Description
Book SynopsisHardly an American today escapes being polled or surveyed or sampled. In this illuminating history, Jean Converse shows how survey research came to be perhaps the single most important development in twentieth-century social science. Everyone interested in survey methods and public opinion, including social scientists in many fi elds, will find this volume a major resource.
Converse traces the beginnings of survey research in the practical worlds of politics and business, where elite groups sought information so as to infl uence mass democratic publics and markets. During the Depression and World War II, the federal government played a major role in developing surveys on a national scale. In the 1940s certain key individuals with academic connections and experience in polling, business, or government research brought surveys into academic life. By the 1960s, what was initially viewed with suspicion had achieved a measure of scientific acceptance of survey research.
The a
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments, Abbreviations, Introduction to the Transaction Edition, Introduction, Part One: The Ancestors: 1890-1940, Part Two: The Prewar and Wartime Generation: 1935-1945, Part Three: Migrations to the Universities: 1940-1960, A Summary and Evaluation, Notes, Index
