iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 4h

Early methods research can send you to some weird places

Page from book with a newspaper reproduction within the text. The newpaper headline read "Baby pig care - it PAYS", while the book text indicates that the read score for this article was 60.5% for men and 20.0% for women. A subtitle reads "Hogs May Pull in Non-Readers"

Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Reminder that women built polling. "Intelligent farm women" even. Whose attitudes, amazingly, differ from their husbands'.

Women find the Poll questions interesting and often differ in their answers from men in the family. Polk County, Iowa
Grainy B&W scan of photo of woman at a mailbox.

Wallace-Homestead Poll

Since 1938, Farmers Have Participated in Poll That
Shows Farm Opinions

"We have been lucky enough to get a group of intelligent farm women to do the actual interviewing as a spare-time job."

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Somebody update this; I want to know how much de-gendering of choice of musical instruments has happened. Guitar, surely? But probably not as much as I would like. I once tried to get harmonica lessons, and the instructor asked if I was inquiring for my boyfriend, then turned me down when I said no.

1938 Psychological Corporation Barometer Survey of 2500 Americans in towns and cities, showing 42% of households had at least one person who could play a musical instrument. When asked the instruments played, 88% of women played piano and 5% violin, with no other single instrument getting over 1% and just % misc. For men, 42% played piano, 10% violin, 9% violin, 7% each guita and trumpet, 6% saxophone, 5% drums, 3% accordion, as well as 1% each harmonica and cello and a whopping 17% misc.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Roper Center @ropercenter.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

During her Cornell University visit last week, CNN Polling & Analytics Editor Ariel Edwards-Levy shared her recently published guide to handling the oncoming deluge of midterm polling. Read the article here: www.cnn.com/2026/09/...

Midterm elections text on white background

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

You have to love an occupational coding system that groups soldiers with piano tuners and detectives with manicurists

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Craftsmen, Foremen & Kindred Workers
Annealers; Bakers; Blacksmiths; Boilermakers; Bookbinders; Brickmasons; Cabinet-
makers; Carpenters; Cement finishers; Compositors; Concrete finishers; Copper-
smiths; Cranemen; Derrickmen; Diemakers; Die setters; Electricians; Electro-
typers; Engravers; Excavating machinery operators; Forgemen; Glaziers; Goldsmiths;
Grading machinery operators; Heat treaters; Hoistmen; Lens grinders & polishers;
Lithographers; Locomotive engineers; Locomotive firemen; Log & lumber scalers & graders; Loom fixers; Machinists; Mechanics; Metal molders; Metal rollers; Metal roll hands; Millers; Millwrights; Motion picture projectionists; Opticians; Organ tuners; Painters (construction & maintenance); Paperhangers; Photoengravers; Piano tuners; Pipe fitters; Plasterers; Plate printers; Plumbers; Power linemen & servicemen; Printing pressmen; Road machinery operators; Roofers; Sheet metal workers; Shoemakers, except in factories; Silversmiths; Slaters; Stationary engineers; Stereotypers; Stone carvers; Stone cutters; Stonemasons; Structural metal
workers; Tailors; Telegraph & telephone linemen & servicemen; Tile setters; Tinsmiths; Tool makers; Typesetters; Upholsterers; Watchmakers; Window dressers -
MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES.

Service Workers
Attendents & ushers in amusement places; Bailiffs; Barbers; Bartenders; Beauticians; Boarding house keepers; Bootblacks; Bridge tenders; Charwomen; Cooks;
Detectives; Doorkeepers; Elevator operators; Firemen (fire protection);
Fountain workers; Guards; Hospital attendants; Housekeepers, laundresses & domestics; Janitors; Lodginghouse keepers; Manicurists; Marshals; Midwives; Policemen; Porters; Practical nurses; Sextons; Sheriffs; Stewards; Waiters; Watchmen.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture Collective @bemccollective.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A feathery feature: @stefanhanss.bsky.social and the Collective’s digital microscopes will help uncover the mysteries of a 400-year-old ‘Feather Book’ held at McGill University Libraries. The project is led by Dr Victoria Dickenson and funded by @sshrc-crsh.canada.ca. Read more on our blog!

sites.manchester.ac.uk

History, Art and Science join Forces to Unlock the Mysteries of a 400-Year-Old Feather Book

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Coded response to open-ended question "what causes tuberculosis", put to those respondents who said it was not "a germ" Other answers from previous page include "inherit it" and "being too cold." But "too much bed sport" is the clear winner here.

Question 2b (Continued)

43 Too much bed sport
44 A hard knook or bang
45 Too much strenous exeroise
46 Too much fast living
47 The way you live
48 Overwork
49 Nervous breakdown
50 Working conditions
51 Overtiredness, fatigue, not enough rest
52 Run down, weak, poor health, loose weight (sic), other diseases

otheR diseAses

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Drop an album that was important to you when you were 19

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Other than too much coffee (no changes in intake) what could cause you to feel wired and shaky and jittery for days on end. Over the last week I've felt like I'm about to give a public speech all day, had bad insomnia. No meds changes. Searching for information just gets info about coffee.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Michael McDonald @electproject.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

These allegations are a bombshell: the FBI informant claims Collins was in a pay-to-play scheme where donors to her Super-PAC were rewarded with government contracts. Trump stopped the investigation when he came into his office second term. As Collins would say, "concerning"

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

After you go to a children’s hospital, you will be followed everywhere by the most depressing ads ever.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

one common thread (among the horrifying many) between the numerous ICE shootings/murders is that no first aid was administered to the victim. armed combatants of the government shot to kill, and if they didn’t kill right away, they gave time for it to happen anyway. it is absolutely grotesque.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 20/09/2026

The Third-Country Removal Tracker has been updated with last week's ICE flights to Costa Rica and Paraguay. Crossing fingers that, with the appeals court decision, this may be the last update for awhile. We'll see. gillianbrockell.com/tracking-all...

gillianbrockell.com

Tracking All of Trump’s Known Third-Country Removals

Trump's ICE has expelled an estimated 23,000 people to countries where they have no ties. Find out where they are going, what happens to them, and who profits.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My Ithaca friends, I will be selling collage originals and prints at the Cortland Curiosities Market next month. Swing by! If you aren’t looking for collage, other vendors are offering taxidermy, tattoos, spooky antiques and other October-ware. www.experiencecortland.com/blog/curiosi...

experiencecortland.com

Fourth Annual Cortland Curiosities Market

Calling all spooky kids, witchy wanderers, and collectors of the curious, your season has arrived! The 3rd Annual Cortland Curiosities Market is back on Friday, October 17, 2025, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:...

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Well, disappointed, but quite frankly, I’m disappointed in her too, so we would both need to hold our tongues.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I know it’s the most trivial item in a litany of real horrors, but the idea of actual adults choosing “funfetti” for their wedding cake flavor depresses me. They could afford the best pastry chefs in the world and they went with tacky vanilla.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

1948 Globe poll. Just too early for the elementary school Salem field trip to have become de rigueur, I guess. True pedants would add that one was crushed.

All Persons
People did not do so well in an-
swer to the second question: "Do
you happen to know which place in
Massachusetts it was where people
were once put to death as witches?"
The response was:
Salem 73%
Wrong Answers 2%
Don't Know 25%
Ninety-three percent of the col-
lege graduates had the correct answer here.
Those who said "Salem" were
then asked whether the witches
were burned, hanged or shot, and
here everybody went off the deep
end.
The response was:
AIl
Persons
Burned 61%
HAnged 24%
Shot 2%
Don't Know ... 13%
(They were hanged, you know.)

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Public service announcement: this is no longer considered a good way to describe a sample. 1964, about an "impartial, but not scientific" survey about public transportation

Of those who responded to the Globe questionnaire, 47.5
percent were men and 52.5 percent were members of the
distaff side.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

In a period of limited polling by the Boston Globe, they went all out and polled people ON THANKSGIVING 1959 about their cranberry consumption that day, despite warnings about potential contamination. Most did have cranberry sauce anyway, but this dude was the GOAT of cranberry eaters.

One of these said he started
the meal with cranberry juice
cocktail; had jellied cranber-
ries with his turkey; cran-
berry relish on'a side dish
with his pickles, olives and
celery; had cranberry muffins
with the main course; and
passed up traditional mince,
apple and pumpkin, in prefer-
ence for cranberry chiffon pie.
And later, he said, he had a
dish of cranberry sherbet with
his coffee.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This German comedy sketch (with English subtitles) perfectly captures so much of what is going on right now in the UK, the US, and across Europe. "Playing the 'Nazi Card' in the Third Reich", by Browser Ballett.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I love the options here. Such integrity on display. Should we 1) give access, 2) lie, 3) other.

September 18, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:

H. R. HALDEMAN

FROM:

GORDON STRACHAN

SUBJECT:

Bob Teeter Access to
ORC Po1ls

After your meeting with Bob Teeter following the Campaign
Survey's - Wave I, Bob Teeter was granted access to the
ORC surveys that had been conducted privately for you.
As I mentioned in my September 12 memorandum (attached)
he learned from his Field Interviewers and Supervisors
that ORC had probably conducted a survey which asked
Watergate Incident questions. Teeter now seeks approval
to compare the last ORC survey with his Wave III data.

Approve Teeter access.

Strachan deny survey conducted.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

When, and more importantly why, did POQ start providing individual search results for each use of a keyword in a table title, resulting in 5 "article" results for the same damned article? Who wants that?

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Well, that’s a little dramatic Notes from a 1972 pollster postmortem with Roper, Yankelovich, Caddell, others.

Handwritten notes,”Benham: Keeping Eagleton would also have been mistake, want to die by fire or drowning.”

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Just loving these 1939 People’s Research reports. Imagine making this sort of map manually!

POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT - 1936
Showing States as they would appear if their area were proportional to the popular vote cast in 1936
Total popular vote cast - 45,646,817

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Truer words were never spoken People's Research, Princeton 1939

Since any cross-section necessarily contains a number of ignoramuses, some of the comments may seem at first glance unworthy of reporting. They are included because they are typical and because they may provide amusing material for the lighter portions of a speech.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The poll archive sends me down some fun rabbit holes, and I learn about other archives, like this online archive of AWA, the 1st African women's magazine. This very cool respondent is right, the hairstyles shown are art. www.awamagazine.org

I - SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Principal points of interest in world-wide news
Art, and above all painting and sculpture. Does hand printing himself - never misses an art exposition.
Current events don't interest him, not even politics.

Sources of information
Doesn't read anything concerning art - reads AWA since his wife has a subscription - doesn't read any other magazine or newspaper.
II - MAGAZINES

Advantages of AWA over the newspapers or radio
Is interesting for female intellectuals - also for illiterates since there are many self-explanatory pictures.

Advantages of the radio and of newspapers, over magazines
Can't answer because he doesn't read any newspapers, and he doesn't listen to the radio.
III - READER'S INTEREST IN MAGAZINES
No answer - Magazines read limited to AWA and MODE DE PARIS.
IV - SPECIFIC MAGAZINES READ
1. AWA
Reads AWA because his wife gets it. His wife has it delivered to her office. (one must remember that AWA, edited by a group of Senegalese disappeared for more than five years, has just reappeared).
Goes through the magazine several times, while resting.
His wife saves each issue.
No longer remembers the articles that interested him, sometimes stories, or fashion.
Today's hair dressing interests him as he considers it to be a form of art.

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Reposted by Kathleen Weldon

Stephanie Rains 🪼 @acidrains.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Not all teaching can aspire to the rigour of the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University.

Screenshot of tweet reading:
@normal_now
Sometimes on campus you
accidentally walk by a Business class and the professor is writing like "profit = revenue - costs" on the board and everyone is taking notes like its actual school
2/26/19, 3:49 PM

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

If you were a budget-minded advertising exec for a luxury brand in 1949, you might have appreciated this ranking of ratio of ad price to wealthy readership, as measured in a survey of Air France passengers INRA, n=1567

Translating the data on magazines read regularly by actual passengers into costs based on black-and-white rates:
New Yorker $ 11.35
Harper's Magazine 12.50
Town & Country 19.56
Atlantic 22.50
Business Week 24.23
Time 28.35
Newsweek 29.80
House & Garden 33.08
Fortune 36.70
House Beautiful 38.19
National Geographic 42.34
Holiday 50.97
U.S. News 53.33
Life 63.13
Esquire 67.21
Saturday Evening Post 92.56
Cosmopolitan 113.33
Look 122.39
Collier's 145.45
American 272.72
Redbook 314.28

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I just spent a week in Washington County, Maine, where I have been many times before, and I've never seen so few Canadian license plates there. I think I saw 2?

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Just tried to watch a webinar supposedly about bias, ethics and transparency in AI. After 7 minutes of the speaker expounding on the amazing uses of AI, the host said that many people have seen lots of science fiction that makes them distrust AI, can we talk about that? And I left. Wtf.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Many of the old polls I find are fun or just interesting. Some are sobering. This HICOG survey of Germans in the American Zone post-WWII tried to measure antisemiticism. They found "opponents of race hatred in any positive sense form a very small fraction (of the order of 2%) of the population."

Report number 49, 3 March 1947
Opinion Surveys Headquarters APO 757
Restricted

$SUMMARY Nationalist sentiment has previously been shown to provide a convenient base for anti-semitism. ith an increase in nationali feeling more anti-semitic expression has been heard in American occupied areas. 2. At the time of the study about four in ten people in the Zone (39%) can be said to be very seriously disoosed to exhibit racial prejudice. Another fifth of the population (22%) easily go along with the more extreme positions and cannot be expected to counter any expressions of anti-semitism. Thus about six in ten (61%) of the Germans are deeply imbued with racist feeling. Opponents of race hatred in any positive sense form a very small fraction (of the order of 2%) of the population. 3. Religion, educational history, socio-economic status, sex -. these factors play a basic role in influencing degree of prejudice. Protestants, those with little schooling, with low lass status, and women are more frequently prejudiced than their counterpart groups. Women make up the least variable group and undoubtedly will prove to be the most difficult to shake loose from their unsocial disposition. 4. Age and Nationalsocialist experienoe, place af residenoe, servioe in the Wehrmacht, TSDAP membership -- such factors are relatively unimportant in determination of anti-semitic responses. 5. The informational level of the more prejudiced is lower than that ef the less prejudiced.Tho more bigoted that people are the : they are inclined not to use informatienal sources available to them. 6. The most intense anti-semitic groups are not more seriously troubled by day-to-day difficulties than are the least anti-$

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Pollsters used to have more fun. This intro has the vibe of a mom telling her friends over coffee how she got the kids a new Playstation for Christmas and hid it inside the deck box in the garage while telling them there was no way they were getting one.

The following survey report well may be

unique: it may be the only political

survey ever taken without the knowledge

of the client. Extreme precautions were

taken to make certain there were no leaks.

Only two persons knew the survey was to be

taken -- Joe Napolitan and Bob Cauchon.

Mrs. Dorothy Sajdak of Napolitan Associates

handled all programing personally. Only

six trusted interviewers were used, and they

were instructed in the importance of keeping

all material confidential. Joe Donovan, chief

secretary to the Governor, was informed of the

survey as it was in progress. The Governor was

informed that the survey had been taken after

it was completed. No one else was told of the

survey prior to that time. There was no leak.

For obvious reasons, material contained in this

report should be kept highly confidential.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

1968 survey of SC Republican Party delegates, and I admit to my historical ignorance when it comes to just how much they didn't like Nelson Rockefeller. (I knew they didn't like him, but dang.)

In 1968 if you were given each of the following sets of candidates, which one in each group would you choose.
Johnson - .2%
Nixon - 92.5%
Wallace - 2.7%

McCarthy - 4.5%
Johnson - .7%
Rockefeller - 35.0%
Wallace - 42.0%

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

A crosstab I hope never to see again. (I am definitely rounded convivial)

Survey findings split into total sample, "rounded-convivial" and "angular-reserved":
"Would you say you are somebody who laughs often and
much or somebody who does not laugh so often and exuberantly?"
"Do you think you are somebody with many friends and ac-
quaintances or somebody with not so many friends and acquaintances?"
Rounded convivial much more likely to say they have many friends and laugh often, of course

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I feel that in their heart of hearts, many people really believe that only homeowners should be allowed to vote, and all their weird takes flow from that.

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

All my data or just geeky friends - I have dataset files from the 80s that we cannot open, not column binary. Based on syntax from text files from the same studies, these likely come from a mainframe FORTRAN system specific to a particular survey org. Anyone have ideas to crack these open?

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

There's nothing I love like finding 40-yr-old shade being thrown

NOTES:

INTERVIEWING, CODING, AND DATA ENTRY DID THEIR BEST TO MESS THIS STUDY UP
BUT, THE COMPUTER DEPT THARTED THEIR VALIANT EFFORTS

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Kathleen Weldon @kathleenweldon.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Is there anything nicer than turning on your out-of-office auto-reply before going on vacation?

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