He began working for the United States federal government in 1911, within the Bureau of Fisheries.
He graduated from Leland and Gray Seminary in Townshend, Vermont, in 1903, and completed his bachelor's and master's of arts at Brown University in 1907.
[1] After graduating from Brown University, Truesdell served as a high school principal in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, while working with Brown faculty member Walter Goodnow Everett as a research assistant.
Truesdell returned to the Census Bureau in 1919, following five years as a field assistant with the Department of Agriculture.
Truesdell became chief demographer thereafter, and retired in 1955, but served as a consultant to the Census Bureau until 1967.