Wartime Women: A Mass-Observation Anthology
by Dorothy Sheridan

List Price: $12.95  Hardback: 288 Pages
Publisher: Phoenix Press
Publish Date: March 28, 2006







Book Review
by Brian Grafton

Wartime Women: A Mass-Observation Anthology : Book Review

Without offering them in any particular order of significance, this study of wartime England is worth a read for at least three reasons.

First, this is anthology of writings about World War II by those who lived through the war in England. We're not talking hindsight, but comments recorded as the war was going on. Second, it is devoted to a specific gender: this is an anthology of writings by women. Third, it is yet one more edited publication from the archives of Mass-Observation (M-O), now housed at the University of Sussex, a collection of pre-war and war observations concerning life in Britain during World War II. As with other volumes from the extensive M-O archives, I found this volume strangely compelling.

Mass-Observation was the creation of a few young, energetic university graduates. Started in 1937, at least one of its objectives seemed to be to provide government with information concerning the attitudes, emotions, desires and concerns of the British people at large.

In effect, there was in M-O's inception a sense that the political rulers of Britain were sadly out of touch with the people they governed. The object of M-O was to collect data and inference from the "masses", in order to provide possible correctives to government attitudes, policies and directives. To define more precisely the attitudes of "common" Britons, M-O created a variety of collection devices: surveys; open-ended response sheets; reporters placed (often covertly) in specific situations; and – as war grew nearer – requests for diaries.

Many have described M-O as an early sociological experiment, which might be a bit too kind. In my opinion, M-O lacked the controls which might have given its commentaries more validity, though in truth many of those controls had not yet been developed for the social sciences. At best, I think that M-O collected utterly fascinating information from self-selected citizens who believed that M-O was a vehicle for capturing the current states-of-mind which – for whatever reason – the government was unable to appreciate.

In effect, M-O placed advertisements and requests for information in newspapers, magazines and the like, asking ordinary folk to respond to their requests for information in various ways: by response to rather broad-based questionnaires; by observing behaviour in various locations (e.g., factories, movie theatres, markets) and offering descriptions of those observations; and, as war grew nearer, by keeping and providing diary entries of their daily experiences. The response M-O received, in my humble opinion, was much greater than was expected; much of the material was never used or acted on in any way.

While M-O was always interested in publishing its data in book form (and did so, on at least a few occasions, both before the outbreak of World War II and during the war itself), from its inception it was receiving much more information than it could deal with. The best it could do during the war was provide assessments of issues critical to the war effort in Britain. It wasn't until after the war, with the realization that M-O's collection was an important commentary on the years from 1937 and 1945, and it's subsequent location at the University of Sussex, that some kind of semi-systematic explication of the M-O material became possible. This is one such volume.

Wartime Women is not, in all honesty, a volume that covers the experience of all women in Britain during World War II. What it offers are excerpts from women with the time, energy, insight and capability to capture, in various forms, what life was like during the seven long years from Munich to VE Day. It is a mixture, as well, of diary entries and M-O surveys and questionnaires.

It also reflects – sometimes in the most unflattering ways – the preconceptions and prejudices of the British. For instance, it is hard to determine whether the relatively rare comments about such groups as "Jews" reflect a war-induced commentary or – more likely – a thoroughly ingrained attitude towards a distinct group.

In the same way, I was both disconcerted and amused to see the coding method used to describe the sources of commentary which had been received and were used by M-O in some of its studies. As Dorothy Sheridan writes (p. 161):

"Mass-Observation had, by 1942, developed a shorthand system for designating the sex, age and class of people observed. 'A" meant 'rich people", 'B' meant 'the middle classes', 'C' meant 'artisans and skilled workers' and 'D' meant 'unskilled workers and the least economically or educationally trained third of our people'… . F40C therefore referred to a skilled working-class woman, aged 40."

While this might initially shock some readers, it reflects (in my opinion, both validly and very clearly) the continued existence of the concept of class in the England of the 1940s.

What amused me in particular is that, in quoting interviews with various respondents, the class designations were carried over to print. In early 1943, for example, M-O released a "bulletin" to its members concerning attitudes to unescorted women drinking in pubs, where – because two responses follow one another, the following manipulation of language stands out:

"F35D: 'I don't see no 'arm in it – it's 'ard to get stuff to take 'ome nowadays…'; followed by F30C: 'I see no harm in it, and it's only evil-minded folks that do.'"

Even in print, the "D's" of this world can't or don't speak as correctly as the C's and better!

The use of spelling, usage and grammar to capture educational deficiencies or regional accents is not unique to Wartime Women , of course; such devices had gained currency in popular fiction long before World War Two, and not just in Britain. But M-O took its role seriously here, recording the number of interviews conducted, the location of the pubs, and the like. One would have assumed that the "D" classification was sufficient to place the interviewee in the appropriate class, without the dropping of the "aitches" and the rather obvious double negative.

At another point in the volume, M-O asks in one of its "directives" (in January, 1944) for responses from members about the place of women after the end of the war. Though the directive was open to both male and female members, Sheridan has chosen to offer only a selection of female responses. These range from the most traditional (children need a full-time mother) to some rather interesting discussions of the need for "more capable" British women (read, better educated, more responsible women) to breed so as to rebuild the "stock"! One of the more interesting comments comes from a single woman of 36 who is a stenographer in Birmingham. In a lengthy response, the following seems to be the key:

"The crux of the question to me is: if the economic emancipation of women goes on, what will compensate men, in the marriage relation, for the loss of their status as breadwinner to the family? I don't want to be a reactionary and adopt a 'Kirche Küche Kinder' doctrine, but I do believe all the points I have mentioned, and many more, want thinking out seriously."

So why does this book attract me, if it is so easy to raise issues about its inception, its hint of racism, and its class consciousness? The answer is very simple – and, again, comes in two parts.

First, the women whose writings appear in the volume are, quite simply, real. Dorothy Sheridan, the editor, has done nothing to mask the limitations of the source material; she has not tried to make the comments more palatable for readers of future generations. Despite the fact that this is an edited version of the richer archives the information is drawn from, she does not appear to have removed the "naughty bits".

Secondly, there are excerpts in this edited volume which truly grip the heart. Keep in mind that – at least where diaries are concerned – the contributors (or at least the contributors Dorothy Sheridan chose) were outrageously honest: about their war experiences; about their concerns for their children; and about their family life. I don't know which one of the diarists you might find yourself wanting to know more about: for me, it's "Amy Briggs"; for others it may be "Muriel Green". But my guess is that any reader of Wartime Women will find a favourite diarist, and will wish the Dorothy Sheridan had the energy and the funding to print their diaries in full.

There is a great richness in studying comments and attitudes both held and recorded during any event as cataclysmic as WW2. I'm not thinking about commentary resurrected after the event: I'm thinking about contemporaneous comment. This volume delivers it in spades – warts, fens and the lot.

Finally, I will admit that the cover photo for the volume is some icing on the cake: it says so much about what the women of Britain were experiencing during the war. The photo is identified as follows:

"The Gloucester and District Ploughing Society's ploughing match at Breckworth Court, Gloucester, 30 September 1944. Miss J. King working with a 3-furrow plow."

Miss J. King delights me. She is clearly engrossed in the competition, and – with her bib-overalls – she is clearly there for the competition.

At the same time, she is quite clearly a rather slight person. Her hair is beautifully groomed in the fashion of the day. Her blouse – at least at this time in the competition – remains white. She is a woman who has been "doing her bit" and is proud of the skills she has learned. But she has not forgotten that she is a woman!

I can't honestly say that this is a volume which should be on the shelves of every MHOer: it won't appeal to many. But I would argue most forcefully that this is a volume that should be read at some time. And for WW2 buffs, I think the book must be considered as one worth reading. We tend to forget too quickly what normal folks thought about, worried about, fussed over, and/or lived through during WW2. This book – very typical of many M-O inspired volumes – can at least keep our connected with our roots.

Copyright © 2006 Brian Grafton.

Written by Brian Grafton. If you have questions or comments on this article, please contact Brian Grafton at: bg@briangrafton.com.

Published online: 01/07/2007.

* Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent those of MHO.