The Averaged American
eBook - PDF

The Averaged American

Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Averaged American

Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public

About this book

Americans today "know" that a majority of the population supports the death penalty, that half of all marriages end in divorce, and that four out of five prefer a particular brand of toothpaste. Through statistics like these, we feel that we understand our fellow citizens. But remarkably, such data—now woven into our social fabric—became common currency only in the last century. Sarah Igo tells the story, for the first time, of how opinion polls, man-in-the-street interviews, sex surveys, community studies, and consumer research transformed the United States public.

Igo argues that modern surveys, from the Middletown studies to the Gallup Poll and the Kinsey Reports, projected new visions of the nation: authoritative accounts of majorities and minorities, the mainstream and the marginal. They also infiltrated the lives of those who opened their doors to pollsters, or measured their habits and beliefs against statistics culled from strangers. Survey data underwrote categories as abstract as "the average American" and as intimate as the sexual self.

With a bold and sophisticated analysis, Igo demonstrates the power of scientific surveys to shape Americans' sense of themselves as individuals, members of communities, and citizens of a nation. Tracing how ordinary people argued about and adapted to a public awash in aggregate data, she reveals how survey techniques and findings became the vocabulary of mass society—and essential to understanding who we, as modern Americans, think we are.

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Yes, you can access The Averaged American by Sarah E. Igo,Sarah E. IGO in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
[the]
situation,”
therefore,
Robert
Lynd
stipulated
“the
elimination
in
so
far
as
possible
of
consideration
of
the
negro
element,”
which
he
noted
made
up
5.6
percent
of
the
community.
In
flat
social
scien-
tific
language,
Middletown
’s
“Note
on
Method”—itself
an
innova-
tion
praised
by
many
scholars—announced,
“No
answers
from
ne-
groes
were
included
in
the
tabulations.”
52
For
the
Lynds,
Muncie’s
African
Americans
and
immigrants
were,
in
social
scientific
terms,
“complicating
factors,”
not
consti-
tutive
components
of
the
community.
So
too
were
most
of
the
press-
ing—and
even
typical—problems
of
American
cities
in
the
1920s.
“The
very
middle-of-the-road
quality
about
Middletown
would
have
made
it
unsuitable
for
a
different
kind
of
investigation,”
de-
Canvassing
a
“Typical”
Community
•
57
The
Lynds’
physical
map
of
Middletown
demarcated
its
class
and
racial
divisions
even
more
sharply
than
their
survey
did.
(Reprinted
by
permission
of
Staughton
Lynd.)
[To 
view 
this 
image, 
refer 
to 
the 
print 
version 
of 
this 
title.] 

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. List of Illustrations
  3. Introduction: America in Aggregate
  4. 1 Canvassing a “Typical” Community
  5. 2 Middletown Becomes Everytown
  6. 3 Polling the Average Populace
  7. 4 The Majority Talks Back
  8. 5 Surveying Normal Selves
  9. 6 The Private Lives of the Public
  10. Epilogue: Statistical Citizens
  11. Notes
  12. Acknowledgments
  13. Index