Mervin Field (March 11, 1921 – June 8, 2015) was an American pollster of

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

in the state of California.

Biography

Field was born in 1921, the youngest of five children, in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

and graduated from Princeton High School in 1938. His parents were Jewish emigrants from Russia. His subsequent formal education was limited to a few months each at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

night school, the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

and the

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA or Kings Point) is a United States service academy in Kings Point, New York. It trains its midshipmen (as students at the academy are called) to serve as officers in the United States Merchant ...

. His first experience with survey research was in his high school junior year, when in a chance occurrence he was introduced to the polling pioneer, Dr.

George Gallup George Horace Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion. Life and career ...

. Field’s first survey was in determining student preferences for his high school senior class president. Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Field worked for Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) and the

Gallup Poll Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. He founded the Field Research Corporation (FRC), a commercial consumer and opinion research practice operating locally, regionally and nationally. He married Virginia Fallon in 1949, and later divorced. Field was married to Marilyn Hammer from 1957 until her death in 2006. Field died in 2015, of natural causes.

Field Poll

The Field Poll was an independent,

nonpartisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

public opinion news service, with a focus on California. It shut down at the end of 2016. As of late 2009, it has published more than 2300 reports. It relied on financial support from newspapers and television stations, the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, the

California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...

system, and various non-profit foundations, not from political candidates or interests. Since 1956, the Poll has deposited its survey data with the University of California and California State University campuses, to make them available for scholars, media, and public policy makers. It is a unique and rich archive that is used in political science, journalism. sociology, and survey research methodology courses.

References

External links

the Mervin Field
at the Science Literacy Project
The Field Research Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Field, Mervin 1921 births 2015 deaths Opinion polling in the United States People from New Brunswick, New Jersey People from Princeton, New Jersey People from the San Francisco Bay Area Princeton High School (New Jersey) alumni American people of Russian-Jewish descent Pollsters Rutgers University alumni