Preliminary Programme

The San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 are considered to be the biggest natural disaster in 20th century American history. On the morning of April 18th 1906 an earthquake of supposedly 7.8 on the Richter scale struck the region. It was followed by a huge fire that killed over 3,000 people and left more than half of the 400,000 inhabitants of the city homeless. The catastrophe was followed by one of the biggest humanitarian relief programs in the history of the United States, which did not only set new standards for humanitarian aid in terms of financial and material donations, but also with regard to efficient organization. Both the nationwide empathy and the quickly set up solidarity network relied on and were triggered considerably by the work of the local, national and international press.

The paper therefore proposes to examine firstly, the reestablishment of the local press in the hours after the disaster and its importance for the political authorities in dealing with it. Secondly, the communication and the distribution of news items from San Francisco in national and international press networks will be analyzed, as the insufficient infrastructure gendered new techniques in the transmission of news from the disaster area. Finally, the impact of the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 on the cooperation system of international news agencies will be analyzed. (Show less)

Historically, images and pictures of children successfully served, and still serve today, the objective to affect our perception of nations and their politics. World War I represents one of the key moments which advanced and professionalized the visual documentation of children’s suffering. While WWI as a political rupture caused the traumatic emergence of child poverty and child neglect, it also brought about fundamental societal change in the sphere of child philanthropy. In view of the ambiguous repercussions of WWI on children’s lives, I will explore the widely neglected case of Hungarian children who turned into a target of national and transnational philanthropy. This case study allows shedding light on the international contest over the question of who should care for the poor Hungarian child. More concretely, I will deal both with the visual objects that document child protective measures of national agents (such as the “Hungarian League of Child Protection” or the Habsburg „Kaiser Karl Wohlfahrtswerk“) and those of international philanthropic and political institutions (such as the British „Save the Children Fund“ and the „American Relief Administration"). By studying this broad range of visual representations of child poverty and child philanthropy the paper proposes a critical reading of child relief as a propagandistic means of social regulation, political rivalry and ideological competition. I want to argue that the increasing body of child photography tends not to mirror the rise of altruistic devotion, but rather underlines the historical value of childhood as a usable domain of life. (Show less)

In the USA as well as in Great Britain quaker organisations became heavily involved the relief of the great Russian famine of 1921-23. Despite of their respective integration in a broader relief effort involving many organisations, on both sides of the Atlantic the Society of Friends faced fierce press campaigns accusing it of "feeding the Bolshevist". The paper wil deal with the media strategy Quakers developed to counter this accusations. It will in this regard pay particular attention to the role of the transatlantic network connecting British and American Friends and explore the degree to which it helped quakers to develop a "common language" to address the common challenges against peculiar national backgrounds. (Show less)

The case in this paper is the famine which hit Soviet Russia in 1921-22. It threatened to kill 30 million people. Fridtjof Nansen, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Repatriation of Prisoners of War, became leader of the European relief work in Russia, while Herbert Hoover led the American operations. While the Americans led a big, government funded and well functioning operation, Nansen had to struggle harder. I shall here focus on the media coverage of his humanitarian projects. I will discuss his and his supporters’ use of the press, as well as the opponents’ attacks on the plan. Nansen’s plan was, quite naively, based on a thought that the relief could be given for credits to the Soviet government. For this reason he encountered great difficulties in European government circles. The operation was especially unpopular in conservative circles. Anticommunist feelings proved very strong.

In France Nansen’s plan was staunchly opposed in Conservative newspapers like the influential le Temps and le Figaro and also the more popular Écho de Paris. He was strongly supported in the Communist newspaper l’Humanité. In France the debate was extremely polarised, and Nansen did not really try to fight the hostile environment there. He focused his media strategy on Great Britain. There Nansen’s plan was attacked perhaps most openly in the Daily Express, but also in the extremely influential the Times. He had however his supporters for instance in the liberal Manchester Guardian.

The research I have done so far has focused most strongly on the Norwegian press. For thios paper I want to investigate more thoroughly the British and French coverage. In Norway Nansen and his advisors used tactics to include people in the process of gathering money for the needy Russians. Drawings and photos showing the famine horrors were printed in large scale, especially in liberal newspapers. Name of donors were published in the papers, letters from supporters were printed. What was especially interesting is that his opponents took use of the same tactics. A huge campaign against him was launched by the leading Conservative newspaper Aftenposten. It did not attack Nansen directly but it said that no funds should be sent out of Norway, since these were needed at home. Aftenposten’s front page was dominated for weeks by its own campaign to help poor Norwegian fishermen. The message was to help “our own people first”. The argument was probably taken from French and British newspapers – for instance the Daily Express, which had written a few months earlier: ”We have already stated our opinion that with so many of our own people in grave distress the moment is ill-chosen for appealing for funds to go outside the country”. The Times is also said to have refused to print advertisments for Russian relief. But the anti-Nansen campaign in Norway was well organised, effective, well timed, and also probably deprived Nansen’s campaign of money. (Show less)