For anyone researching specific topics, the reports AMSR – The Archive of Market and Social Research – provide insight into a huge range of subject-matter. Additionally some of the documents offer fascinating portraits of Britain at given points in time.
One example is the 1956 #Hulton Readership Survey report, which recently appeared on eBay. (Bidding was not hotly contested )
The report itself is lovely, still smelling faintly of leatherette, and offering an intriguing picture of Britain in 1956, via its reading habits study.
✓ WW2 was still a fairly recent memory in 1956.
✓ Food rationing had finally concluded just two years earlier
✓Car ownership stood at 11%, whereas 24% of people were categorised as cyclists.
✓ Media:
✓ TV sets were present in 42% of homes
✓ ITV had been launched as the first commercial channel in September 1955
✓ Print was the major advertising medium and this survey existed to support it
It’s a fascinating read, to get the full story, and to access the Hulton report, click on the below to continue
https://www.amsr.org.uk/a-picture-of-britain-in-the-1950s/
AMSR: Making History