Part Two: Factors which led to variation in approach of the farm security administration and Mass Observation
This part two of a four part series comparing the Farm Security Adminstration with Mass Observation, their British equivalent organisation.
This part two of a four part series comparing the Farm Security Adminstration with Mass Observation, their British equivalent organisation. If you’d like to access the full essay now, instead of in weekly sections, become a Paid Subscriber below, then open the introductory post.
Introduction (and full essay if you’d like to upgrade to a Paid Subscription!)
Part Two: Factors which led to variation in approach of the farm security administration and Mass Observation
The Farm Security Administration and Mass Observation were different in a number of ways, which in turn led to differences in the work of the photographers working for these organisations.
One of the key differences between the two organisations is that Mass Observation was a public, volunteer-based body, and the FSA was a government agency. The FSA therefore had a lot more resources available to them, allowing the photographers salaries, travel expenses, film etc. Mass Observation was based on volunteer involvement, with the volunteers having to pay for any expenses they may incur. Even though the backing of the government alleviated some of the problems involved with the FSA project, it also restricted the photographers. The government and more directly, people higher up in the FSA itself, had a very specific purpose for the photographs, in trying to publicise the migrant worker crisis of the time, which limited the type of photographs the photographers could produce.
The observers working for Mass Observation however, had an almost free reign over what they could submit. They would simply be told to record everything. During the Blackpool project for example;
“Observers were placed in various hotels and boarding houses, from the very best to the doss house. Their brief was to find out everything they could about the hotel, prices, menus, colour of the wall-paper, and everything about the guests, names, occupations, hobbies, even their dreams”[7]
An influence on both groups of photographer’s work was what the organisations they worked for wanted to achieve. The FSA’s main objective was to alleviate the problems surrounding poor farmers and migrant workers in America at the time, and to therefore bring about some kind of social change. The photographs they produced by and large endeavoured to put across these problems in as clear a way as possible, necessarily becoming a kind of propaganda in the process. Mass Observation’s reason for being created is very different to the FSA’s. Mass Observation was created to act as a research organisation, to record as much as possible about their society. To explain the groups creation, in 1937 Mass Observation wrote:
“As a result of the Abdication crisis… we have realised as never before the sway of superstition in the midst of science. How little we know of our next door neighbour and his habits. Of conditions of life and thought in another class or district our ignorance is complete.”[8]
The essential difference between the FSA’s and Mass Observation’s motives is that Mass Observation were trying to learn about their own society, whereas the FSA wanted to publicise a certain aspect of their society.
Mass Observation used a large number of volunteers from the general public in conducting their research, to achieve a massive collection of data from a wide range of sources. This became out of necessity a catalogue-based approach, which influenced the photographers and artists working for Mass Observation. Humphrey Spender photographed in quite an indexical manner, taking a high number of images in a lot of different places, covering a wide range of subject areas. In this way Spender’s work was influenced by the approach of the main group of Mass Observation’s observers, in that they, using a text-based research method, recorded as much as possible about their surroundings.
In contrast, the FSA used a small group of highly trained photographers to achieve their aims. These photographers were sent out across America bringing back a relatively small number of images, compared to Mass Observation’s collected data. However these images were of an extremely high standard, with many latent messages within each one. These images were created to achieve a very specific aim, to document the migrant worker crisis in America at this time, and influence people in power as well as the public, to bring about social change. This is why the images are so direct; to immediately provoke a reaction from the audience, but also contain so many subliminal messages for a viewer to appreciate from a number of further viewings.
References
[7] Jeffery, T. Mass Observation, A Short History, University of Birmingham, 1978, p.28.
[8] Jeffery, T. Mass Observation, A Short History, University of Birmingham, 1978, p. 2.
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I assume Mass Observation largely resulted in images of buildings, city scapes and public spaces vs. the human centric focus is the WPA?