How did the U.S. Census Bureau develop from the Census Office created in 1902?

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census A U.S. Census Bureau enumerator conducting a personal interview.

The U.S. Census Bureau was established to manage the increasing complexity of population counts, which had previously been administered by U.S. marshals. In March 1902, Congress created the Census Office within the Department of the Interior. The bureau officially opened in July 1902 and was incorporated into the Department of Commerce and Labor just one year later.

Following the 1913 split of that department, the bureau remained under the newly formed Department of Commerce. In 1942, the agency relocated its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to its current site in Suitland, Maryland.1