Claude Everett Robinson

Background

Claude Everett Robinson was born in Portland, Oregon, United States on 22. 03. 1900. He was the son of Reuben Franklin Robinson, a teacher, and of Emilie Ellen Hallock.

Education

He attended public schools and then served as a private first class in the Army Medical Corps during World War I, before going to sea briefly as a merchant seaman. In 1920 Robinson returned to Oregon and enrolled in the University of Oregon, from which he received an A. B. in 1924. While an undergraduate, he worked during the summer as a fire lookout in the Cascade National Forest. In 1925 he received an M. A. in sociology from Columbia University.

In 1932 Robinson received a Ph. D. from Columbia. His doctoral dissertation, Straw Votes: A Study of Political Predictions (1932), examined the Literary Digest presidential poll of 1928 and is still regarded as a classic. This study inaugurated a lifelong interest in public attitude testing; Robinson probably predates George Gallup as the first American to conceive of the idea of a public opinion research service for newspapers. He was unable to market the concept, however.

Career

Beginning in 1933 Robinson worked for several Wall Street firms as a statistician. In 1936 he became associate director of Gallup's American Institute of Public Opinion at Princeton, founded in 1935 to conduct national polls on questions of political and social interest. Robinson and Gallup were pioneers in the area of scientific public opinion research. They believed that their polls were accurate representations of the opinions of the entire nation, although their conclusions were based on a minute sample of the national population. Their method was to interview a limited number of persons (usually 3, 000) of specific categories (age, income, sex, political persuasion, occupation). The number in each category was calculated to reflect the proportion of each group in the population. The institute drafted the questions to be asked, gathered the responses, and organized and marketed the resulting data. In 1936 the prestigious Literary Digest poll predicted the election of Alfred M. Landon. Gallup and Robinson accurately anticipated Franklin D. Roosevelt's reelection. Robinson quickly gained recognition in the field. In 1937 he wrote the two-part "Recent Developments in the Straw Poll Field" for the Public Opinion Quarterly. In 1938, reportedly with the assistance and encouragement of Gallup, he formed the Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), also based at Princeton. He served as president until 1957 and as chairman of the board until 1960. ORC undertook market and public attitude studies for scores of corporations and trade associations. In 1943 Robinson began the Public Opinion Index for Industry, a detailed monthly survey of industry that was distributed chiefly to executives among his clientele companies. As senior editor Robinson published more than 200 comprehensive analyses of research findings focusing on such topics as automation, inadequacy of college training in economics, productivity, lobbying, and foreign competition. In 1948, with Gallup, Robinson founded Gallup and Robinson, an advertising research company. Throughout the 1940's and 1950's he wrote numerous articles of interest to American businessmen. In 1956 he created Princeton Research Park, a seventy-five-acre real estate development, and founded there the Princeton Panel, a center where businessmen could study the American capitalist system. He also directed Mirror of America, a research laboratory at Hopewell, N. J. In 1960 Robinson retired from ORC but remained as chairman of its finance committee. That year, Robinson, a lifelong Republican, served as research counselor to presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon. In retirement he wrote Understanding Profits (1961) and engaged in farming in New Jersey. Robinson was in the vanguard of the development of scientific public opinion research and reporting. It is mere chance that the name Gallup has become identified nationwide with polling, while Robinson's is much less known.

Achievements

• In 1956 he created Princeton Research Park, a seventy-five-acre real estate development, and founded there the Princeton Panel, a center where businessmen could study the American capitalist system.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Understanding Profits
  • Straw Votes: A Study of Political Prediction

Membership

Chairman of a finance committee.

President the Opinion Research Corporation (ORC)

Founder of Gallup and Robinson company

Connections

On October 6, 1927, he married Elizabeth Manning, daughter of an Oregon attorney. They had two sons.

Wife:

Elizabeth

On October 6, 1927, he married Elizabeth Manning, daughter of an Oregon attorney.