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.

The Pub and the People

The Pub and the People PDF

Author: Mass Observation

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2011-11-03

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0571280846

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Mass Observation was founded in 1937 with the aim of researching the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. One of its best-loved publications is The Pub and the People (1943), a unique study of one of Britain's best-loved pastimes, describing how people behaved in pubs, what and how much they drank, and the decor and layout of the average pre-war alehouse. Alongside sociological interest it offers amusing insights into an era when supping pints was only for the roughest customers, and beer was considered helpful not only to general health ('There is no bad ale, so Grandma said') but also (contra the porter in Macbeth) to the act of love. 'The authors of this book have unearthed much curious information.' George Orwell, Listener 'Anyone with an interest in the history of beer and pubs in Britain ought to read it.' Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog

Women in Wartime

Women in Wartime PDF

Author: Geraldine Howell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-03-07

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1350000949

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This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Picture Post magazine was made famous by its pioneering photojournalism, which vividly captured a panorama of wartime events and the ordinary lives affected. This book is the first to examine this fascinating primary source as a cultural record of women's dress history. Reading the magazine's visual narratives from 1938 to 1945, it weaves together the ways in which design, style and fashion were affected by, and responded to, the state of being at war - and the new gender roles it created for women. From the working class of Whitechapel to the beach sets of the Bahamas, and from well-heeled Mayfair to middle-class New York, Women in Wartime takes a wide-angled lens to the fashions and lifestyles of the women featured in Picture Post. Exploring the nature of femininity and the struggle to be fashionable during the war, the book reveals critical connections between clothing and social culture. Drawing on a unique range of photographs, Women in Wartime presents a living history of how women's clothing choices reflect changing perceptions of gender, body, and class during an era of unprecedented social change.

Worktowners at Blackpool

Worktowners at Blackpool PDF

Author: Gary Cross

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-12

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1134953437

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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.

Photographs, Museums, Collections

Photographs, Museums, Collections PDF

Author: Elizabeth Edwards

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 147252733X

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The status of photographs in the history of museum collections is a complex one. From its very beginnings the double capacity of photography - as a tool for making a visual record on the one hand and an aesthetic form in its own right on the other - has created tensions about its place in the hierarchy of museum objects. While major collections of 'art' photography have grown in status and visibility, photographs not designated 'art' are often invisible in museums. Yet almost every museum has photographs as part of its ecosystem, gathered as information, corroboration or documentation, shaping the understanding of other classes of objects, and many of these collections remain uncatalogued and their significance unrecognised. This volume presents a series of case studies on the historical collecting and usage of photographs in museums. Using critically informed empirical investigation, it explores substantive and historiographical questions such as what is the historical patterning in the way photographs have been produced, collected and retained by museums? How do categories of the aesthetic and evidential shape the history of collecting photographs? What has been the work of photographs in museums? What does an understanding of photograph collections add to our understanding of collections history more broadly? What are the methodological demands of research on photograph collections? The case studies cover a wide range of museums and collection types, from art galleries to maritime museums, national collections to local history museums, and international perspectives including Cuba, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Together they offer a fascinating insight into both the history of collections and collecting, and into the practices and poetics of archives across a range of disciplines, including the history of science, museum studies, archaeology and anthropology.

Mass Observation and Everyday Life

Mass Observation and Everyday Life PDF

Author: N. Hubble

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2005-11-01

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0230503144

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The social-research organization Mass-Observation was founded in 1937. In this book, the true extent and significance of Mass-Observation's unique role in the formation of postwar Britain's idea of itself through the examination of everyday life across the long twentieth century. An excellent guide to Mass-Observation and the period generally, this scholarly work also provides surprising insights into the role social research has played in the development of policy and mass democracy.

Humphrey Jennings

Humphrey Jennings PDF

Author: Keith Beattie

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 184779727X

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Humphrey Jennings has been described as the only real poet that British cinema has produced. His documentary films are remarkable records of Britain at peace and war, and his range of representational approaches transcended accepted notions of wartime propaganda and revised the strict codes of British documentary film of the 1930s and 1940s. Poet, propagandist, surrealist and documentary filmmaker – Jennings' work embodies an outstanding mix of startling apprehension, personal expression and representational innovation. This book carefully examines and expertly explains the central components of Jennings' most significant films, and considers the relevance of his filmmaking to British cinema and contemporary experience. Films analysed include Spare Time, Words for Battle, Listen to Britain, Fires Were Started, The Silent Village, A Diary for Timothy and Family Portrait.

Mass-Observation and Visual Culture

Mass-Observation and Visual Culture PDF

Author: LucyD. Curzon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1351558994

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Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain critically analyses the role that visual culture played in the early development of Mass-Observation, the innovative British anthropological research group founded in 1937. The group?s production and use of painting, collage, photography, and other media illustrates not only the broad scope of Mass-Observation?s efforts to document everyday life, but also, more specifically, the centrality of visual elements to its efforts at understanding national identity in the 1930s. Although much interest has previously focused on Mass-Observation?s use of written reports and opinion surveys, as well as diaries that were kept by hundreds of volunteer observers, this book is the first full-length study of the group?s engagement with visual culture. Exploring the paintings of Graham Bell and William Coldstream; the photographs of Humphrey Spender; the paintings, collages, and photographs of Julian Trevelyan; and Humphrey Spender?s photographs and widely recognized ?Mass-Observation film?, Spare Time, among other sources, Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain positions these works as key sources of information with regard to illuminating the complex character of British identity during the Depression era.

The Mass Observers

The Mass Observers PDF

Author: James Hinton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0199671044

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The first full-scale history of Mass-Observation, the independent social research organisation which set out to document the attitudes, opinions, and every-day lives of British people between 1937 and 1949. Corrects and revises much of our existing knowledge of M-O, and opens up new and important perspectives on the organisation itself.