The Marienthal investigation
in F[rederic] C[harles] Bartlett / M[orris] Ginsberg / E[thel] J[ohn] Lindgren / R[obert] H[enry] Thouless (eds.): The study of society. Methods and problems. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner [1939], S. 4–5.
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A. THE MARIENTHAL INVESTIGATION1
A valuable and striking investigation was made on the unemployed of Marienthal, a village of 1,486 inhabitants not far from Vienna. The whole village had been unemployed for some three years, and the effects of unemployment were studied by a variety of methods (34). A team of investigators was sent out by the Industrial Research Institute of the Department of Psychology at Vienna University, and the inhabitants were approached through various agencies specially established by the investigators. Thus clothes were collected in Vienna and distributed in Marienthal; needlework and gymnastic classes were run; free medical and vocational advice were given (cf. Chapter XVI). In these ways it was possible to gather very detailed information about almost all the families in the village.
Many of the results of the study are of great importance and need to be followed up in other areas. Here we can merely give a brief indication of some of them.
Because of the extremely restricted bi-weekly income (dole), most housewives had detailed and rigid budgets; yet characteristically
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irrational expenditure often occurred. Thus children got large meals on pay-day and starved later; a woman suddenly bought a pair of curling tongs instead of food; allotments were planted entirely with flowers. Nevertheless wants and interests had shrunk to a striking extent. Even the Christmas wishes of children were very modest ones, frequently expressed in the subjunctive: »If I could wish, I would like…« All conflicts were played out on the lower plane of individual quarrelsomeness, and debating and political clubs and institutions disappeared. Time lost its characteristic fixed points of reference, so that unpunctuality was the rule, even for meals. Of 100 men, 88 carried no watch. Very few newspapers and books were read. There was a far-reaching absence of any form of planning.
As was to be expected, the low income brought with it a great deterioration of health and of resistance to disease. The paralysing effect of unemployment was measured by classifying all families, according to a number of observational criteria, into those who were still unbroken and resistant to social degeneration, even if in despair; those who were resigned; and those who were broken, apathetic, no longer looked after their children or kept up appearances. The figures were: unbroken, 23 per cent; resigned, 69 per cent; broken, 8 per cent. It was clear that the last group would steadily grow as time went on.
1 This section was written by Dr. Oeser.