Didier, Emmanuel (Author)
Porter, Theodore M. (Contributor)
Sen, Priya Vari (Translator)
Sen, Priya Vari
MIT Press
Physical Details: 432
Language: English
When the Great Depression struck, the US government lacked tools to assess the situation; there was no reliable way to gauge the unemployment rate, the number of unemployed, or how many families had abandoned their farms to become migrants. In America by the Numbers, Emmanuel Didier examines the development in the 1930s of one such tool: representative sampling. Didier describes and analyzes the work of New Deal agricultural economists and statisticians who traveled from farm to farm, in search of information that would be useful for planning by farmers and government agencies. Didier shows that their methods were not just simple enumeration; these new techniques of quantification shaped the New Deal and American democracy even as the New Deal shaped the evolution of statistical surveys. Didier explains how statisticians had to become detectives and anthropologists, searching for elements that would help them portray America as a whole. Representative surveys were one of the most effective instruments for their task. He examines pre-Depression survey techniques; the invention of the random sampling method and the development of the Master Sample; and the application of random sampling by employment experts to develop the “Trial Census of Unemployment.”
...MoreReview Dan Bouk (April 2021) Review of "America by the Numbers: Quantification, Democracy, and the Birth of National Statistics". Technology and Culture (pp. 608-610).
Review Emily Klancher Merchant (2021) Review of "America by the Numbers: Quantification, Democracy, and the Birth of National Statistics". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 627-628).
Review Emily Klancher Merchant (2021) Review of "America by the Numbers: Quantification, Democracy, and the Birth of National Statistics". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 627-628).
Similar Citations
Article
Kaat Louckx;
Raf Vanderstraeten;
(2015)
Household and State-istics: Cornerstones of Society in Population Censuses (Belgium, 1846–1947)
(/isis/citation/CBB247423523/)
Article
Dominic Lusinchi;
(2022)
Kiær and the rebirth of the representative method: A case-study in controversy management at the International Statistical Institute (1895–1903)
(/isis/citation/CBB543554064/)
Chapter
Harris, Richard;
Lewis, Robert;
(2013)
Colonial Anxiety Counted: Plague and Census in Bombay and Calcutta, 1901
(/isis/citation/CBB001214654/)
Article
Cussó, Roser;
(2012)
L'activité statistique de l'Organisation économique et financière de la Société des Nations: Un nouveau lien entre pouvoir et quantification
(/isis/citation/CBB001212598/)
Essay Review
Irzik, Gürol;
Kurtulmus, A Faik;
(2013)
Votes and Lab Coats: Democratizing Scientific Research and Science Policy [Review Essay Number 1500174]
(/isis/citation/CBB001500177/)
Chapter
Tousignant, Noemi;
(2014)
A Quantity of Suffering: Measuring Pain as Emotion in the Mid-Twentieth Century United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001202328/)
Article
Mott Greene;
(2022)
Experts, Managerialism, and Democratic Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB659481305/)
Book
Dündar, Fuat;
(2010)
Crime of Numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878--1918)
(/isis/citation/CBB001212231/)
Article
Siemsen, Hayo;
(2010)
The Mach-Planck Debate Revisited: Democratization of Science or Elite Knowledge?
(/isis/citation/CBB001034670/)
Essay Review
Irzik, Gürol;
Kurtulmus, A Faik;
(2013)
Votes and Lab Coats: Democratizing Scientific Research and Science Policy [Review Essay Number 1500174]
(/isis/citation/CBB001500176/)
Essay Review
Irzik, Gürol;
Kurtulmus, A Faik;
(2013)
Votes and Lab Coats: Democratizing Scientific Research and Science Policy
(/isis/citation/CBB001500174/)
Essay Review
Irzik, Gürol;
Kurtulmus, A Faik;
(2013)
Votes and Lab Coats: Democratizing Scientific Research and Science Policy [Review Essay Number 1500174]
(/isis/citation/CBB001500175/)
Article
Matasci, Damiano;
(2014)
Aux origines des rankings. Le système scolaire français face à la comparaison internationale (1870--1900)
(/isis/citation/CBB001510212/)
Article
Egge, Sara;
(2014)
“Strewn Knee Deep in Literature”: A Material Analysis of Print Propaganda and Woman Suffrage
(/isis/citation/CBB001421784/)
Article
Christine von Oertzen;
(2021)
True to form: Media and data technologies of self-inscription
(/isis/citation/CBB573262366/)
Article
Jewett, Andrew;
(2003)
Science and the Promise of Democracy in America
(/isis/citation/CBB000410888/)
Article
Rowse, Tim;
(2014)
“Rooted in Demographic Reality”: The Contribution of New World Censuses to Indigenous Survival
(/isis/citation/CBB001201587/)
Article
Christine von Oertzen;
(2023)
Paper Knowledge and Statistical Precision
(/isis/citation/CBB422462024/)
Article
Fenneke Sysling;
(2021)
Phrenology and the Average Person, 1840–1940
(/isis/citation/CBB219761273/)
Article
Druelle-Korn, Clotilde;
(2007)
Ministère du Commerce-Statistique générale de la France: Le rendez-vous manqué des statistiques économiques
(/isis/citation/CBB000931366/)
Be the first to comment!