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MASS OBSERVATION ARCHIVE
Papers from the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex

Part 4: Topic Collections on Social Welfare and the Beveridge Report, 1939-1949

"... we are constantly impressed by the discrepancy between what is supposed to happen and what does happen, between law and the fact, the institution and the individual, what people say they do and what they actually do, what leaders think people want and what people do want".
Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson in First Year’s Work (1938)

There are over 80 Topic Collections in the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex covering issues as diverse as Adult & Higher Education; Air Raids; Anti-Semitism; Beveridge Report Surveys; Capital Punishment; Drinking Habits; Happiness; Housing; Leisure; Personal Appearance; Reconstruction; Sexual Behaviour; Squatting; Voting Attitudes and Work. These represent surveys and investigations carried out by Mass-Observation mainly between 1937 and 1949, with some later files for the 1960s and 1970s.

Together with the Worktown Collection these represent the raw material of the Mass-Observation Archive. Some of this was worked up into a polished form in the Publications which appear in Part 1 of this series. Brief details also appeared in the File Reports, some of which have been published in microfiche. But this is the first time that Topic Collections have been published in their entirety, giving scholars an opportunity to re-examine and re-interpret the data.

In this part we have brought together eight Topic Collections which have a strong bearing on Social Welfare and the Beveridge Report. These are: Reconstruction, Family Planning, Health, Day Nurseries, Adult and Higher Education, Post War Hopes, Public Administration and Social Services in Wartime and the Beveridge Report Surveys. Some consist of a single box. Others run to up to six boxes. All comprise individually lettered files within the boxes, all of which have been filmed in their entirety.

Their aim is set out in one of the early Reconstruction files (TC2/2/D):

"The work we are at present doing on reconstruction originates in numerous requests we have received for information on public attitudes towards Post War reconstruction....The central aim of what we are doing is to find out what people really feel about events after the war, what their private hopes and fears are about their homes, their jobs, the political mechanism designed to make their wants known, as distinct from what planners, politicians and press-men would like them to feel."

The material provides illuminating feedback from the general public on all manner of questions posed to them by the investigators. The proposals for the Beveridge Report evoked the following response dated 2 December 1942, in Streatham from a male skilled worker of 50; "I have read it and think it champion and will take a load off the minds of many people. The most important proposals - well they are all very important but suppose the Retirement Pension and Unemployment increase are perhaps the greatest benefit. It should be passed as quickly as possible. I do not see how anybody can oppose it except perhaps the Insurance Companies but they don’t matter they have feathered their nest long enough".

There was also a demand for equality in education:

"I reckon every school should come under the state, and every child should have the same sort of education. I don’t think it’s fair one should get more than another; because after all they can’t help it, coming into the world. I’ve a daughter myself, they gave her the option of going into an art school - she was rather clever - but circumstance made it so I couldn’t do it - and I think, why can’t she have the same chance as another child, being so clever; but we couldn’t get help or anything, so I had to turn it down."

In Family Planning a woman gives her forthright opinion:

"Well I’m one of the bad selfish women - I only had one child because I didn’t want any more. And now that my husband and I have parted I’m not particularly sorry. I think my young daughter looks forward to having a family of three or four. But of course she may change her mind when she marries or after she’s had one. After all, it’s such a terribly personal problem. I think that family allowances and better housing and more hope of social security would make a difference to the number of children in the better-off working- class and lower middle-class homes. But I don’t think anything on earth would make the educated classes start having large families, because they simply don’t want them".

The material to be found in The Topic Collections includes not only accounts of interviews but also descriptions of people, places and events, reports with drafts and plans for proposed books, project plans, instructions to investigators, questionnaire replies, internal memoranda, correspondence, printed booklets, photographs, graphs and diagrams, maps, posters, tickets, bills, advertisements and press cuttings. It is indispensable to the researcher who wishes to study the unfiltered views of the "man in the street" with regard to all kinds of contemporary issues and gives an insight into public feeling captured through a qualitative method of approach.

This material will be invaluable to anyone interested in social welfare. The Topic Collections offer a unique grass roots perspective of these issues, offering the genuine views of the public, rather than the wishes of the planners and politicians. The files will be used by historians trying to understand the Labour landslide of 1945, by sociologists and social historians investigating cultural issues, and by those studying Family Planning, Post War Reconstruction and State Provision for Social Need.

Access to the complete listing of Topic Collections held at the Mass-Observation Archive (http://www.massobs.org.uk/topic_collections_1937-50s.html) and an account of the differences between the File Reports and the Topic Collections (http://www.massobs.org.uk/mass-observation_studies_1937-55.html) can be seen at the University of Sussex site at the addresses above.



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