SURVEY RESEARCHseventeen-volume (1889–1902) Labour and Life of
the People of Londonand B. Seebohm Rowntree’s
Pov e r t y(1906) documented urban poverty in En-
gland; the Hull House Maps and Papers of 1895and
W. E. B. DuBois’s Philadelphia Negro(1899) doc-
umented urban conditions in the United States.
In the early twentieth century, the Social Sur-
vey Movement in Canada, Great Britain, and the
United States used the survey method as part of
qualitative community field studies. The Social
Survey Movement was an action-oriented commu-
nity research program that interviewed people and
documented conditions to gain support for sociopo-
litical reforms. By the 1940s, the positivist, quanti-
tative survey had largely displaced this early form
of survey research.
Early social surveys offered a detailed empir-
ical picture of specific areas and combined sources
of quantitative and qualitative data. Their goal was
to inform the public of the problems of rapid indus-
trialization. Early leaders of the social survey—
Florence Kelly and Jane Addams of the Hull House
and settlement movement and African American
W. E. B. DuBois—were outside the mainstream
of academic life. Kelly, Addams, and Dubois had
difficulties securing regular academic employ-
ment because of race and gender discrimination of
that era. The early social surveys provide impres-
sive pictures of daily community life in the early
twentieth century. For example, the six-volume
Pittsburgh Surveypublished in 1914 includes
data from face-to-face interviews, statistics on
health, crime, and industrial injury, and direct
observations.
By the 1920s and 1930s, researchers began
to use statistical sampling techniques, especially
after the Literary Digestdebacle. They created atti-
tude scales and indexes to measure opinions and
subjective beliefs in more precise, quantitative
ways. Professionals in applied areas (e.g., agricul-
ture, education, health care, journalism, marketing,
public service, and philanthropy) adapted the sur-
vey technique for measuring consumer behavior,
public opinion, and local needs.
By the 1930s, professional researchers who
embraced a positivist orientation were fast displacing
the social reformers who had used the survey to
document local social problems. The professional
researchers incorporated principles from the natu-
ral sciences and sought to make the survey method
more objective, quantitative, and nonpolitical.
Many academic researchers sought to distance
themselves from social reform politics after the
Progressive Era (1895–1915) ended. Competition
among researchers and universities for status, pres-
tige, and funds accelerated a reorientation or posi-
tivist “modernization” of the survey method. This
period saw the creation of several survey research
centers: the Office of Public Opinion Research at
Princeton University, the Division of Program Sur-
veys in the U.S. Department of Agriculture under
Rensis Likert, and the Office of Radio Research at
Columbia University. A publication devoted to
advancing the survey research method,Public
Opinion Quarterly,began in 1937. Several large
private foundations (Carnegie, Rockefeller, and
Sage) funded the expansion of quantitative, posi-
tivist-oriented social research.^4
Survey research dramatically expanded during
World War II, especially in the United States. Aca-
demic social researchers and practitioners from
industry converged in Washington, D.C., to work
for the war effort. Survey researchers received gen-
erous funding and government support to study
civilian and soldier morale, consumer demand, pro-
duction capacity, enemy propaganda, and the effec-
tiveness of bombing. Wartime cooperation helped
academic researchers and applied practitioners
learn from one another and gain valuable experi-
ence in conducting many large-scale surveys. Aca-
demic researchers helped practitioners appreciate
precise measurement, sampling, and statistical
analysis. Practitioners helped academics learn the
practical side of organizing and conducting surveys.
Officials in government and business executives
saw the practical benefits of using information from
large-scale surveys. Academic social scientists real-
ized they could advance understanding of social
events and test theories with survey data.
After World War II, officials quickly disman-
tled the large government survey establishment.
This was done to cut costs and because political con-
servatives feared that reformers might use survey