Mass Observation

Question 1

Mass Observation

What does Taylor comment about sex in MO?

Answer 1

Mass Observation

• Early reports on night halls sought out sex as a tangible entity:
• ‘No evidence of sex here. Dancing definitely not sexy. Lights extinguished for waltz…Even then Obs saw no sex. Danced and looked in all the dark corners whilst dancing but couldn’t see anything of sex nature…’ Stones, Rye Lane, 1939.
• Discussion of sexual intimacy highlighted the agency of the observer in crafting narratives - through terms like opportunity, solicitation etc.

Question 2

Mass Observation

What does Langhammer identify about women and MO?

Answer 2

Mass Observation

• Dorothy Sheridan - MO ‘a rich source of material on and by women’
• Women were active researchers and subjects in MO
• Contributions from women peaked in 1942 with 96 diarists.
• Most famous - Nella Last.
• ‘Home means to me, warmth, shelter and peace’; another, ‘home means practically everything’.
• A study on daily diaries from 700 married working-class housewives in London, alongside a 1957 followup, provide a detailed picture of the rhythms fo housewifery, including patterns of change and persistence, and the absence of leisure from the lives of those surveyed.

Question 3

Mass Observation

What does Langhammer identify about women and MO?

Answer 3

Mass Observation

• Dorothy Sheridan - MO ‘a rich source of material on and by women’
• Women were active researchers and subjects in MO
• Contributions from women peaked in 1942 with 96 diarists.
• Most famous - Nella Last.
• ‘Home means to me, warmth, shelter and peace’; another, ‘home means practically everything’.
• A study on daily diaries from 700 married working-class housewives in London, alongside a 1957 followup, provide a detailed picture of the rhythms fo housewifery, including patterns of change and persistence, and the absence of leisure from the lives of those surveyed.

Question 4

Mass Observation

What three phases of MO does Ben Lander identify?

Answer 4

Mass Observation

• Created by Charles Madge, Tom Harrisson and Humphrey Jennings.
• First form:1937-49 - Photos, diaries, social observations; to write books on public attitudes.
• Inspired by Jarrow marchers and public interest in abdication. Fascism also stimulated interest in popular thought. Adopted by government, but lost initial vision.
• Second form
• 1960s - Existed primarily as an archive, through efforts of Addison, Calder and Briggs.
• Third form:
• 1980s - new panel of observers

Question 5

Mass Observation

How did MO navigate class?

Answer 5

Mass Observation

• Class huge preoccupation in British society.
• In MO, become more subtle,
  
  • 1948 -> ‘do you think of yourself as belonging to any particular social class’?
  • 1990 -> ‘Are there some major divisions in your own environment’ (class among other groups like gender, race)
• MO ambitions post-war were clearly not clear, based on directives.
• Three faces of MO:
  
  • Interest in academic social sciences
  • Surrealist interest in boundaries of public decency
  • Attempts at market research
• Access to middle class predetermined by acculturation rather than wealth.
• To openly identify as middle class indicates a degree of vulgarity which actually questions your membership of that class (fight club).

Question 6

Mass Observation

Key points raised in James Hinton’s Nine Wartime Lives

Answer 6

Mass Observation

• MO - 1937, ‘anthropology of ourselves’. Influential in history - site of British identity.
• Hinton explores nine MO reporters during the war.
• Natural self-censorship in the process of self-authorship.
• The account of People’s War put out by Calder only stood for the minority.
• Examines case of Lillian - outlines sexual ‘deviancy’ through Lillian’s active sidelining of Stan and dancing with other men.

Question 7

Provide key contextual information for Nella Last

Answer 7

Source

• Recurring themes: family, friends, woman’s role, death, freedom, marriage, home
• Readership
• Initially MO archive, along the original philosophy of MO. Last would have been conscious that the wider intent was for public dissemination in the future.

Author

• 1889-1968, contributed to MO between 1939 and 1966 (submitted 2 million words)
• Housewife, Lancashire - Barrow-in-Furness - a shipbuilding town, target for German bombing.
• Daughter of railway clerk John Lord. Married in 1911 (22 yrs old).
• WWI - worked in Women’s Voluntary Service & Red Cross.
• William Last - shop-fitter and joiner. Two children, Cliff and Arthur (soldier and tax collector)

Source Legacy

• Works published in 1981, republished in 2006, and further volumes in 2006/2010.
• Adapted by ITV in 2006 in a show called Housewife, 49.
• Edward Blisham - Proto-feminism in work, through position on housewifery, war work

Contentions

• The source particularly shows Nella’s inability to handle disrupted racial or social identities - prevalent through her understanding of the ‘gypsy’ children and the prospect of mixed-race families. A degree of snobbery is present - proud is keen to promote her knowledge (David Copperfield), and slips into competitiveness when discussing neighbours