Cultural Mapping in 1951: The Festival of Britain Regional Guidebooks

Abstract

The Festival of Britain in 1951 was a political and cultural landmark, a Labour government announcement of the ‘brave new world’ that was coming after war-time sufferings and continuing post-war austerity. The Festival has been much studied by social, political, architectural, design historians and others. Relatively little attention has been given, however, to the thirteen-volume series of About Britain regional guidebooks, an integral part of the Festival itself but one by its very utilitarian purposes designed to outlast it. The origins, rationale, planning and design, editing, writing, publication and content of the guidebooks are carefully explained here. Above all they are analysed as a deliberate exercise in cultural mapping. Further attention is given to the often unselfconscious attitudes, assumptions, priorities, gender bias and prejudices embedded within their discourse.