Gallup, George

Gallup, George (Horace)

(born Nov. 18, 1901, Jefferson, Iowa, U.S.—died July 26, 1984, Tschingel, Switz.) U.S. public-opinion statistician. He taught journalism at Drake University and Northwestern University until 1932, when a New York advertising firm hired him to conduct public-opinion surveys for its clients. He became a pioneer in the scientific sampling of public opinion, and his Gallup Poll, as well as other public-opinion polls, gained credibility after correctly forecasting the 1936 presidential victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion (1935), the British Institute of Public Opinion (1936), and the Audience Research Institute (1939).

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Gallup, George (Horace) (1901–84) statistician, public opinion analyst; born in Jefferson, Iowa. While directing research at the New York advertising agency, Young and Rubicam (1932–47), he founded the Princeton, N.J. based Gallup Poll (1935), which became internationally influential for its regular public opinion polls on social and economic issues and current events. He pioneered scientifically based opinion polling supported by representative population samples and he popularized opinion polling worldwide.