![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/capt-jan25.jpg\")
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The U.S. Census<\/a> is mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution<\/a>, as the data it collects is the basis for determining representation in the House of Representatives. Early efforts were understandably difficult, given 18th-century limitations on travel and what we now call data processing.<\/p>\n Those efforts took a big leap forward in 1941. With World War II on the horizon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 named James Clyde “J.C.” Capt<\/a> director of the U.S. Census Bureau — making a Baylor Bear the leader of the largest fact-finding agency in the world. Under Capt’s leadership, the Census Bureau took significant steps toward modernization, including establishing a permanent field staff for better surveying and taking the first steps toward introducing computers into the process for better statistical analysis.<\/p>\n Born in East Texas, Capt took a winding path to the Census Bureau. He attended Baylor from 1905-07, jumping into campus life with groups like the Erisophian Literary Society, Houston-Cowden Athletic Club, and the Oratorical Association, and serving as president of the Class of 1910 for a semester before leaving school and moving to New York.<\/p>\n Capt served in World War I (reaching the rank of captain), then built a dairy business in Texas, then helped coordinate Federal Emergency Relief Administration (later Works Projects Administration\/WPA) programs — first in Texas, and later on a national level.<\/p>\n In 1939, he moved to the Census Bureau, tasked with hiring and organizing the 100,000+ enumerators and supervisors needed for the 1940 census. Two years later, he was named Census Bureau director, a role he would hold from 1941-49. Besides establishing a permanent field staff, Capt’s Census Bureau also explored new survey methodologies and quality control techniques and began development of the first commercial computer, UNIVAC<\/a>, for data processing.<\/p>\n