Editing George Gallup

{{short description|American statistician (1901–1984)}}
{{for|his son|George Gallup Jr.}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = George Gallup
| image       = George Gallup 1961 (01).jpg
| alt         =
| caption     = Gallup in 1961
| birth_name  = George Horace Gallup 
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1901|11|18}}
| birth_place = [[Jefferson, Iowa]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{Death date and age|1984|07|26|1901|11|18}}
| death_place = [[Sigriswil|Tschingel ob Gunten]], [[Bernese Oberland]], Switzerland
| other_names =
| alma_mater  = [[University of Iowa]]
| known_for   = [[Gallup poll]]
| occupation  = Statistician
}}

'''George Horace Gallup''' (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the [[Gallup poll]], a [[statistics|statistically]]-based [[survey sampling|survey sampled]] measure of [[opinion polls|public opinion]].

==Life and career==
[[File:George Gallup 2001 Romania stamp.jpg|thumb|235px|George Gallup on a 2001 Romanian stamp]]
[[File:Grave of George H. Gallup.jpg|thumb|right|Grave in Princeton Cemetery]]

George Gallup, Jr., was born in [[Jefferson, Iowa]], the son of Nettie Quella (Davenport) and George Henry Gallup, a dairy farmer. As a teen, "Ted" would deliver milk and used his earnings to start a newspaper at his high school. He attended the [[University of Iowa]], earning his B.A. in 1923, his M.A. in 1925 and his Ph.D. in 1928.<ref>{{cite web|last=Rogers|first=Everett M.|title=Iowa School of Journalism|url=http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/simon052/93043281.html|access-date=June 13, 2012}}</ref>  While there he was a member of the Iowa Beta chapter of the [[Sigma Alpha Epsilon]] fraternity, and edited of ''[[The Daily Iowan]]'', the campus newspaper. 

He then moved first to [[Des Moines, Iowa]], where he served until 1931 as head of the Department of Journalism at [[Drake University]], then to [[Evanston, Illinois]], as a professor of journalism and advertising at [[Northwestern University]]. He moved to [[New York City]] in 1932 to join the advertising agency of [[Young and Rubicam]] as director of research, serving as vice president there from 1937 to 1947. He was also a professor of journalism at [[Columbia University]], but relinquished the position shortly after he formed his own polling company, the American Institute of Public Opinion, in 1935.<ref>{{cite web|title=George Gallup Biography|url=http://www.notablebiographies.com/Fi-Gi/Gallup-George.html|publisher=Encyclopedia of W-date=June 13, 2012}}</ref>

Gallup had first become involved in polling in 1932, when he did some for his mother-in-law, [[Ola Babcock Miller]], a longshot candidate for [[Iowa Secretary of State]]. She was swept in with the Democratic landslide of that year, furthering Gallup's interest in politics.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/bdi/DetailsPage.aspx?id=271|title=Miller, Eunice Viola Babcock – The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa -The University of Iowa|website=uipress.lib.uiowa.edu}}</ref>

In 1936, his new organization achieved national recognition by correctly predicting that [[Franklin Roosevelt]] would defeat [[Alf Landon]] in the U.S. Presidential election, besting a poll based on over two million returned questionnaires conducted by the widely-respected ''[[Literary Digest]]'' magazine. Gallup's poll was based on a more representative sample of the American electorate reflected in just 50,000 more selectively chosen respondents.  He also correctly predicted the results of the ''Literary Digest'' poll a random sample smaller than theirs but chosen to match its profile.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

Twelve years later, his organization suffered its moment of greatest ignominy by predicting that [[Thomas Dewey]] would defeat [[Harry S. Truman]] in the [[U.S. presidential election, 1948|1948 election]] by between 5% and 15%. Truman won the election by 4.5%, with Gallup attributing the error in his results to ending polling three weeks before Election Day, which failed to account for an unexpected Truman's comeback.

In 1947, he launched the [[Gallup International Association]], an international association of polling organizations.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3n5BA5Z_Of0C&pg=PA111| author=Wolfgang Donsbach and Michael W. Traugott| title=The SAGE handbook of public opinion research| publisher=Social Science| year=2007| isbn=9781412911771}}</ref> With friends-cum-rivals [[Elmo Roper]] and [[Archibald Crossley]], he was instrumental in the establishment of the Market Research Council, the National Council on Public Polls, and the [[American Association for Public Opinion Research]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Dietrich|first=Bryce J.|title=Crossley, Archibald (1896–1985)|date=2008|url=http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/survey/n118.xml|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods|pages=170–171|place=Thousand Oaks|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412963947 |isbn=9781412918084 |access-date=May 22, 2021}}</ref> In 1948, with [[Claude E. Robinson]], he founded [[Gallup & Robinson]], an [[advertising research]] company.

In 1958, Gallup grouped all of his polling operations under what became [[The Gallup Organization]].

Gallup died in 1984 of a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]] at his summer home in [[Sigriswil|Tschingel ob Gunten]], a village in the [[Bernese Oberland]] of [[Switzerland]]. He was buried in [[Princeton Cemetery]]. His wife, the former Ophelia S. Miller, died in 1988, and their son, writer and pollster [[George Gallup Jr.]], died in 2011.<ref name=dfp>{{cite news|title=N.Y. Times reporter Tom Wicker was acclaimed for Kennedy assassination coverage |url=http://www.freep.com/article/20111126/NEWS07/111260407/N-Y-Times-reporter-Tom-Wicker-was-acclaimed-for-Kennedy-assassination-coverage |work=[[Detroit Free Press]] |date=November 26, 2011 |access-date=November 26, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202180925/http://www.freep.com/article/20111126/NEWS07/111260407/N-Y-Times-reporter-Tom-Wicker-was-acclaimed-for-Kennedy-assassination-coverage |archive-date=February 2, 2014 }}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Approval rating]]
*[[The Gallup Organization]]
*[[Gallup & Robinson]]
*[[George H. Gallup House]]
*[[Gallup International Association]]

; Pollsters<ref name = "In Defense Of Public Opinion Polling_2018"> {{ cite book | title = In Defense Of Public Opinion Polling | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uz1MDwAAQBAJ | publisher = Routledge, 2018 | author = Kenneth F Warren | isbn = 9780429979538 | language = en | date = February 15, 2018 }} </ref>
*[[Archibald Crossley]]
*[[Elmo Roper]]
*[[Mervin Field]]
*[[Louis Harris]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Cantril, Hadley. ''Gauging Public Opinion'' (1944)
* [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98754501 Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk, eds. ''Public Opinion, 1935–1946'' (1951)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728075654/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98754501 |date=July 28, 2012 }}, massive compilation of many public opinion polls from US, UK, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.128827 online]
* Converse, Jean M. ''Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence 1890–1960'' (1987), the standard history
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120516120747/http://romir.ru/GGallup_en.pdf Doktorov, Boris Z. "George Gallup: Biography and Destiny". Moscow: (2011)]
* Foley, Ryan J., [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/gallup-papers-give-glimpse-us-polling-history ''Gallup Papers Give Glimpse into US Polling History'', Associated Press (2012)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130831110727/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/gallup-papers-give-glimpse-us-polling-history |date=August 31, 2013 }}
* Gallup, George. ''Public Opinion in a Democracy'' (1939)
*Gallup, George, and [[Evan Hill|Evan Hiill]]. ''The Secrets of Long Life'' (Geis Associates/Random House, 1960).
* Gallup, Alec M. ed. ''The Gallup Poll Cumulative Index: Public Opinion, 1935–1997'' (1999) lists 10,000+ questions, but no results
* Gallup, George Horace, ed. ''The Gallup Poll; Public Opinion, 1935–1971'' 3 vol (1972) summarizes results of each poll.
* Hawbaker, Becky Wilson. "Taking 'the Pulse of Democracy': George Gallup, Iowa, and the Origin of the Gallup Poll". The Palimpsest 74(3) 98–118. Description of Gallup's Iowa years and their impact on his development.
* [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=28537852 Lavrakas, Paul J. et al. eds. ''Presidential Polls and the News Media'' (1995)]
* [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=8540600 Moore, David W. ''The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America'' (1995)]
*{{cite book
 | last = Ohmer
 | first = Susan
 | title = ''George Gallup in Hollywood''
 | publisher = Columbia University Press
 | year = 2006
 | isbn = 978-0-231-12133-0}}
* Rogers, Lindsay. ''The Pollsters: Public Opinion, Politics, and Democratic Leadership'' (1949)
* [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=71288534 Traugott, Michael W. ''The Voter's Guide to Election Polls''] 3rd ed. (2004)
* [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=59669912 Young, Michael L. ''Dictionary of Polling: The Language of Contemporary Opinion Research'' (1992)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100420055859/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o |date=April 20, 2010 }}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080921101624/http://www.gallup-robinson.com/galluplegacy.html The Gallup Legacy, from Gallup & Robinson website]
*[https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,798516,00.html "Opinion: The Black & White Beans"]. ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. May 3, 1948.

{{s-start}}
{{s-npo}}
{{s-bef | before = [[Henry Bruère]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=President of the [[National Civic League|National Municipal League]] | years = December 1953 – November 1956}}
{{s-aft | after = [[Cecil Morgan]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gallup, George}}
[[Category:1901 births]]
[[Category:1984 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American mathematicians]]
[[Category:American Episcopalians]]
[[Category:American statisticians]]
[[Category:Burials at Princeton Cemetery]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:Drake University faculty]]
[[Category:Episcopalians from Iowa]]
[[Category:People from Jefferson, Iowa]]
[[Category:Pollsters]]
[[Category:Public opinion]]
[[Category:University of Iowa alumni]]
[[Category:Sigma Alpha Epsilon members]]