The Polls Of The Past

Rebecca Onion profiles @HistOpinion, a Twitter account that tweets the results of public opinion surveys conducted more than 70 years ago:

The volume that supplies source material for the tweets is Public Opinion, 1935-1946, by Princeton psychologist Hadley Cantril. Cantril was a pioneer in the field of public opinion research, which took off in the mid-1930s after pollsters George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley successfully predicted FDR’s victory using statistical sampling in 1936. From his perch at Princeton, Cantril adapted these new methods for academic purposes, and advised presidents including FDR and Eisenhower. (Cantril also authored the first study of the Orson Welles War of the Worlds “panic” of 1938.) Public Opinion compiles data from 23 polling organizations around the world, with results coming from Hungary, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, and Britain, as well as the U.S. Shulman is working his way through the volume, selecting the most surprising, intriguing, or unusual responses to share on the Twitter feed.