A gold mine and a tool for democracy

George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and the business of scientific polling, 1935-1955

Bibliographic Data

ID4004487
AuthorsSarah E Igo (University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume42
Issue2
Pages109-134
Publication date2006-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5061 • E-ISSN: 1520-6696
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/jhbs.20165
PMID16586456
OpenAlexW2079771269
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited47

Scientific" public opinion polls arrived on the American scene in 1936. Examining the work of opinion surveyors George Gallup and Elmo Roper, this essay tracks the early career of a new social scientific technology, one that powerfully shaped conceptions of "the public." Pollsters described their craft as a democratic one that could accurately represent the U.S. populace. Yet, their assumptions about that same public-and the techniques they employed to measure it-undermined such claims, and even risked calling the polling profession into question. To understand why Gallup and Roper fell short of their stated ambitions, one must turn not only to the state of midcentury sampling methods but also to the corporate sponsors and commercial pressures underlying their enterprise. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Art history · Craft · Democracy · George (robot) · Political science · Politics · Polling · Public opinion · Public relations · Sociology · Work (physics) · American History and Culture · Computer Science · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Data Analysis and Archiving · Engineering · History · Law · Public Administration

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