Faber Finds: Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation
I used the Mass-Observation archives extensively in my PhD research (see www.ww2poster.co.uk), as it has lots of really interesting material from observations (both direct and indirect) plus collated materials from the war years (and since). It was really ahead of its time! Much of the best material is only available by visiting the archives (based at the University of Sussex), but some of their published material is shortly to be published by Faber & Faber in modern editions.

"They offer an extraordinarily vivid glimpse of a time which will soon not be accessible to living memory. Not only that, they provide evidence of how astutely Mass Observation pre-figured many later intellectual and methodological developments in social research especially in oral history and life history research, in feminist and working class history and in the kind of social research which privileges what we sometimes call the 'ordinary person' and the importance of studying everyday life" Professor Dorothy Sheridan, Mass Observation Archive.

I would particularly recommend these wartime finds:

• War Begins at Home (1940)
• War Factory (1943)

The Past Influences the Present

Yesterday, whilst working with my "Reflecting History" group, we had a number of great discussions about current/recent controversies which have a historical aspect (which could include many things, but we were looking to define a specific workable question which would produce a 15 minute presentation and a 2000 word essay). One of my students is looking at why so much of the current media coverage about the economic crisis refers back to the depression of the 1930s, and not to the recessions of the 1970s/1990s, so I was interested to see this article by Frank Skinner:

"For example, though I'm confident I've spotted every reference in the Virgin ad, I had to turn to Google when I began to hear political commentators describing this current economic crisis as “worse than the recession of 1987”. I couldn't remember that recession at all. Beadle's About, yes, Black Monday, no. And it's not just me. When my mum talked about the war, she never mentioned fascism or appeasement; it was all George Formby, powdered egg and drawing a line down the back of your legs so you looked like you had stockings on. Thus, when we look back at the current recession, for all its apparent horrors, we might remember it very differently. It might not seem so important. It might just be outside on the news stand. I think it helps to consider that."

Frank Skinner Article, The Times, 13th February 2009