Mass-Observation and popular politics at the 1945 General Election
This paper sheds fresh light on popular attitudes towards politics in 1945 and the reasons for Labour's success at that year’s General Election. It does so by reading against the grain in archived field-notes from Mass Observation's study of the 1945 General Election in the London constituency of Fulham East. Whereas material from this investigation has been drawn upon to support influential accounts of popular apathy in 1945, this paper returns to the original investigation field-notes to suggest other ways of interpreting interviewees' apparent disengagement with the election campaign. These include the classed, intersubjective dynamics of the social science encounter which, combined with the high expectations underpinning Mass-Observation's questionnaire, may have proved intimidating and account for recurring responses of 'don’t know' from working-class women in particular. Alternatively, these responses could signal an assertion of the appropriate limits of political engagement, or an alternative understanding of who or what politics should centre on. This paper suggests that we gain a sharper, more nuanced picture of popular political attitudes in 1945 when we engage critically with archived testimony gathered by Mass-Observation, rather than relying on the organisation's published findings and the observers' summarised conclusions.
Rebecca Goldsmith is a third-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge studying 'the making of "Labour's working class" 1931-1951'. Her research seeks to provide a more contingent account of the shift in working-class political allegiances that proved crucial to the Labour Party's national breakthrough in the mid-twentieth century.
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This page was last updated on 30 June 2024
