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Leo P. Crespi Papers
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Leo Paul Crespi was a leading public opinion researcher best known for his studies of U.S. prestige abroad. During his early career, Crespie wrote his Ph.D thesis at Princeton on gambling and addiction, describing what is now known as the Crespi Effect. Crespi graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1937 and received a doctorate in comparative psychology from Princeton University in 1942. He taught at Princeton for eight years following his graduation. From 1947-1953, Crespi conducted a U.S. government survey of public opinion in post-war Germany, and served as the President of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) from 1955-1956. He joined the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in 1954, and for the following 32 years he directed USIA's program of opinion surveys, focusing especially on Western Europe. A classified report of Crespi's on French and British public opinion of the U.S. received wide attention in 1960 when it was leaked to the New York Times. The report supported statements made by John F. Kennedy about the United States' declining prestige abroad and was subsequently seen as a favorable influence on Kennedy's presidential bid.
This collection consists primarily of Crespi's public opinion research files and his early research files on gambling addiction. The papers document three periods in his career: Crespi's Princeton years, his public opinion research in Germany, and his career at the United States Information Agency as head of research. Document types include reports, correspondence, notes, and photographs.
Organized into the following series:
Gift of Jeffrey Crespi in 2008 [ML.2008.025]. Additional donation by Jeffrey Crespi made in 2014 [ML.2014.030].
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
Box 16 contains magnetic tapes and photographic slides.
This collection was processed by Regine Heberlein on February 25, 2010. A MARC record and finding aid were created at this time. The finding aid was updated by Kate Dundon in June 2011, and by Rachel Van Unen in 2014 to reflect accession ML.2014.030.
No information about appraisal is available for this collection.
People
Organization
- American association for public opinion research
- World Association for Public Opinion Research
- United States, Information Agency
Subject
- Publisher
- Public Policy Papers
- Finding Aid Author
- Kate Dundon
- Finding Aid Date
- 2008
- Sponsor
- These papers were processed with the generous support of the John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Fund.
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
The Princeton Years series documents Crespi's career prior to joining the USIA . It includes correspondence, research notes, clippings, reports, and published articles relating to Crespi's graduate research at Princeton on gambling addiction, his research on German public opinion of the United States, and other research projects on topics such as such tipping in America and the Kinsey Reports. Also included is correspondence relating to his professorship at Princeton in the psychology department, and his time at UCLA as an undergraduate.
No further arrangement after division into series.
Physical Description4 boxes
1 box
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This series documents Crespi's career after joining the USIA in 1954. This series includes USIA reports and related correspondence, notes, and clippings on surveys of foreign and domestic public opinion on a wide range of subjects, including the U.S. economy, trends in political thought, the future of American foreign policy, NATO, U.S. exhibitions on other countries, moral equivalence, phased retirement, and the effectiveness of USIA's own programs and surveys. Surveyed regions include Western and Eastern Europe, the Mideast, Asia, Latin America, and North America. Also included are departmental files of the USIA Office of Research (including service awards and performance evaluations of Crespi), WAPOR newsletters and correspondence, personal correspondence, photographs, biographical sketches of Crespi, drafts of published articles, and notes and related correspondence for various presentations and lectures he conducted over the course of his career. Material in this series that pre-dates 1954 primarily consists of USIA material that Crespi utilized in his research, as well as one report co-authored by Crespi for the office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.
No further arrangement after division into series.
Physical Description15 boxes
These seven letters have been published in Jörg Becker's book "Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Demoskopin zwischen NS-Ideologie und Konservatismus" (Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Pollster between Nazi-Ideology and Conservatism).
Physical Description1 box
1 box
3 boxes
1 box
1 box
1 box
1 box
1 box
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3 boxes
1 box
(Includes magnetic tapes and color slides.)
Physical Description1 box
(Includes photographs.)
Physical Description1 box
1 box
(Includes overhead transparencies.)
Physical Description1 box