List of figures; List of tables; List of maps; Notes on contributors; Preface; 1. The social survey in historical perspective Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales and Kathryn Kish Sylar; 2. The social survey in social perspective, 1830-1930 Eileen Janes Yeo; 3. Charles Booth's survey of Life and Labour of the People in London 1889-1903 Kevin Bales; 4. Hull-House Maps and Papers: social science as women's work in the 1890s Kathryn Kish Sylar; 5. The place of social investigation, social theory and social work in the approach to late Victorian and Edwardian social problems: the case of Beatrice Webb and Helen Bosanquet Jane Lewis; 6. W. E. B. Du Bois as a social investigator: The Philadelphia Negro 1899 Martin Bulmer; 7. Concepts of poverty in the British social surveys from Charles Booth to Arthur Bowley E. P. Hennock; 8. The part in relation to the whole: how to generalise? The prehistory of representative sampling Alain Desrosières; 9. The Pittsburgh Survey and the Social Survey Movement: a sociological road not taken Steven R. Cohen; 10. The world of the academic quantifiers: the Columbia University family and its connections Stephen P. Turner; 11. The decline of The Social Survey Movement and the rise of American empirical sociology Martin Bulmer; 12. The social survey in Germany before 1933 Irmela Gorges; 13. Anglo-American contacts in the development of research methods before 1945 Jennifer Platt; 14. The social survey in historical perspective: a governmental perspective Roger Davidson; 15. The dangers of castle building - surveying the social survey Seth Koven; Index.