Alec M. Gallup ’50

He was born in Iowa City and came to Princeton from Deerfield. He studied history and belonged to Cottage. Alec left us in January 1950, spending the next two years at the University of Iowa, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1952. He then studied journalism at the graduate school at Stanford for two years. After a stint with the Army in San Francisco, he returned to his Princeton home and began his career with the Gallup Poll, which his father started in 1936.  

With his brother, Alec assisted his father in running the company for decades. He served as co-chairman of the Gallup Organization from 1986 to 1996. He was responsible for many of Gallup’s most ambitious and innovative projects, including the first global survey ever conducted. He has been credited with the idea of representing the Republican and Democratic states as “red” and “blue.”

Alec had a love of old cars, jazz, and animals, and a strong attachment to his 90-acre farm near Princeton.

Our sympathy goes to his wife, Barbara; his sister, Julia; and his brother, George ’53.