George Gallup
| George Gallup | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
George Horace Gallup November 18, 1901 Jefferson, Iowa, United States |
| Died | July 26, 1984 (aged 82) Tschingel, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa |
| Occupation | Statistician |
| Known for | Gallup poll |
George Horace Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion.
Gallup was born in Jefferson, Iowa, the son of Nettie Quella (Davenport) and George Henry Gallup, a dairy farmer. As a teen, George Jr., known then as "Ted", would deliver milk and used his salary to start a newspaper at the high school, where he also played football. His higher education took place at the University of Iowa, where he was a football player, a member of the Iowa Beta chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and editor of The Daily Iowan, an independent newspaper which serves the university campus. He earned his B.A. in 1923, his M.A. in 1925 and his Ph.D. in 1928.
He then moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where he served as head of the Department of Journalism at Drake University until 1931. That year, he moved to Evanston, Illinois, as a professor of journalism and advertising at Northwestern University. The next year, he moved to New York City to join the advertising agency of Young and Rubicam as director of research (later as vice president from 1937 to 1947). He was also professor of journalism at Columbia University, but he had to give up this position shortly after he formed his own polling company, the American Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup Poll), in 1935.
Gallup is often credited as the developer of public polling. In 1932, Gallup did some polling for his mother-in-law, Ola Babcock Miller, a candidate who was a long-shot from winning a position as Iowa Secretary of State. With the Democratic landslide of that year, she won a stunning victory, furthering Gallup's interest in politics.
...
Wikipedia