MASS OBSERVATION ARCHIVE

Papers from the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex
Part 1: Publications, 1937-1966

"The Mass Observation Archive is a truly remarkable archive: the most intense and long-term attempt to chart mass/popular opinion (through in depth interviewing) in any country that I know of. All (and I mean all) books on British history of the war and post-war period are dependent on this archival resource."
Professor James Epstein, Department of History, Vanderbilt University

Mass-Observation was a pioneering social research organisation whose papers provide insights into the cultural and social history of Britain from 1937 to 1965. 
Its strength is that it describes everyday life in the words of ordinary people, with extensive interviews and records of overheard conversations, rather than through polls.  The collection is also a wonderful source of contemporary ephemera.

Part 1 provides an ideal introduction to the collection by offering all 25 books published by Mass-Observation between 1937 and 1950.  These are all now out of print and are held by very few libraries.  They address topics such as shopping, drinking, life during the war, and attitudes to royalty.  There is also an account of the original aims of Mass-Observation and of their first year's work, where their anthropological and sociological approach is endorsed by Bronislaw Malinowski.