PROJECT FILE: 'Britain by Mass Observation'

Britain by Mass Observation
Penguin Books, 1939

In 1937, the poet Charles Madge teamed up with filmmaker Humphrey Jennings and anthropologist Tom Harrison to found Mass Observation, a movement dedicated to studying the everyday lives of British people. Their study included field research in settings like pubs, conducted by paid observers who would record behavior such as the cigarette and beer consumption of their subjects. Alongside this, they drew on a nationwide network of volunteers, about 500 of whom submitted regular, personal diary entries that documented life in wartime Britain, from political opinion to the singles scene.

Mass Observation was incorporated as a market research firm in 1949. [see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.]

For more information, see the Mass Observation Archive.

Note: This project is not included in the exhibition The New Normal.