The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880–1940

For the past hundred years, the social survey has been a major tool of social investigation, and its use has also been linked to social reform. Starting with the landmark surveys of Charles Booth in London and Jane Addams in Chicago, social surveys in both Britain and the Unites States investigated poverty, unemployment and other difficult social conditions. While in Britain there was marked continuity between the early studies of Booth and others, in the US the social survey movement exercised curiously little impact upon empirical social science. This 2001 book traces the history of the social Survey in Britain and the US, with two chapters on Germany and France. It discusses the aims and interests of those who carried out early surveys, and the links between the social survey and the growth of empirical social science. The contributors are drawn from a range of disciplines, including history, sociology, political science, demography and geography.