This week, we examine one of the more eccentric social-scientific endeavours in twentieth-century Britain: Mass-Observation. Active from 1937-c.1949, and then revived from 1981 to the present (under the name of the 'Mass Observation Project'), the Mass Observation Archive (MOA) is a crucial repository of information about selfhood and everyday life in Britain. It includes 1930s anthropological studies of Bolton ('Worktown') and Blackpool ('Holidaytown'), diaries, and responses to open-ended research questionnaires ('directives'). How did Mass-Observation fit within the history of the social sciences? What kinds of stories was it used to tell during its hey-day and what historiographical purpose does it serve now? In trying to grapple with the writing, we will make use of published histories and the digitised holdings of the archive (available on-line through the Library).

Seminar questions and preparatory activities

• Activity 1: Think about a topic that you would like to investigate using MO or MOP (links below). You will have opportunity to explore this during the seminar. (You can find a list of the post-1981 directives on the MOP webpages here.)
• Activity 2: Pick any directive from the post-1981 project (available here) and imagine how you would respond to it. You do not actually have to write anything down - far less share it with us! - but it would be very useful to at least consider things from the writers' perspectives.
• What 'genre' is Mass-Observation writing?
• What were Mass-Observation's research methods, particularly in 'classic' texts such as The Pub and the People?
• What are the differences between the earlier and later Mass-Observation? What motivated its creation, decline and recreation?
• How useful is Mass-Observation material to understanding twentieth-century Britain, and what are its limitations?
• How should we understand Mass-Observation: a social research project or a social movement? How far is it a 'democratic' or 'radical' project?

Suggested main reading

If everyone could please read:

• Tom Harrisson ['Mass-Observation'], The Pub and the People: a Worktown study (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943), preface [PDF] [and ideally dip into one other chapter - see links below]

Then please choose at least one of:

• Jeremy MacClancy, Anthropology in the Public Arena: historical to contemporary contexts in Britain (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), chapter 5, 'Mass Observation: radical, popular ethnography of the people, by the people and for the people', pp. 135-157 [link]
• Annebella Pollen, 'Research Methodology in Mass Observation past and present: "Scientifically, about as
  valuable as a chimpanzee's tea party at the zoo"?', History Workshop, 75 (2013), pp. 213-235 [link]
• Kimberly Mair, The Biopolitics of Care in Second World War Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2022), chapter 1, 'Keeping watch over the population', pp. 43-65 [link]
• James Hinton, Nine-Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the making of the modern self (Oxford: OUP, 2010) [link] AND/OR James Hinton, Seven Lives from Mass-Observation: Britain in the late twentieth century (Oxford: OUP, 2016) [link] [the chapters of these books are organised as biographical essays around a particular person, you are free to choose any one. I can also recommend the (super-short, 7-page) introduction to Seven Lives, which gives an overview of M-O's revival in 1981]

You might also like to dip into any of the relevant Mass Observation chapters of Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite's Class, Politics and the Decline of Deference (chapter 5, 'Mass Observers' Attitudes to Class, 1990', pp. 101-122) and Mike Savage's Identities and Social Change (chapter 2, '1938: British intellectual and highbrow culture', pp. 51-66 and chapter 3, '1954: the challenge of technical identity', pp. 67-92) from the week 1 reading.

Further Mass Observation resources/publications

The following are anthologies of MO material, research studies published by the organisation, and work produced by its founders. They are not available in electronic form, but you can find them in the Library catalogue and as physical items in its collection. I'll try to get some of these out myself ahead of the seminar for us to peruse in person, but feel free to loan them yourself (and remember to bring them to the seminar!) A couple will be labelled 'Store' items: these are not available on the open shelving, but can be ordered up easily (within around 24-48 hours) by hitting the 'Request' button and filling in the short form.

Further secondary reading

Khaleda Brophy-Hamer, [essay on the M-O (1937-1972) digitisation pages]

Andrew Burchell and Mathew Thomson, 'Composing well-being: mental health and the Mass Observation Project in twentieth-century Britain', Social History of Medicine, 35:2 (2022), pp. 444-472

Ian Gazeley and Claire Langhmer, 'The meaning of happiness in Mass Observation's Bolton', History Workshop Journal, 75 (2013), pp. 159-189

Peter Gurney, '"Intersex" and "dirty girls": Mass-Observation and working-class sexuality in England in the 1930s', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 8:2 (1997), pp. 256-290

Ben Highmore, Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: an introduction (London: Routledge, 2002), chapter 6, 'Mass-Observation: a science of everyday life' , pp. 75-112

James Hinton, '"The Class Complex": Mass-Observation and cultural distinction in pre-war Britain', Past & Present, 199 (2008), pp. 207-236

James Hinton, The Mass Observers: a history, 1937-1949 (Oxford: OUP, 2013)

James Hinton, 'Self reflections in the mass', History Workshop, 75 (2013), pp. 251-259

Nick Hubble, Mass Observation and Everyday Life: culture, history, theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)

Nick Hubble, 'The intermodern assumption of the future: William Empson, Charles Madge and Mass-Observation', in Kristin Bluemel (ed.), Intermodernism: literary culture in mid-twentieth-century Britain (Edinburgh: EUP, 2022), pp. 171-188

James Jones, '"These intimate little places": cinema-going and public emotion in Bolton, 1930-1954', Cultural and Social History, 16:4 (2019), pp. 451-466

Tony Kushner, We Europeans? Mass-Observation, ‘Race’, and British identity in twentieth-century Britain (London, 2004)

Claire Langhamer, 'An archive of feeling? Mass-Observation and the mid-century moment', Insights, 9:6 (2016), pp. 2-10 [link]

Claire Langhamer, 'Mass observing the atom bomb: the emotional politics of August 1945', Contemporary British History, 33:2, (2019), pp. 208-225

Joe Moran, 'Mass-Observation, market research, and the birth of the focus group, 1937–1997', Journal of British Studies, 47 (2008), pp. 827-851

Lucy Noakes, 'A broken silence? Mass Observation, Armistice Day and "everyday life" in Britain 1937–1941', Journal of European Studies, 45:4 (2015), pp. 331-346

Lucy Noakes, ‘"My Husband is Interested in War Generally": gender, family history and the emotional legacies of total war', Women's History Review, 27:4 (2018), 610-626

Andrea Salter, 'Filling the silences? Mass-Observation's wartime diaries, interpretive work and indexicality', Life Writing, 7:1 (2010), pp. 53-65

Mike Savage, Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: the politics of method (Oxford: OUP, 2010), conclusion, '2009: the politics of method', pp. 237-249

Dorothy Sheridan, 'Writing to the archive: Mass-Observation as autobiography', Sociology, 27:1 (1993), pp. 27-40

Rebecca K. Wright, 'Typewriting Mass Observation Online: media imprints on the digital archive', History Workshop, 87 (2019), pp. 118-138