlistment records of black soldiers to the 1940 census reveals a significant problem: many of these black soldiers are actually white. This is confirmed by careful analysis of the census records and de novo identification of soldiers by researchers using genealogical sources. Our preliminary analysis indicates that about 13% of the soldiers from the black records are white, and that this misclassification is not random but has strong geographical patterns. Southern states with high numbers of black residents have a misclassification rate of around 5%, but Northern states misclassify 10-90% of the soldiers. The highest misclassification rates are in states with very few black citizens (e.g., Maine, 90% or Iowa, 83%). But some larger Northern states also have high misclassification (e.g., Michigan, 74%; Pennsylvania, 40%; California, 22%, New York, 13%). This misclassification is significant enough to change how we understand the racial politics associated with military conscription during WW2.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 195. Linking and Data Quality