Roper, Elmo (1900–1971)

Elmo Roper, born in 1900, was a leader in the fields of public opinion polling and market research for more than 30 years. He did not have formal academic training in these fields and, in fact, did not finish college. Rather, as the co-owner of a jewelry store in the 1920s, he became interested in customer opinions. He eventually left the jewelry business, and in 1933 he became a co-founder of one of the country's first market research firms, Cherington, Roper and Wood. Five years later Roper left that firm to found Roper Research Associates, Inc. He retired from the firm in 1966 but remained a senior consultant until his death in 1971.

Roper was deeply involved in popularizing market research and public opinion polling and increasing the influence of the fields in both private industry and within the U.S. government. From 1935 to 1950 he was the director of the “Fortune Survey” of public opinion, conducted for Fortune magazine. This was the first national opinion poll conducted using scientific sampling strategies.

In 1936 Roper solidified his reputation when the Fortune Survey very closely predicted the results of the presidential contest between Franklin Roosevelt and Alf Langdon. Roper bested the other major polls at the time, the Gallup Poll and the Crossley Poll. Gallup and Crossley predicted Roosevelt would win with 50% to 55% of the vote, while Roper predicted a Roosevelt win with more than 60% of the vote. Roosevelt won the election with 60.7% of the vote. This accuracy helped to establish scientific polling's position and importance on the political landscape. Roper maintained a high profile for the next 30 years. He accurately predicted the next two presidential elections, in 1940 and 1944, predicting results that were within 1 % of the actual vote.

In 1948 he, like nearly all other pollsters at the time, incorrectly predicted that Thomas Dewey would defeat Harry Truman in the race for president. The field was badly shaken, but Roper's business survived, with some changes. Election polling in 1948 had stopped weeks before the election because pollsters believed the nation's voters would not change their minds close to the election. Election polling is now conducted up to the election itself and, in the case of exit polls, during it. Probability sampling also replaced quota sampling as the dominant methodology after 1948.

Roper Research Associates conducted polls for various government agencies and many private companies. Roper conducted polls for the New York Stock Exchange and the CBS television network. He was a deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, had a radio show, and was editor at large for the Saturday Review magazine.

Outside the world of polling, Roper was a liberal democrat involved in many causes of the day. He sat on the board of Planned Parenthood. In 1955 he was elected president of the Atlantic Union Committee, succeeding Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts of the United States Supreme Court. The group sought to strengthen ties between Canada, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union.

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