Paris in the 1920s was not just a romantic notion — it was a living, breathing metropolis packed with bohemian spirit, global migrants, and creative revolutionaries. Thanks to a newly digitized census database powered by artificial intelligence, we now have a detailed portrait of who lived in the French capital during those vibrant years.
Reconstructing the ‘Crazy Years’
A team of researchers from France’s National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) has partnered with Musée Carnavalet to unveil a searchable digital database created from over 8 million handwritten entries from the Paris censuses of 1926, 1931, and 1936.
The AI model, trained to read and transcribe thousands of pages of delicate cursive, has brought to light Paris’s demographic makeup during les années folles — the “crazy years” — a term used to describe the Roaring Twenties in France.
“It’s absolutely fascinating. For the first time we can name almost every person who was registered as living in Paris during this period,” said Valérie Guillaume, director of Musée Carnavalet.
A Cosmopolitan Metropolis of Youth and Art
The database reveals that single young adults, often without children, predominantly made up Paris’s population. The city had become a magnet for intellectuals, artists, migrants, and the culturally curious in the wake of World War I.
In 1926, for example, James Joyce was completing Finnegans Wake while living in a spacious apartment in the 7th arrondissement with his partner Nora Barnacle and their children Giorgio and Lucia. His neighbors included:
- A Syrian family with an English nanny named Jessie,
- Russian émigrés,
- An Egyptian industrialist,
- American writers William and Elizabeth Placida Mahl.
“There were very few children in the city at that time,” Guillaume noted. “From the information, we see Paris was a city of single, young adults and that there were many different nationalities.”
Paris: Safe Haven and Creative Hub
During this time, the city provided refuge and inspiration for people fleeing persecution, revolution, and war. Many also came from French colonies or rural regions in search of work. The capital teemed with iconic figures like:
- Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein drinking and debating in cafes,
- George Orwell, experiencing hardship in his early years,
- Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Amedeo Modigliani revolutionizing the art world.
AI Brings History to Life
While census records had been archived and accessible to the public, manually searching them was a time-consuming process. The breakthrough came when AI was applied to decipher the delicate handwritten entries, transforming them into a fully searchable digital archive.
“It’s never been done before because it’s an enormous job — too big to manage without digital help,” Guillaume explained.
Each entry includes details like name, birth date and place, profession, and number of dependents. Entries flagged as ambiguous were manually reviewed by archivists, ensuring high accuracy.
A Digital Time Capsule
The result is a comprehensive snapshot of life in Paris when its population had just reached 2.9 million — minus those in prisons, hospitals, or religious institutions. This digitization project doesn’t just offer genealogists and historians an unprecedented tool; it breathes life back into a city remembered for its creativity, restlessness, and global reach.
