We have been occupied with the Millennial Edition of Historical Statistics of the United States for more than eleven years. This long effort, launched in March 1994, has proven to be more complicated and time-consuming than we anticipated, but we have been sustained throughout by the assistance and support of many colleagues. The Millennial Edition is truly a collaborative product of the community of researchers and scholars who generate and use historical statistics.

The following few pages can list only the most obvious of those who have contributed. We begin with the names of the eighty-three individuals who wrote the essays or selected and documented the tables of data. Most contributed both. We owe these experts a great debt. They raised the financial support required and added their own considerable effort to ours to assemble this work. Yet we should also note that a great deal that is reported by our contributors builds on the work of those who preceded them. These include the previous editions of Historical Statistics of the United States, upon which we have drawn when appropriate, and the original contributions of the scholars and government researchers whom we have acknowledged through the citations recorded in the source notes to the tables.

The Historical Statistics Project received financial and material support from many institutions and foundations. Without the promise of such support, acknowledged on page 1-xix, we would not have dared to begin. Expending the financial support received, we employed over the years a total of sixty-five research assistants (some graduate students, some undergraduate students) and two staff members. Their names are listed on page 1-xxi. During the project's eleven-year gestation, we freely asked for and received assistance, advice, and critical review from many people and institutions – too many, indeed, to name them all. Two hundred ninety-nine individuals are formally listed here as "consultants,” but they were also enthusiastic supporters of the effort. Their willingness to be involved added immeasurably more than the perfunctory documentation of their assistance suggests.

Beyond these formal contacts, we held five planning conferences with a combined attendance of more than 150 scholars and historical statisticians. Coordination and numerous opportunities for review and feedback were provided through more than eighteen meetings of the University of California Group in Economic History. Without the support of the All-UC Group, managing the project would have been immeasurably more difficult. Many of the essays were first presented at the meetings of the Social Science History Association in 1999, where comments by discussants and members of the audience helped improve the final product. Other chapters were presented at special gatherings, both in the United States and abroad. Librarians and government officers at many locations were of enormous assistance in guiding us both to the original data and to its proper interpretation.

The research required to select, assemble, explain, and contextualize the historical statistics contained in these five volumes was only half the project. After all that work, the manuscript had to be converted to both print and electronic media. In that undertaking Cambridge University Press became our collaborator. Frank Smith, our editor and champion at the Press, recognized the value of the work from the beginning and has stood behind us with unwavering optimism and commitment for more than ten years. Thank you, Frank.

The New York staff at Cambridge University Press has been fantastic. We owe special thanks to Shari Chappell, Eric Crahan, Anna Curry, Laura Dorfman, Pauline Ireland, and Alia Winters. Their professionalism never obscured their personal interest in and genuine understanding of an effort that might strike many as boring and obscurely technical. Cathy Felgar, also in New York but working with compositors in India and cartographers in Wisconsin, saw the volumes through the tortuous production process with skill, perseverance, and uncommon patience.

Madeleine Adams was responsible for preparing the manuscript for publication. She coordinated the efforts of a small army of copy editors and proofreaders and applied her own considerable editorial talent and knowledge of history and statistics to keep an otherwise unwieldy monster as error-free and user-friendly as possible. We are appreciative beyond words that she sustained this concentrated effort with good humor, unflagging attention to detail, and a genuine concern for the researchers who will come to rely on the data presented here. Every user owes her a nod of thanks.

Anthony Angiletta of Stanford Libraries has been an invaluable advisor concerning the requirements and expectations of reference librarians, the rapidly changing field of electronic publishing, and the evolving needs of students and scholars who come looking for historical statistics in the library or on the Web.

Finally, we acknowledge the excellent work of our three Managing Editors. Robert Barde was with us at the beginning and served until the headquarters of the project moved from Berkeley to Riverside in 1998. He played a major role in our initial fund-raising efforts and coordinated our individual meetings with the primary contributors. Matthew Sobek joined the project in Riverside and served as a project manager through 2001. He organized both the routine and the unexpected. He devised systems to keep track of everything from intertextual cross references to our far-flung team of contributors. Matt also refined and then enforced the "technical protocol” that guided the preparation of the spreadsheets and text files. Monty Hindman took over as Managing Editor in 2001 and took charge of the final stage of manuscript preparation. Monty wrote the computer algorithms that processed the raw data and, when necessary, flagged questionable numbers. He formatted the spreadsheets, with their often complex heading structure, for transmission to the compositors. Each of these fine Managing Editors left their personal mark on the project. As scholars they believed in the importance of the quantitative approach to history and social science, they worked diligently to ensure the fidelity and accuracy of the data, and they insisted on clarity in the documentation.

We asked the most distinguished and busy people to join us as contributors and collaborators. At every turn we were gratified by the enthusiasm and selfless willingness of our colleagues. We can record our thanks publicly here, but we trust that the real reward for these many people will be the value that the Millennial Edition will bring to future scholarship.