Wealth Distribution

Percentage of total wealth owned by top 1% of colonial households in 1774: 16.5%
Percentage of total wealth owned by top 10%: 59%⁴

Delegates at the Constitutional Convention

Number of delegates appointed to the Constitutional Convention: 74
Number of delegates who actually attended sessions at some point: 55
Number of delegates who signed the Constitution: 39⁵

Slave Population in the United States

Total population of the United States, as recorded by the first national Census in 1790: 3.8 million people
Slave population of the United States in 1790: 700,000
Proportion of total national population that was enslaved: 18%
Proportion of population of South Carolina that was enslaved: 43%
Proportion of population of Maryland that was enslaved: 32%
Proportion of population of North Carolina that was enslaved: 26%
Proportion of population of Virginia that was enslaved: 39%
Slave population of Virginia (the country's largest slaveholding state): 300,000⁶⁷

Urban and Rural Population

Urban population of the United States, as recorded by the Census of 1790: 201,655
Rural population of the United States in 1790: 3,727,559 Minimum population required for a town or city to be classified as "urban" by the Census Bureau in 1790: 2,500
Ratio of rural to urban populations of the United States in 1790: about 19 to 1

Nationalities of the U.S. Population

Percentage of the white American population in 1790 that was of English nationality: 60.9%
Percentage that was of Scottish nationality: 8.3%
Percentage that was of Irish nationality: 9.7%
Percentage that was of German nationality: 8.7%
Percentage that was of Dutch nationality: 3.4%
Percentage that was of French nationality: 1.7%
Percentage that was of Swedish nationality: 0.7%⁸