I was arguing with a hard line Stalinist on demographics in the USSR in the 30´s. when he asked me to repeat for the USA the same procedures I was using for the USSR (this discussion was being quite civilized, btw). I thought he was kidding, but when I took the numbers at the Census Bureau, I noticed an abrupt decrease on population growth from 16% in the 20´s to 6% in the 30´s. This resulted in a dramatic population deficit of 11 million people. Unfortunately, I couldn´t find any data on overall mortality and growth rates. My point is that such a large change in demographic trends are very rare in peacetimes, unless you have famine or economical disasters like in post Soviet Russia. Do you know any historian or demographer who studied this event in the USA? Where could I get data on overall mortality and birth rates. Maybe this decrease is the result of a dramatic birth decline?
Here are the census results
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/
1920-105M 1930-122M (16% increase) 1940-130M (6% increase) Expected-141M in 1940
And here is the thread
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=290