Preserving Polling for Democracy and Social Science in the Aftermath of the 1948 Polling Debacle.

After the 1948, when Truman's victory over Dewey surprised the public and the pollsters, public opinion polling faced a legitimacy crisis. As this paper shows, nascent survey researchers played an important role in helping pollsters to survive and prosper. In discussing academics' efforts to preserve polling for social science and democracy, this paper adds to scholarly knowledge about the growing legitimation and use of public opinion polls for measuring public opinion as well as shifts in political science and other social sciences. The paper draws from oral histories of academic survey pioneers and leading pollsters, as well as contemporaneous publications, reports, and unpublished letters and memos. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]