Worktown

Worktown PDF

Author: David Hall

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2015-08-13

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0297871692

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In the late 1930s the Lancashire town of Bolton witnessed a ground-breaking social experiment. Over three years, a team of ninety observers recorded, in painstaking detail, the everyday lives of ordinary working people at work and play - in the pub, dance hall, factory and on holiday. Their aim was to create an 'anthropology of ourselves'. The first of its kind, it later grew into the Mass Observation movement that proved so crucial to our understanding of public opinion in future generations. The project attracted a cast of larger-than-life characters, not least its founders, the charismatic and unconventional anthropologist Tom Harrisson and the surrealist intellectuals Charles Madge and Humphrey Jennings. They were joined by a disparate band of men and women - students, artists, writers and photographers, unemployed workers and local volunteers - who worked tirelessly to turn the idle pleasure of people-watching into a science. Drawing on their vivid reports, photographs and first-hand sources, David Hall relates the extraordinary story of this eccentric, short-lived, but hugely influential project. Along the way, he creates a richly detailed, fascinating portrait of a lost chapter of British social history, and of the life of an industrial northern town before the world changed for ever.

Worktown's People

Worktown's People PDF

Author: Dave Burnham

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2023-04-15

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 139811510X

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The story of how working class people in Bolton in the 1930s played an unsung yet crucial role in the Mass Observation survey of everyday life in the town - nicknamed ‘Worktown’ – following the Depression.

Worktowners at Blackpool

Worktowners at Blackpool PDF

Author: Gary Cross

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-12

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1134953445

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Gary Cross publishes the findings of this largely forgotten study by the Mass-Observers who followed the annual pilgrimage of labourers to Blackpool, hoping to discover what attracted workers to this centre of Victorian culture.

Going to the Palais

Going to the Palais PDF

Author: James Nott

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2015-09-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0191662720

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From the mid-1920s, the dance hall occupied a pivotal place in the culture of working- and lower-middle-class communities in Britain - a place rivalled only by the cinema and eventually to eclipse even that institution in popularity. Going to the Palais examines the history of this vital social and cultural institution, exploring the dances, dancers, and dance venues that were at the heart of one of twentieth-century Britain's most significant leisure activities. Going to the Palais has several key focuses. First, it explores the expansion of the dance hall industry and the development of a 'mass audience' for dancing between 1918 and 1960. Second, the impact of these changes on individuals and communities is examined, with a particular concentration on working and lower-middle-class communities, and on young men and women. Third, the cultural impact of dancing and dance halls is explored. A key aspect of this debate is an examination of how Britain's dance culture held up against various standardizing processes (commercialization, Americanization, etc.) over the period, and whether we can see the emergence of a 'national' dance culture. Finally, the volume offers an assessment of wider reactions to dance halls and dancing in the period. Going to the Palais is concerned with the complex relationship between discourses of class, culture, gender, and national identity and how they overlap - how cultural change, itself a response to broader political, social, and economic developments, was helping to change notions of class, gender, and national identity.

Northernness, Northern Culture and Northern Narratives

Northernness, Northern Culture and Northern Narratives PDF

Author: Gabby Riches

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1351385070

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Northernness, Northern culture and Northern narratives are a common aspect of popular culture, and the North of England, like other Northernnesses in Europe, is a collection of narratives, myths, stereotypes and symbols. In politics and everyday culture, Northern culture is paradoxically a site of resistance against an inauthentic South, a source of working-class identity, and a source of elite marginalisation. This book provides a key to theorising about Northernness, and a platform to scholars working away at exposing the North in different aspects of culture. The aims of this book are twofold: to re-theorise ‘the North’ and Northern culture and to highlight the ways in which constructions of Northernness and Northern culture are constituted alongside other gender, racial and regional identities. The contributions presented here theorise Northernness in relation to space, leisure, gender, race, class, social realism, and everyday embodied practices. A main thematic thread that weaves the whole book together is the notion that Northernness and ‘the North’ is both an imagined discursive construct and an embodied subjectivity, thus creating a paradox between the reality of ‘North’ and its representation. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

We Europeans?

We Europeans? PDF

Author: Tony Kushner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1351873466

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We Europeans is the first book-length study of the original mass observation project. It is also the first detailed historical study of the formation of ordinary people's 'racial' attitudes in Britain. Drawing upon historical, literary, cultural and anthropological approaches, this book examines the sources of cultural identity in Britain in the twentieth century, and how these were shaped through the influences of family, education, and everyday 'high' and 'low' culture. The examination focuses on the archives of the British social-anthropological organization Mass-Observation, and is the first detailed history of it to be published. Founded in the 1930s by poets, psychoanalysts, surrealists, and sociologists, among others, the purpose of the organization was to create an anthropology of the British people by the 'natives' themselves, through the use of diaries, directives and special surveys. The organization was active from 1937 to 1951, then revived in the 1980s, when a new group of Mass-Observers were recruited to keep diaries and respond to directives. Both the historical archive of Mass-Observation and the more recent material provide fascinating insight into the everyday lives and formation of identities of ordinary people in Britain. Kushner places the material from these archives in the context of other contemporary writings; through them he explores grassroots identities in Britain in relation to the outside world, especially Europe but also the former Empire and the USA. This study will be of interest to scholars of sociology, cultural studies, literary studies and history who are particularly interested in 'race', race relations, immigration and cultural difference.

Historical Spoken Language Research

Historical Spoken Language Research PDF

Author: Ivor Timmis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1315390027

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Historical Research on Spoken Language: Corpus Perspectives uses historical sources to discuss continuity and change in spoken language. Based on two corpora compiled using data from sociological and anthropological studies of Victorian London and 1930s Bolton, the author shows how historical spoken corpora can illuminate the nature of spoken language as well as the attitudes, values and behaviour of the specific community represented in a corpus. This book: demonstrates how spoken language can be examined using material collected before the advent of sophisticated recording equipment and large-scale computerised corpora; shows how other written sources such as diaries, letters and existing historical corpora can be used to analyse informal language use as far back as the fifteenth century; provides insight into the longevity and resilience of many spoken language features which are often regarded as vernacular or non-standard; comes with a companion website which gives full access to the Bolton Worktown Corpus. Historical Research on Spoken Language is key reading for researchers and students working in relevant areas.

Dialect Writing and the North of England

Dialect Writing and the North of England PDF

Author: Honeybone Patrick Honeybone

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2020-09-04

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1474442587

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Analysing examples from 18th century literary texts through to 21st century social media, this is the first comprehensive collection to explore dialect writing in the North of England. The book also considers broad questions about dialect writing in general: What is it? Who does it? What types of dialect writing exist? How can linguists interpret it?Bringing together a wide range of contributors, the book investigates everything from the cultural positioning and impact of dialect writing to the mechanics of how authors produce dialect spellings (and what this can tell us about the structure of the dialects represented). The book features a number of case studies, focusing on dialect writing from all over the North of England, considering a wide range of types of text, including dialect poetry, translations into dialect, letters, tweets, direct speech in novels, humorous localised volumes, written reports of conversations and cartoons in local newspapers.

Practice Notes on Planning Law

Practice Notes on Planning Law PDF

Author: Clive Brand

Publisher: Cavendish Publishing

Published: 2001-03-30

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 1843140861

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This book provides valuable guidance and insight into the key features of the town and country planning system and the process of obtaining planning permission for development of land. The text is essentially procedural in nature since it focuses on the making of planning applications and the use of appeal procedures. It also explains how to deal with enforcement problems where a breach of planning control takes place. In this fourth edition, the opportunity has been taken to provide more information on the key topics. In addition to updating and expanding the legal materials and official publications, it also includes useful practical tips on how to operate the planning system successfully. Much has changed to the content of the subject since the last edition. New materials focus on the revised planning appeal procedures implmented by the Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) Regulations 2000, the Town and Country (Hearings Procedure) (England) Rules 2000, the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 and the Town and Country Planning Appeals (Determination by Inspectors) (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000. Appropriate references are made to DETR Circular 05/2000 - Planning Appeals Procedures.