The phrase "sweeps" dates from 1954, when Nielsen collected diaries from homes in the Eastern United States 1st from there they would "sweep" west. Over the class of a sweeps period, diaries were being mailed to a new panel of homes every week. In 1920, Simmons handed the working day-to-working day pursuits of the national workplace around to two specialist publicists, Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Young Clarke. No, it is not.