Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation originally aimed to record everyday life in Britain through a panel of around 500 untrained volunteer observers who either maintained diaries or replied to open-ended questionnaires (known as directives).

Collaborators included literary critic William Empson, photographers Humphrey Spender and Michael Wickham,[2] collagist Julian Trevelyan, novelists Inez Pearn and G.B.

Run on a shoestring budget with money from their own pockets and the occasional philanthropic contribution or book advance, the project relied primarily on its network of volunteer correspondents.

Dissatisfied with the pronouncements of the newspapers as to the public mood, the project's founders initiated a nationwide effort to document the feelings of the populace about important current events by collecting anecdotes, overheard comments, and "man-in-the-street" interviews on and around the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 12 May 1937.

The principal editors were Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge, with the help of T. O. Beachcroft, Julian Blackburn, William Empson, Stuart Legg and Kathleen Raine.

The following selection of titles also gives some idea of the scope of Mass Observation's work: Since the archive was moved and re-established at Sussex University, a number of books based on the diaries commissioned by Mass-Observation in 1939 have been published.