Gallup, George (1901–1984)

One of the pioneers of the polling field in the United States, George Gallup became the living personification of the industry during the first half century of its development. He was a trained research methodolo-gist who also had a flair for promotion, and he parlayed both into a series of the most successful polling firms in the United States. As an undergraduate, he was interested in journalism and became a student reporter and editor. His interest in, and understanding of, the newspaper business was instrumental in the development of his polling business.

George Gallup was born on November 18, 1901, in Jefferson, Iowa. He earned three degrees from the University of Iowa, including a Ph.D. in psychology. He had a strong interest in audience and attitude research, and his dissertation involved the development of a new technique for measuring newspaper readership. This work resulted in academic positions at Drake University and Northwestern University, but in 1932 he moved to New York to join Young & Rubicam as its research director and also to serve on the journalism faculty at Columbia University. His early work in New York and Princeton focused on market research designed to improve the quality of newspapers and magazines based upon the preferences of their readers, and by 1937 he was working full time in the advertising research business.

Even at this early stage of his career, he developed an interest in social and political issues as well as elections. This started when he was a student and was enlisted to help his mother-in-law run for statewide office in Iowa. She won her first election by the narrowest of margins, but Gallup began to survey her constituents and used the resulting information to help her build increasing electoral margins. He was known as a person of high ethical standards, and as his political polling work expanded and became more public, he stopped voting in presidential elections so his published polls would be free of any allegations of personal preference or bias.

During this period, he formed the American Institute of Public Opinion, from which he began to conduct national surveys of public opinion and produce a newspaper column. He also founded the Audience Research Institute where he did work on the response of film audiences to new releases, including the development of an innovative method to measure consumer reactions to films and new products at the Mirror of America, a converted theater in Hopewell, New Jersey. He became a vice president of Young & Rubicam and served in that capacity until 1947 when he turned full time to the other businesses he had developed. He managed three firms in Princeton, New Jersey. The American Institute of Public Opinion conducted the Gallup Poll and produced three syndicated newspaper articles a week from it. A second firm, Gallup and Robinson, conducted market research for a number of clients. In addition, a third firm, the Gallup Organization, conducted special surveys tailored to the interest and needs of individual clients.

Gallup catapulted to fame in 1936 because of his belief that he could apply face-to-face interviewing [Page 298]with well-designed quota samples to produce better estimates of election outcomes than could The Literary Digest. He was so confident of the superiority of these methods that he offered his main client, The Washington Post, a money-back guarantee if he did not outperform the magazine's mail survey. When he proved to be more accurate than The Literary Digest in correctly predicting a Roosevelt victory in 1936, his business was off and running.

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