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Revisiting Public Opinion in the 1930s and1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2011

Adam J. Berinsky ,
Eleanor Neff Powell ,
Eric Schickler  and
Ian Brett Yohai
Adam J. Berinsky
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Eleanor Neff Powell
Affiliation:
Yale University
Eric Schickler
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Ian Brett Yohai
Affiliation:
Aptima, Inc
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Abstract

Studies of mass political attitudes and behavior before the 1950shave been limited by a lack of high-quality, individual-level data.Fortunately, data from public opinion polls conducted during thelate New Deal and World War II periods are available, although themany difficulties of working with these data have left them largelyuntouched for over 60 years. We compiled and produced readily usablecomputer files for over 400 public opinion polls undertaken between1936 and 1945 by the four major survey organizations active duringthat period. We also developed a series of weights to ameliorate theproblems introduced by the quota-sampling procedures employed at thetime. The corrected data files and weights were released in May2011. In this article, we briefly discuss the data and weightingprocedures and then present selected time series determined usingquestions that were repeated on 10 or more surveys. The time seriesprovide considerable leverage for understanding the dynamics ofpublic opinion in one of the most volatile—and pivotal—eras inAmerican history.

Type
Features
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 515 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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