Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s 9781782383598

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Shaping the Transnational Sphere

Studies in Contemporary European History Editors: Konrad Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Director of the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Studien, Potsdam, Germany Henry Rousso, Senior Fellow at the Institut d’historie du temps present (Centre national de la recherché scientifique, Paris) and co-founder of the European network “EURHISTXX” Volume 1 Between Utopia and Disillusionment: A Narrative of the Political Transformation in Eastern Europe Henri Vogt Volume 2 The Inverted Mirror: Mythologizing the Enemy in France and Germany, 1898–1914 Michael E. Nolan Volume 3 Conflicted Memories: Europeanizing Contemporary Histories Edited by Konrad H. Jarausch and Thomas Lindenberger with the Collaboration of Annelie Ramsbrock

Volume 8 Children, Families, and States: Time Policies of Childcare, Preschool, and Primary Education in Europe Edited by Karen Hagemann, Konrad H. Jarausch, and Cristina Allemann-Ghionda Volume 9 Social Policy in the Smaller European Union States Edited by Gary B. Cohen, Ben W. Ansell, Robert Henry Cox, and Jane Gingrich Volume 10 A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966–1975 Petri Hakkarainen

Volume 4 Playing Politics with History: The Bundestag Inquiries into East Germany Andrew H. Beattie

Volume 11 Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990 Edited by Frederic Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, N. Piers Ludlow, and Bernd Rother

Volume 5 Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870–1939 Christopher J. Fischer

Volume 12 Investigating Srebrenica: Institutions, Facts, Responsibilities Edited by Isabelle Delpla, Xavier Bougarel, and Jean-Louis Fournel

Volume 6 A European Memory? Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance Edited by Małgorzata Pakier and Bo Stråth

Volume 13 Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism Edited by Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Jessie Labov

Volume 7 Experience and Memory: The Second World War in Europe Edited by Jörg Echternkamp and Stefan Martens

Volume 14 Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s Edited by Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

Shaping the Transnational Sphere Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s

( Edited by

Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2015 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2015 Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shaping the transnational sphere: experts, networks and issues from the 1840s to the 1930s / edited by Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel. pages cm. -- (Contemporary European history; volume 14) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-358-1 (hardback: alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-78238-359-8 (ebook) 1. Transnationalism--History. 2. Expertise--Social aspects--History. 3. International agencies--History. 4. International cooperation--History. 5. Intellectual cooperation--History. 6. Social planning--International cooperation--History. I. Rodogno, Davide, 1972- II. Struck, Bernhard. III. Vogel, Jakob. JZ1320.S535 2014 327.09’034--dc23 2014018763 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed on acid-free paper ISBN 978-1-78238-358-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78238-359-8 (ebook)

Table of Contents

Contents

( List of Illustrations viii List of Tables ix Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xi Introduction  1 Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel Part I:  Experts Chapter 1 Professionalism or Proselytism? Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century  23 Vincent Viaene Chapter 2 Sanitizing the City: The Transnational Work and Networks of French Sanitary Engineers, 1890s–1930s 44 Stéphane Frioux Chapter 3 Policy Communities and Exchanges across Borders: The Case of Workplace Accidents at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 60 Julia Moses

vi | Contents

Chapter 4 The Rise of Coordinated Action for Children in War and Peace: Experts at the League of Nations, 1924–1945 82 Dominique Marshall Part II:  Networks Chapter 5   Building a Transnational Network of Social Reform in the Nineteenth Century 111 Chris Leonards and Nico Randeraad Chapter 6   The Politics of Expertise: The Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, Democratic Peace Movements and International Law Networks in Europe, 1850–1875 131 Christian Müller Chapter 7   The Road from Damascus: Transnational Jewish Philanthropic Organizations and the Jewish Mass Migration from Eastern Europe, 1840–1914 152 Tobias Brinkmann Chapter 8   From Peace Advocacy to International Relations Research: The Transformation of Transatlantic Philanthropic Networks, ­1900–1930 173 Katharina Rietzler Part III:  Issues Chapter 9   Transnational Cooperation and Criminal Policy: The Prison Reform Movement, 1820s–1950s 197 Martina Henze Chapter 10 International Congresses of Education and the Circulation of Pedagogical Knowledge in Western Europe, 1876–1910 218 Damiano Matasci

Contents | vii

Chapter 11 From Transnational Reformist Network to International Organization: The International Association for Labour Legislation and the International Labour Organization, 1900–1930s 239 Sandrine Kott Chapter 12 Shaping Poland: Relief and Rehabilitation Programmes Undertaken by Foreign Organizations, 1918–1922 259 Davide Rodogno, Francesca Piana and Shaloma Gauthier Select Bibliography 279 Notes on Contributors 293 Index 297

Illustrations

( Figure 6.1. Allegory of the Congress ordering the progress of the social sciences at the 1864 meeting of the ISSA in Amsterdam 137 Figure 6.2. Membership figures of the ISSA 137

Tables

( Table 2.1.  A selection of international congresses and exhibitions dealing at least in part with sanitary engineering issues 47 Table 3.1.  Meetings of the International Congress on Accidents at Work  77 Table 6.1.  Members of the peace movement sections and their affiliation to the ISSA 140 Table 10.1. Sample of International Congresses on Education, 1876–1910 221

Acknowledgements

( The editors wish to thank a number of colleagues who have shared their knowledge and expertise with us and with the contributors to this volume. In particular we would like to thank Madeleine Herren, Johannes Paulmann and Pierre-Yves Saunier for their stimulating reflections, critical comments and numerous suggestions. A number of people supported this project at various stages. We would like to express our gratitude to Andrew Dodd, Francesca Piana and Shaloma Gauthier for their support as well as to Alexia Grosjean, Rona Johnston Gordon and Jordan Girardin for their diligent editorial work. This book would not have come to fruition without financial support, and we wish to thank the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique Suisse, the School of History and the Centre for Transnational History at the University of St Andrews, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the University of Cologne and the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ at the Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster for their generous support. In various ways and capacities, all these experts and institutions shaped the ‘transnational sphere’ that constitutes this volume.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations

( AAIC AALL AdT AGHTM AIDP ALON AM Lyon Annales ISSA

APD APRE ARA ARA-ECF ARC AZ BArch BGE

American Association for International Conciliation American Association for Labor Legislation Avenir du travail (Labour’s Future) Association Générale des Hygiénistes et Techniciens Municipaux (General Association of Hygienists and Municipal Technicians) Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (International Association of Penal Law) Archives of the League of Nations Municipal Archives of Lyon Annales de l’Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (Annals of the International Association for the Accomplishment of Social Sciences) Association pour la paix par le droit (Association for Peace through Law) American Polish Relief Expedition American Relief Administration American Relief Administration – European Children’s Fund American Red Cross Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums (General Journal of Judaism) Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (German Federal Archives, Berlin-Lichterfelde) Bibliothèque Universitaire de Genève (Geneva University Library)

xii | Abbreviations

CEIP CEIP CE CWC ECOSOC GfSR GStAPK HIA HIAS IALL IASP ICAW ICRC IDI IFTU IIE IKV ILO ILOA INGO IP(P)C IPC IPPC IPPF ISC ISSA IULA IWMA JJDC LAC LIP LIPL LoN LRCS

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Centre Européen Records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Child Welfare Committee Economic and Social Council Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform (Society for Social Reform) Geheimes-Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Privy State Archives) Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society International Association for Labour Legislation International Association for Social Progress International Congress on Accidents at Work International Committee of the Red Cross Institut de Droit International (Institute of International Law) International Federation of Trade Unions Institute of International Education Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung (International Association for Criminology) International Labour Organization International Labour Organization Archive International Non-Governmental Organizations International Penitentiary Commission (IPC), renamed International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC) International Penitentiary Commission International Penal and Penitentiary Commission International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation International Statistical Congress International Social Science Association International Union of Local Authorities International Working Men’s Association Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Library and Archives Canada Ligue Internationale de la Paix (International League of Peace) Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté (International League of Peace and Liberty) League of Nations League of Red Cross Societies

Abbreviations | xiii

NAPSS NGO PGS PAKPD PKPD RDI SCIU SEC SSA UB UN UNICEF UNRRA VIV YMCA YWCA

National Association for the Promotion of Social Science Non-Governmental Organizations Polish Grey Samaritans Polish-American Children’s Relief Committee State Children’s Relief Committee Revue de Droit International (International Law Review) Save the Children International Union Supreme Economic Council Social Science Association Ghent Universiteitsbibliotheek Ghent (Ghent University Library) United Nations United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency Verband für Internationale Verständigung (Federation for International Dialogue) Young Men’s Christian Association Young Women’s Christian Association

Introduction

( Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

Today the role played by experts, expert knowledge and epistemic communities in international politics is manifest. Decision making in fields ranging from technology to the environment, from science to ­international security and from European Union integration to economic ­development is shaped by expert knowledge.1 The politics of expertise are not a new phenomenon. This book examines expert networks and organizations in Europe, in Western Europe in particular, in the period between the mid-nineteenth century and the early 1930s, and demonstrates their relationship with policy-making processes at both the domestic and the international level especially with respect to the social reform ­movement. The volume explores the activities of networks and non-state actors beyond and below national borders that were particularly important for the dissemination of reform ideas and practices. Social scientists have often neglected the ­influence of these networks and the circulation of knowledge and ­expertise, despite the more recent discussions about their ‘Atlantic crossings’ analysed by the historian Daniel T. Rogers.2 The dominance of the paradigm of the nation-state has, until recently, resulted in a focus on intergovernmental and diplomatic relations, and a consequent underestimation of the significance of transnational relations.3 Although the rise of networks of experts has been attributed by social scientists to ‘the birth of a knowledge society’ during the second half of the twentieth century,4 as the chapters in this edited collection demonstrate, the contribution of expert knowledge to policy processes reaches back at least a century earlier. In the mid-nineteenth century, cultural, political, social and economic factors inspired contemporaries to believe in the overarching role of scientific and technological progress as a means to overcome the problems caused by rapid industrialization and social Notes for this chapter begin on page 15.

2 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

change; scientific and technical experts became agents of the emergence of a transnational or, in some cases, supranational consciousness among European élites. Businesses, organizations and individuals that relied on or were involved in the movement of people and goods across borders had to react rapidly to new challenges that transgressed the realm of the nation-state. Their responses, evident in a variety of domains, ranged from social policies such as poor relief or schooling to the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases. This book focuses on the transnational sphere as the space where encounters across national borders took place. New ideas were often framed and exchanged within transnational reform networks even though their intended context and purpose were to be found in reform policies at domestic (national) level or in international legislation. Ideas originated in a given place but circulated across national borders were discussed and modified in specific transnational contexts and might shape new legislation in locations at a distance from their origins. The process of transfer encompassed adaptation and modification to specific local or national contexts.5 As Akira Iriye and Madeleine Herren have argued, ‘soft power’ in international relations matters,6 although its impact can be difficult to measure or locate in the diffuse setting of a transnational network (by  contrast, perhaps, with an intergovernmental setting).7 The transnational sphere materialized in a number of forms – examples in this volume include international organizations, gatherings of experts, international congresses, publications and journals. International congresses perfectly embody the transnational space. Here experts exchanged information, fields of specialization asserted their legitimacy and ‘bodies of knowledge and of know-how’8 were created. On their return home, the participants attempted to put this knowledge and know-how into practice.9 The function of such international congresses was similar to that of the French Academy of Science of the late ancien régime: scientists had provided reformist royal administrators with new techniques and the king had provided scientists with an institutional framework within which they could work. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, however, at least in most West European countries, the legitimacy of political actions was no longer solely determined by monarchs; the state had  become  the  centre of  the experts’ international activities.10 Their  organizations and institutions enabled encounters that explain the nation in terms of cross-national influences: they provided an arena in which experts often interacted as representatives of specific nationstates.11 Even if many of these states were multinational empires, diplomatic endeavours sought to maintain the illusion of meetings between

Introduction | 3

more or less equal nations. The name of the League of Nations stands as a  telling example of this spirit of parity, at a time when the quality of being a nation was not yet a universal principle open also to all nonEuropean societies. The contributions to this volume tackle two potentially contradictory but undoubtedly connected phenomena: on the one hand, the transnational consciousness of European élites and the role of many expert committees, groups and networks involved in the establishment of emerging global policies,12 and on the other hand, the rise of the nation-state and nationalism during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.13 In Condorcet’s utopia of 1794, the citoyen-savant may have had no nation, but a century later experts journeying through Europe and beyond carried passports that identified them with a nation-state. Travelling by train and attending universal expositions and international congresses, these experts perceived themselves as members of a particular nation;14 some even acted on behalf of or in agreement with their national governments. For a number of scholars the second half of the nineteenth century was the era of a first ‘global integration’.15 They share the view that the bottom-up reconstruction of the fragments of a ‘global community’, as Iriye calls it, formed neither above nor against nation-states, but between and in collaboration with states. While we relate to this, we are somewhat sceptical about a concept of a ‘global civil society’ as defined by Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor. National sovereignty did not erode in the period between the 1840s and the 1930s, and the global dimension of this transnational community had not yet fully developed.16 Nevertheless a transnational sphere of exchanges, experiences and encounters across and beyond national borders did take shape in Europe during the long nineteenth century, in particular from the 1840s onwards. The intention of its participants was neither to suppress nor to supplant nation-states; it was often integral to their involvement that this transnational sphere coexisted with nation-states and with intergovernmental organizations.17 As Patricia Clavin has stated: ‘The “nation” does not stand in opposition to transnationalism as a border-crossing understanding of the latter term implies, but rather is an essential element in shaping the phenomenon’.18 Just as recent work on internationalism in the interwar period tells us much about the national contexts from which that concept emerged, so too do transnational encounters in the nineteenth century cast their light on the national contexts from which they cannot be divorced. The role of experts and the views of social progress they espoused must not be idealized. All the experts, networks and organizations analysed in

4 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

this book were a product of their time, their activities fostered or hampered by their specific national and/or international contexts. The ideologies that underpinned their actions were similarly time-specific: some individuals and groupings defended the superiority of European civilization, or ‘race’, when they encountered the non-European world;19 others were in favour of the democratization of society and international relations20 or wished to use their knowledge and utopian aspirations to save the world.21 This volume explores the shared visions, habits, prejudices and practices of experts who were mostly bourgeois citizens. They were also generally men (very few women are among the main actors of the stories it tells) and they were mostly Christians (Protestant or Roman Catholic) but some had a (sometimes secular) Jewish background. Only a few Muslims, mainly officials from the Ottoman Empire who had studied in Western Europe or in a Western-style academic institution, were admitted to this transnational sphere.22 Perhaps the main characteristic shared by nearly all of these experts was their belief in the ideals of scientific progress and social reform that made them deeply convinced of their ‘civilizing mission’ in and beyond Europe. The essential nature of the transnational expert network both entices and challenges the historian. In the words of Madeleine Herren, Transnational networks do not fit easily within an event-oriented conception of foreign policy and call for an expansion of the traditional cast-list of foreignpolicy actors. Networks can rarely be fully mastered, since thematic variety is one of their essential features. They do not tie in closely either with the evolution of institutions or with relations between persons; they neither are the product of an evolutionary process of modernization nor can they be assigned to a pragmatic conception of politics.23

This volume cannot and does not provide an exhaustive account of all expert networks of social reform active during the period under consideration. Lest the picture of cooperation and engagement appear too rosy, we must also recognize that transnationalism had a dark side, which as yet has been much less studied by historians. Little attention has been paid to the networks of eugenicists or racist groups,24 or to fascist, proto-fascist and other extreme right movements that emerged at the same time as progressive and philanthropic transnational networks.25 The contributions to this volume cover varied material and follow different methodological approaches, but all examine the motives, actions and means of experts, networks and organizations as they sought to affect domestic and/or international politics during the period between the 1840s and the early 1930s. This common thread links all the chapters as they investigate why, when and how experts acted beyond national borders.

Introduction | 5

Transnational Relations and Transnationalism ‘Shaping the Transnational Sphere’, the title of this book, points to the changing configurations and dynamics that occupied the permeable space situated between and beyond governments and intergovernmental relations and domestic politics.26 These transnational networks were not independent of national societies or international politics. Each chapter recognizes the circulation of individuals, groups and ideas among nationstates, and analyses shifts through the local, nation-state and international levels. Like Patricia Clavin we recognize a certain degree of wooliness in the current usage of the terms ‘transnational’ and ‘transnationalism’ and we are aware that for many scholars, including the authors of the contributions to this volume, these terms have different – albeit not entirely incompatible – meanings.27 Some social scientists refer to transnational and transnationalism in order to identify the role of non-state corporate actors within world politics. In a famous 1971 issue of the journal International Organization, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye challenged the state-centric view of international relations of the so-called Realist School and urged scholars to study interactions across state boundaries, where at least one actor was not ‘an agent of a government or an intergovernmental organization’.28 Breaking with a functionalist approach to the study of global governance, the sociological approach of Marie-Laure Djelic and Sigrid Quack considers ‘transnational communities’.29 Already Raymond Aron referred to a société transnationale to signify interactions and connections other than interstate relations.30 Other scholars think of transnationalism as the relations between individuals or groups belonging to different states or political units who migrate, trade, exchange ideas and join together to celebrate, compete or protest.31 Following the more recent global history turn of the past ten years or so, historians have developed a broad literature on transnational history.32 It seems that historians adopt a transnational perspective primarily in order to study movements and forces that cut across national boundaries and include goods, people, ideas, words, capital, might and institutions ranging from the intergovernmental to the non-governmental and ­philanthropic.33 Thus various studies have demonstrated how individuals – including experts – or institutions transferred ideas and practices into new contexts, bringing with them the baggage of former experiences, which, when unpacked at each new location, produced a complex set of echoes, transfers, circulations and interactions.34 Transnational phenomena, they suggest, may or may not be the product of ‘globalization’,35 nor are they necessarily or consistently progressive and cooperative in

6 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

character. Moreover, the existence of transnational networks of experts since the nineteenth century does not signal an ineluctable or unidirectional movement towards globalization. Transnational ties can dissolve some national barriers, while simultaneously strengthening or creating others.36 Pierre-Yves Saunier has defined transnational networks of experts as ‘configurations’ of individual and collective actors investing time, energy and social, economic or cultural resources in the establishment, maintenance and use of connections. Only this kind of interconnection takes place and propagates (circulates) specific items beyond national borders.37 Readings, translations and quotations are evidence of an intertextual existence of a given interconnection or configuration. Visits, correspondence, and the formal and informal establishment of organizations prove the dynamic of an interactional community shared by its members. The actors of a given configuration establish patterns of interaction and a common discourse that serve as the basis of agreement, disagreement or even ­misunderstanding around notions, categories, processes or world views. They enhance the development of projects, trajectories and ­aspirations, and enable institutions to establish further connections. Some ­transnational networks of experts had ephemeral lives, others lived long, some struggled, others cohabited in time and space; some extended their connections and changed, diluted or extended their original purpose; some contracted but maintained their initial purpose. This volume focuses on the use of knowledge, on when and why knowledge generated by experts acting in transnational spaces affected domestic and/or international politics. A number of contributors to this book use the concept of epistemic communities, borrowed from Peter Haas, to underline the ability of shared world views and common knowledge to unite different transnational actors.38 Such commonality does not minimize the possible tensions that arise from, for example, specific professional knowledge cultures or particular national political contexts.39 The nineteenth-century international congresses and institutions ­analysed here were arenas in which people came together in order to debate collectively issues that they identified as common threats or challenges to contemporary societies and to formulate concepts for possible joint actions. The existence of a transnational epistemic community did not necessarily entail consensus on the causes of a particular problem or on a concrete response to that problem. Rather, the member experts shared a more general belief that such specific issues were part of an overarching reform agenda for modern society and that a joint response was necessary in order to unite the knowledge of experts with the capacities for action held by policymakers in individual countries.

Introduction | 7

Transnational Chronologies The well-established narrative of the long nineteenth century points talks of the dominance of the emergence of the nation-state in parts of Europe, mainly Western Europe.40 The contributors to this volume seek not to challenge this interpretation but to enrich and nuance the traditional narrative by investigating the contemporaneous creation of a transnational sphere alongside processes of nation-building.41 The international congresses and other transnational networks that emerged in the mid nineteenth century provided a new space, distinct – on a qualitative level – from earlier forms of cooperation and contact, such as the societies and networks of correspondence of the Enlightenment.42 By the beginning of the ­twentieth ­century, private and secular voluntary organizations whose main ­activities were humanitarian actions beyond national borders appeared as a Western model of organization directly or indirectly inspired by ­religious – missionary – organizations. Moreover, intergovernmental organizations emerged as nation-states proliferated. The nation-state as the organization model of societies reached its peak at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, during which the League of Nations, the first purportedly ‘global’ intergovernmental organization, was created. As historians we are aware that periodizations are problematic in that they have a certain arbitrary character, but at the same time they have a key analytical function. It is not our intention to present either the 1840s or the early 1930s as deep ruptures as far as transnational reform networks are concerned. Significant continuities do exist between the early nineteenth century and the 1840s as well as between the interwar period and the 1930s. For instance, the 1840s are a relevant starting point if one stresses the emergence of new forms of sociability and communication through the international fairs and congresses. However, religious and reform movements, such as prison reform or the anti-slavery movement, started much earlier. Nevertheless, three different chronological phases seem to emerge from this volume for the evolution of the transnational sphere in Europe until its deep crises and near collapse in the 1930s. The first phase, from the 1840s to the 1870s, represented ‘the encyclopaedic moment’, a term coined by Christian Müller, one of the contributors to this volume. During these decades, gentlemanly networks of experts were established through the international conferences that met with increasing frequency in West European capitals. As Chris Leonhards and Nico Randeraad underline in their contribution, social reform proved to be an issue of ­particular ­importance around which this transnational sphere crystallized. In the  1860s  and 1870s these networks tended to become more

8 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

­ rofessionalized, differentiated and organized as congresses took on more p permanent structures and international associations of experts came into being. This evolution is analysed by Christian Müller in his article on the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, founded in 1862, which propagated the internationalization of law. Martina Henze records parallel tendencies in her long-term analysis of the European penal reform movement. Similar chronological shifts can be found even in the case of the Jewish philanthropic organizations analysed by Tobias Brinkman. All four studies demonstrate the close relation between the general process of nationalization and the establishment of the transnational sphere; these two decades also saw the breakthrough of the national principle into European politics with the establishment of the Italian and German nation-states and the acceptance of Hungary and other East European nations as actors on the international stage. The second phase can be dated from the 1880s to the outbreak of the First World War and constituted the heyday of internationalism within the emerging transnational sphere. These decades witnessed the proliferation of new congresses and expert-gatherings and, concomitantly, of new transnational networks and associations. Anne Rasmussen has defined this period as the ‘organizational turning point’ (tournant organizateur) of the internationalist movement.43 The three leading forms of internationalism – political, juridical and humanitarian – were all affected, as was science with all its inherent intellectual practices. Within the humanitarian and juridical movements internationalism meant first and foremost the creation of an international society under the rule of law and supranational juridical institutions. Conferences at The Hague in 1899 and 1907 attempted to regulate this new international society, including the vexata quaestio of the international arbitration of conflicts, which was discussed at the 1907 conferences.44 In the realm of the sciences the turn of the century saw an explosion in the number of scientific international associations and an associated fall in the number of national associations with analogous purpose.45 The identification of a turning point in the period 1880–1914 is not based on the creation of new structures alone, but also reflects a number of organizational projects intended as models of cohesion for the entirety of human society. In 1911 Paul Otlet talked of this ‘era of globalization’ (l’ère de la mondialité).46 Internationalism was promoted as the universal model for a globalized society perceived as the peaceful gathering of all nations. The transnational association of national societies was an organizational principle, the fruit of the need to coordinate, unify, regulate and fight against the excesses of differentiation and their inherent disorder.47 At this time and in this context, school reform, analysed in this volume by Damiano Matasci, became a crucial issue for transnational experts in

Introduction | 9

all Europe, for it seemed to constitute a key issue both for the intellectual progress of modern society and as a way to ease tensions within and between national societies. During this second period the socialist Second International incarnated the inherent tensions of internationalist efforts in the realm of politics. The workers’ movement set up the International Socialist Bureau and the Interparliamentary Socialist Commission, which was organized into national delegations,48 but the socialist movement, and later the communist movement, also played a central role as a defining ‘other’ in the liberal internationalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the context of widespread discussion of the threat posed by the workers’ movement, workplace accidents, industrial hygiene and social insurance became the focus of experts who were active internationally and hoped to be able to solve or at least attenuate the so-called international ‘worker question’, as Julia Moses demonstrates in her contribution to this book. The influence of the ‘internationalist’ ideology was not felt in the labour movement alone; many other internationalist political movements also organized themselves during this second phase.49 Aspirations for world peace, to be attained by the creation of a world government or a federal structure of sovereign nations, could be encountered among circles of transnational experts that included the Fédération Internationale de la Libre-Pensée created in 1880, the first Zionist Congress, which took place in 1897, the first International Masonic Congress, held in 1889, and the first Internationalist Positivist Congress, in 1908. Among these universalist movements were also religious groupings that activated various collective forms of organization, such as the World’s Parliament of Religions that met in Chicago in 1893. As Vincent Viaene shows in his contribution, the ideas of international cooperation and progress and the proliferation of expert knowledge also affected the more conservative churches, including the Catholic Church. One of the embodiments of this period was the Annuaire de la Vie Internationale, the journal founded by Alfred Fried and his associates Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine in 1905, and published for the first time by the Institut International de Bibliographie and the Institut International de la Paix in 1908–9.50 In the introductory article of the issue entitled ‘La Science de l’Internationalisme’ Fried claimed that the newborn science of internationalism had international cooperation as its goal and was not opposed to nations and nationalism. Fried saw internationalism as the natural continuation and pinnacle of nationalism, its highest degree of social organization. Fried’s (liberal) internationalism, which antagonized nationalism as well as international socialism and communism, was a new form of regulation, the consequence of technological progress (machinisme) and

10 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

the product of civilization. In Fried’s view internationalism manifested itself in the institutionalization of organizations, either permanent or occasional (i.e. conferences, congresses, expositions, expeditions and scientific observations), that pursued a specific goal.51 In his article in the same issue Paul Otlet outlined a typology of the international organization that paid considerable attention to transnational networks of experts.52 In his view these networks and international associations did not on the whole lead ineluctably to the homogenization of international life; national elements could be both unified as well as juxtaposed with an international system. The third phase in the evolution of transnationalism started with the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War. With its numerous affiliated associations and official committees, the League brought a new and important dynamic into the transnational sphere, although most of these new institutions, like the International Labour Organization analysed by Sandrine Kott, were based on well-established networks of the pre-war era. As Dominique Marshall’s examination of the League of Nations’ Child Welfare Committee shows, arenas in which expert politics were at play often overlapped, creating a complex web of activities. This intense interconnectedness did not prevent internal and external rivalries. In their discussion of humanitarian actions carried out by relief organizations in Poland in the interwar period, Shaloma Gauthier, Francesca Piana and Davide Rodogno underline the marked tensions and diverging goals of different actors despite their shared practices, tactics and sometimes even ideologies. In addition to opening up new fields and creating new networks and institutions, the existence of the League also forced transnational actors who had been active before the war to adjust to a new environment. Katharina Rietzler describes how U.S. philanthropic organizations like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which in the years before 1914 had tried to ‘plug’ itself into existing peace movement networks in Europe, changed course markedly after the First World War to follow a more institutionalized approach that was in line with broader developments within international politics. Far from being historically homogenous, the interwar period was shaken at its core by the rise of totalitarian regimes during the 1930s that tore apart some of the well-established expert networks and institutions. The exclusion of many specialists for political or racial reasons, and not only in Germany, had greatly affected the work of various committees and institutions long before the League of Nations entered a period of hibernation during wartime. The deep transformations of the transnational sphere during the 1930s, the Second World War and the post-1945 period with its globalization during the process of decolonialization, which have been discussed by numerous historians,53 lie, however, beyond the scope of this book.

Introduction | 11

Nevertheless, a number of significant continuities concerning men and women, institutions and practices do exist between the interwar period and the post-1945 era. In the domains of social welfare, public health, agriculture and education, for instance, many experts of the postwar era had previous experiences in the colonial territories of their respective home countries.54 The example of the Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) of the League of Nations is a good case in point. Grounded in Article 22 of the League’s Covenant, it was comprised of individuals who were to oversee fourteen territories that were being administered by various mandatory powers, to ensure the ‘material and moral welfare’ of the local inhabitants. Chosen for their merit and former work experience, the experts on the PMC examined documents submitted both by the mandatory power and by the local inhabitants. When focusing on the background of these experts, it becomes evident that many of these individuals were in fact former colonial administrators and their nationality played into their selection.55 Another example is that of U.S. philanthropic organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation or the Near East Relief. These institutions hired agricultural, social welfare and other educational experts who had a previous experience in the Philippines to carry out surveys, write reports and recommend the most adequate policies to be enforced in the countries where they operated. Some other experts had been working within the United States as experts of ‘negro education’ in domestic ‘under-developed’ areas of the country, such as the Mississippi area.56 However, such continuities in the men and women who undertook humanitarian, social and public health, and educational programmes, which bridge the aftermath of the First World War and the interwar period with the Second World War and its aftermath are not yet well studied. The transition of personnel from the League of Nations to the United Nations, the persistence of practices forged during the interwar period, including the role of technical assistance,57 as well as visions of the organization’s future, such as the Bruce Report (mentioned in Dominique Marshall’s chapter) provide an interesting field for future research.58 In this respect, the Second World War cannot be deemed as the mere turning point that transformed the transnational sphere. The UN and even the present-day EU were not entirely invented after 1945 and most recent research on the ECSC, EEC/EC/EU has highlighted strong continuities in transnational ‘governance’ across the Second World War as in the case of the actual cartel policies of the ECSC as opposed to the ‘Americanization’ of the treaty and especially its institutional and anti-cartel provisions. For all these reasons the question of continuities versus discontinuities between the interwar period and the post-1945 period remains an open question.

12 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

Experts Against this chronological background, the contributions to this collection explore the shaping of the transnational sphere around three thematic axes: actors, organizations, and issues of social reform. The first four chapters are grouped to reflect their focus on the experts themselves. The majority of nineteenth-century transnational experts were members of the academically trained modern professions, often lawyers, physicians or statisticians. The expertise of participants from other social backgrounds might be based on practical knowledge; some were selfappointed experts. Some contributors to transnational conversations had a governmental mandate or an official position in the administration; others tried to influence the policy of the state from within the public sphere. Experts could participate in international gatherings in a range of guises,59 as defender of the interests of a particular profession or religious congregation, as an ordinary citizen, or as an agent working either against or for a national government, or as a civil servant of an international organization. In some cases, the earlier involvement of an expert in a specific transnational network resulted in that expert’s appointment to an intergovernmental organization.60 The growth of the modern state, the spread of the model of academic professions and the increasing importance that science played in public life during the nineteenth century helped experts to acquire a social status and broad public recognition that they had lacked during preceding centuries.61 In this context, the broad transnational networks and contacts that these new elites established during the second half of the nineteenth century were central to their ambitions to become a key component in a general movement of the progress of science.62 The comparison of examples from various nations and the discussion of international ‘best practice’ were intrinsic elements of an identity that helped experts to legitimize their position within a specific national context. The chapters in the first section of this book demonstrate the means adopted by expert actors to differentiate themselves from the old elites  that  up until the First World War had largely dominated European  society and  international affairs.63 One underlying question concerns how experts challenged (or worked alongside) pre-existing forms of transnational exchange established by monarchical regimes, nobility and churches during the early modern period. Several authors acknowledge the contribution of scientific exchange and political collaboration by bourgeois experts to the increasing significance of the nation as a conceptual framework of knowledge in Europe and beyond.64 By focusing on the transnational networks of bourgeois reform experts,

Introduction | 13

however, the book sheds new light on the view frequently encountered in recent historiography that the European bourgeoisie were mere agents of nationalization.

Networks Networks did not suddenly appear as a new form of social organization after 1800. Before the nineteenth century, networks had provided channels for personal interaction and reciprocal support, as could be found, for example, in charities, philanthropic circles or societies. From the 1840s, however, their form, scope and composition proved very different, shaping and shaped by their new transnational context. The second section of the book considers both institutionalized forms of cooperation and less formalized means of transnational exchange between reformers, such as international congresses. The term network is applied here as an analytical tool to conceptualize relationships within and between institutions and organizations. Networks are often idealized as egalitarian or flat forms of organization and are distinct from hierarchies since, in theory, they lack an ultimate arbiter. Networks are considered to be a set of interconnected nodes65 and flexible, adaptive structures that can expand to incorporate new nodes by reconfiguring themselves. Most contributions to this volume map the nodal points of a network or networks while bearing in mind Charles Maier’s observation that the nation is one of the nodes that operates upon transnational networks, which it distorts in the process.66 Like Ian Tyrrell, the contributions in this section recognize the role of networks as both sites and conduits of power.67 A network amplifies and disseminates ideas to an extent that could not be achieved by individuals or institutions alone. Moreover, a network confers legitimacy and pools authority and legitimacy for its members. The attributes of the network explain why experts who tried to influence and change domestic and international policies gathered together. A number of contributions to this volume emphasize the often close ­connections between the activities of expert networks and existing national governments. Moreover, in many cases the line between state apparatus and transnational network was not clearly drawn. Transnational networks of experts were never completely independent of national governments. The attention devoted by the authors to the social origins of members of a transnational network of experts illuminates possible common denominators among the members of a given group. Some authors also shed light on the changing role of gender relations in the second half of the

14 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

nineteenth century and the early twentieth century as female participation in public politics and official life grew. Gender influenced the professional habits of the actors, underpinning a substantial difference between almost exclusively male national representatives and the broader transnational public sphere.

Issues The chapters in the third part of the book examine the changing ‘economy of public interest’ (Georg Franck) though their focus on particular topics of social reform that brought experts together and justified public action across borders.68 Issues such as the reform of public education and of the school system incited non-state actors and experts to federate transnationally even though they might have differed substantially on the concrete policies that could result. Consequently, transnational actors became experts in given fields of action and set up transnational epistemic communities in areas such as school reform and humanitarian relief. By the second half of the nineteenth century, such issues were increasingly perceived as general problems of modern society that were beyond the capacity of individual states; governments seemed unwilling or unable to tackle them. As a result, civil societies seized the responsibility and initiative to cooperate transnationally. Against the backdrop of the changing faces of war, for example, the transnational sphere engaged significantly in international humanitarian relief, which developed around the international Red Cross movement in the 1860s.69 But no single key could mobilize transnational civil society for a longer time. A constellation of factors that included both the media and pressure groups shaped contemporaries’ perceptions of societal problems and the needs for social reform. The willingness or unwillingness of nation-states and policymakers to appropriate particular fields of action often determined how reform agendas were dealt with on a transnational level. This section focuses on the changing factors of transnational mobilization that pushed specific issues in the fore of public debates on social reforms in different times. It will therefore help to understand the sometimes volatile aspects of the transnational sphere and its collective actions, which were driven by other dynamics than just the professional interests or the social status of its members.70 Adding a historical dimension to the ongoing debates, the different contributions of this book will thus allow for a better understanding of the complex transnational public sphere today, in which the processes of political, administrative and judicial decision making in international

Introduction | 15

organizations are connected with national parliaments, organized civil society, the mass media and the internet, and hence with the stakeholders of global governance.

Notes 1. L. Lima, ‘Note Critique. Les Frontières de l’Expertise’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 126(1) (2009): 149–55. 2. D.T. Rogers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Boston 1999). See also the broad discussion of the book in the review symposium organized by the internet list H-SHGAPE, 3 Nov 1999 to 4 Nov 1999 – Special issue (1999–89), at: http://www.h-net. org/~shgape/disclist/rodgers.html [12 Jul 2012]. 3. T. Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History (New York 2006); S. Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Munich 2006). 4. P. Drucker, The Future of Industrial Man (New York 1965); D. Bell, The Coming of PostIndustrial Society (New York 1973, foreword 1999); N. Stehr and R. Ericson, ‘The Culture and Power of Knowledge in Modern Societies’ in Stehr and Ericson, The Culture and Power of Knowledge: Inquiries into Contemporary Societies (Berlin 1992), 3–19. For a historical critique of this discourse see J. Vogel, ‘Von der Wissenschafts- zur Wissensgeschichte. Für eine Historisierung der “Wissensgesellschaft”’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 30 (2004): 639–60. 5. P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux’, Genèses 57(4) (2004): 110–26. 6. Soft power refers to the ability to obtain what one wants through persuasion or cooption. The phrase was coined by Joseph Nye in the 1990 book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power and further developed in his Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, published in 2004. Soft power stands in contrast to hard power, which refers to the use of coercion or force. In international relations, soft power is wielded by states as well as non-state actors, including international organizations (governmental and non-governmental). On the importance of soft power and the role of non-state actors in international politics see A. Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley 2002), 2–3. For a different, more nuanced, view see M. Herren, Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung (Darmstadt 2009), 8–11. 7. Patricia Clavin has written, ‘Transnational connections need to be separated out from the attempt to dominate, on the one hand, and the will and ability to resist, on the other’ (‘Introduction: Conceptualising Internationalism between the World Wars’, in Internationalism Reconfigured: Transnational Ideas and Movements between the World Wars, ed. D. Laqua [London 2011], 4). 8. The expression ‘corps de savoirs et de savoir-faire’ is borrowed from historian Eric Brian; see full reference in the next footnote. 9. E. Brian, ‘Transactions statistiques au XIXe siècle. Mouvements internationaux de  ­capitaux symboliques’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 145 (2002): 34–46, at 39. 10. Ibid., 39.

16 | Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel

11. For a detailed discussion of cross-national history, see D. Cohen and M. O’Connor (eds), Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective (New York 2004). 12. M. Geyer and J. Paulmann (eds), The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford 2001); M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA 1865–1914 (Munich 2000). 13. M. Hroch, Das Europa der Nationen. Die moderne Nationsbildung im europäischen Vergleich (Göttingen 2005); E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge 1990). 14. A. Rasmussen, ‘Les Congrès internationaux liés aux Expositions universelles de Paris (1867–1900)’, Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 7 (1989): 23–44. 15. J. Osterhammel and N.P. Petersson, Geschichte der Globalisierung. Dimensionen, Prozesse, Epochen (Munich 2003), 50–55, 60–63; C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780– 1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden and Oxford 2004), 312–22; C.S. Maier, ‘Transformations of Territoriality, 1600–2000’ in Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien, eds G. Budde, S. Conrad and O. Janz (Göttingen 2006), 32–55, at 37 and 42. 16. H. Anheier, M. Glasius and M. Kaldor, ‘Introducing Global Civil Society’ in Global Civil Society 2001, eds Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor (Oxford 2001). For a critical view of the concept see L. Amoore and P. Langley, ‘Ambiguities of Global Civil Society’, Review of International Studies 30 (2004): 489–510; T. Davies, ‘The Rise and Fall of Transnational Civil Society’ (paper, Thirty-first Annual Conference of the British International Studies Association, Cork, 2006); A. Drainville, ‘The Fetishism of Global Civil Society: Global Governance, Transnational Urbanism and Sustainable Capitalism in the World Economy’ in Transnationalism from Below, eds M.P. Smith and L.E. Guarnizo (London 1998); B. Pouligny, ‘Acteurs et enjeux d’un processus équivoque: la naissance d’une “internationale civile”’, Critique Internationale 10(13) (2001): 160–76; J. Siméant, ‘Des mouvements sociaux et globaux. Sur les mouvements sociaux transnationaux dans quelques ouvrages récents’ (paper, 8e Congrès de l’Association Française de Science Politique (AFSP), 15–18 Sep. 2005). Further works on transnational networks that also hint, directly or indirectly, at the concept of a ‘global civil society’ are M. Keck and K.  Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca 1998); S. Khagram, J.V. Riker and K. Sikkink (eds), Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Society Movements, Networks, and Norms (Minneapolis 2002); I.K. Richter, S. Berking and R. Müller-Schmid (eds), Building a Transnational Civil Society: Global Issues and Global Actors (Basingstoke 2007); M. Shaw, ‘Civil Society and Global Politics: Beyond a Social Movement Approach’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 23(3) (1994): 647–67; J. Smith, Social Movements for Global Democracy (Baltimore 2008); N. Srinivas, Against Non-Governmental Organizations? A Critical Perspective on their Management (London 2011); S. Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (Cambridge 2005). 17. Iriye, Global Community, 9–36; Bayly, Birth of the Modern World, 237. Bayly states the ‘paradox’ that the nineteenth century saw both ‘the triumph of the nation-state . . . and the plethora of voluntary associations, reform societies, and moral crusades, now increasingly organized at both a national and an international level’ (ibid., 243). 18. Clavin, ‘Introduction: Conceptualising Internationalism’, 3. 19. D. van Laak, ‘Detours around Africa: The Connection between Developing Colonies and Integrating Europe’ in Materializing Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe, eds A. Badenoch and A. Fickers (Basingstoke 2010), 27–43; V. Lipphardt, ‘Knowing Europe, Europeanising Knowledge: The Making of “Homo Europaeus” in

Introduction | 17

the Life Sciences’ in Europeanization in the Twentieth Century: Historical Approaches, eds M. Conway and K.K. Patel (London 2010), 64–83; P. Overath and P. Krassnitzer (eds), Bevölkerungsfragen. Prozesse des Wissenstransfers in Deutschland und Frankreich (1870– 1939) (Cologne 2007). 20. S. Kesper-Biermann and P. Overath (eds), Die Internationalisierung von Strafrechtswissenschaft und Kriminalpolitik (1870–1930). Deutschland im Vergleich (Berlin 2007); J. Dülffer, ‘Efforts to Reform the International System and Peace Movements before 1914’, Peace & Change 14 (1989): 25–45; J. Fisch, ‘Internationalizing Civilisation by Dissolving International Society: The Status of Non-European Territories in ­Nineteenth-Century International Law’ in Geyer and Paulmann, Mechanics of Internationalism, 235–59. 21. M. Donald, ‘Workers of the World Unite? Exploring the Enigma of the Second International’ in Geyer and Paulmann, Mechanics of Internationalism, 177–205; S.-L. Hoffmann, Politics of Sociability: Freemasonry and German Civil Society 1840–1918 (Ann Arbor 2007); S.-L. Hoffmann, Civil Society, 1750–1914 (Basingstoke 2006). 22. See for instance, for the example of the international sanitary conferences, V. Huber, ‘Unification of the Globe by Disease? The International Sanitary Conferences on Cholera, 1851 to 1894’, Historical Journal 49(2) (2006): 453–76. 23. M. Herren, ‘“Outwardly . . . an Innocuous Conference Authority”: National Socialism and the Logistics of International Information Management’, German History 20(1) (2002): 70. 24. Overath and Krassnitzer, Bevölkerungsfragen. 25. M. Deflem, ‘The Logic of Nazification: The Case of the International Criminal Police Commission (“Interpol”)’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology 43(32) (2002): 21–44; Herren, ‘“Outwardly . . . an Innocuous Conference Authority”’, 67–92. 26. M. Schroer, Räume, Orte, Grenzen. Auf dem Weg zu einer Soziologie des Raums (Frankfurt am Main 2006), 189–222. 27. P. Clavin, ‘Introduction: Defining Transnationalism’, Contemporary European History 14(4) (2005): 421–39, esp. 433. 28. R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, ‘Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction’, International Organization 25 (1971): 329–49; and R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye (eds), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA 1981). See also T. Risse-Kappen (ed.), Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Relations (Cambridge 1995). 29. M.-L. Djelic and S. Quack, Transnational Communities Shaping Global Economic Governance (Cambridge 2010). For a persuasive and exhaustive review of their book see P. Grosser, ‘Les communautés dans la gouvernance mondiale’, La Vie des idées 31 (Jan. 2011). http:// www.laviedesidees.fr/Les-communautes-dans-la.html. 30. R. Aron, Paix et guerre entre les Nations (Paris 1962, Calmann-Lévy edition, 1984), 122. R.  Aron, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une théorie des relations internationales?’ Revue Française de Science Politique 17(5) (1967): 837–61, at 849: ‘La société transnationale (ou transétatique) serait la véritable société internationale que les organisations supranationales réglementeraient progressivement, la compétition militaire entre les Etats perdant peu à peu de sa virulence et de sa portée. Je souhaite qu’il en soit ainsi demain.’ 31. T. Faist and E. Özveren, Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks  and  Institutions (Ashgate 2004); S. Batliwala and L.D. Brown, Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction (Bloomfield, CT 2006); C.-C. Lai (ed.), Adam Smith across Nations: Translations and Receptions of The Wealth of Nations (Oxford 2000); M. van der Linden, Transnational Labour History: Explorations (Ashgate 2002); I. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire: The

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Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill 1991); C. Charle, J. Schriewer and P. Wagner (eds), Transnational Intellectual Networks: Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities (Frankfurt am Main 2004). 32. See the inspirational synthesis of these approaches in A. Iriye and P.-Y. Saunier (eds), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the Mid-19th Century to the Present  Day  (Basingstoke 2009). See also Bayly, Birth of the Modern World; J. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich 2009); and M. Middell, ‘Kulturtransfer und transnationale Geschichte’ in Dimensionen der Kultur- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für Hannes Siegrist, ed. Middell (Leipzig 2007), 49–69. 33. K.K. Patel, Transnational as a Perspective: A View from and despite Florence, http:// www.transnationalhistory.com/discussion.aspx?id=1740 (accessed 18 Dec. 2010). According to Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, the editors/authors of the Palgrave dictionary, transnational history is a specific historical perspective. Kiran Klaus Patel wonders if the community of transnational historians agree with that interpretation. So far, many in the field would rather define transnational history as a level of research, a method, or maybe even a paradigm. Patel adheres to the Palgrave dictionary definition of the transnational as a perspective establishing a relationship between the historian and the past. See also K.K. Patel, Nach der Nationalfixiertheit. Perspektiven einer transnationalen Geschichte (Berlin 2004). 34. M. Espagne, Les transferts culturels franco-allemands (Paris 1999); M. Werner and B. Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparision: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory 45 (2006): 30–50; M. Werner and B. Zimmermann (eds), De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée (Paris 2004). 35. M. Middell and K. Naumann, ‘Global History and the Spatial Turn: From the Impact of Area Studies to the Study of Critical Junctures of Globalization’, Journal of Global History 5 (2010): 149–70. 36. Clavin, ‘Introduction: Defining Transnationalism’, 31. 37. Saunier, ‘Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux’, 110–26. 38. P.M. Haas, ‘Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination’, International Organization 46(1) (1992): 1–35. 39. For a critical analysis of the concept of epistemic communities, see Y. Viltard, ‘L’étrange carrière du concept d’épistémè en science politique’, Raisons politiques 23 (2006): ­195–201; S. Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des politiques sociales dans l’entre-deux-guerres’, Genèses 71 (2008): 26–46. 40. This classic vision of the nineteenth century, very common in most historical narratives, has been nuanced lately by the recognition that numerous so-called nationstates were indeed multinational empires. See, among others, J. Leonhard and U. von Hirschhausen, Empires und Nationalstaaten im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen 2009). 41. For the twentieth century, see G.-R. Horn and P. Kenney (eds), Transnational Moments of Change: Europe 1945, 1968, 1989 (Lanham, MD 2004). 42. A. Carneiro, A.Simoes and M.P. Diogo, ‘Enlightenment Science in Portugal: The Estrangeirados and their Communication Networks’, Social Studies of Science 30(4) (2000): 591–619, at 593; R. van Dülmen, The Society of the Enlightenment: The Rise of the Middle Class and Enlightenment Culture in Germany (Cambridge 1992); K. Raj and M. Terrall (eds), ‘Circulation and Locality’, special issue of The British Journal for the  History  of Science 43 (2010); D. Roche, Les circulations dans l’Europe moderne (Paris 2011).

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43. A. Rasmussen, ‘Tournant, inflexions, ruptures: le moment internationaliste’ in ‘Y a-t-il des tournants historiques? 1905 et le nationalisme’, special issue of Mil Neuf Cent. Revue d’Histoire Intellectuelle 19(1) (2001): 27–41. 44. J. Dülffer, Regeln gegen den Krieg? Die Haager Friedenskonferenzen 1899 und 1907 in der internationalen Politik (Frankfurt 1981). 45. E. Fuchs, ‘The Politics of the Republic of Learning: Intellectual Scientific Congresses in Europe, the Pacific Rim, and Latin America’ in Across Cultural Borders: Historiography in Global Perspective, eds E. Fuchs and B. Stuchtey (Boulder 2002), 205–44. 46. P. Otlet, ‘L’Union des Associations Internationales et la constitution d’un Centre International’, Annuaire de la Vie Internationale, 1910–1911 (Brussels 1911), 29–63, at 29. 47. Rasmussen, ‘Tournant, inflexions, ruptures’, 36. 48. G. Candar, ‘Socialisme, nationalisme et tournant’, Mil Neuf Cent. Revue d’Histoire Intellectuelle 19(1) (2001): 97–108. 49. Geyer and Paulmann, Mechanics of Internationalism. 50. Annuaire de la Vie Internationale 1908–1909 (Brussels 1909). 51. A. Fried, ‘La Science de l’Internationalisme’, Annuaire (1909): 23–28. 52. P. Otlet, ‘L’Organisation Internationale et les Associations Internationales’, Annuaire, (1909): 28–165; Donald, ‘Workers of the World Unite?’. 53. See, for instance, Irye, Global Community; Herren, Internationale Organisationen; G.-Horn and Kenney (eds.), Transnational Moments of Chance. 54. See, for instance, ‘Modernizing Missions: Approaches to “Developing” the NonWestern World after 1945’, special issue of Journal of Modern European History 8 (2010), edited by A. Eckert, S. Malinowski and C.R. Unger. 55. Joseph M. Hodge, ‘British Colonial Expertise, Post-Colonial Careering and the Early History of International Development’, 24–46; and his monograph, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH 2007). 56. D. Rodogno, From Relief to Rehabilitation: The Near East Relief’s Humanitarian Programs during the Interwar Period, unpublished paper presented at the New York University, Remarque Institute, on 12 Mar. 2012. 57. D. Webster, ‘Development Advisors in a Time of Cold War and Decolonization: The United Nations Technical Assistance Administration, 1950–59’, Journal of Global History 6 (2011), 249–72. 58. M. Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations, (Princeton 2009). 59. See, for instance, the examples related in the article by Chris Leonhards and Nico Randeraad in this book. 60. See, for instance, the articles by Sandrine Kott and Dominique Marshall. 61. B. Belhoste, La formation d’une technocratie. L’Ecole polytechnique et ses élèves de la Révolution au Second Empire (Paris 2003); N. and J. Dhombres, Naissance d’un nouveau pouvoir: ­sciences et savants en France 1793–1824 (Paris 1989). 62. A. Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert. Bürgerliche Kultur, ­naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, 1848–1914 (2nd edn, Munich 2002). 63. A.J. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (New York 1981); J. Paulmann, Pomp und Politik: Monarchenbegegnungen in Europa zwischen Ancien Régime und Erstem Weltkrieg (Paderborn 2000). 64. From the mid nineteenth century the ‘nation’ with its supposed historical, geographical, political and social dimensions became the main frame for the interpretation of history,

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natural space, politics and society. R. Jessen and J. Vogel (eds), Wissenschaft und Nation in der europäischen Geschichte (Frankfurt am Main 2002). 65. M. Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (1996, 2nd edn, Cambridge, MA 2000). 66. C.S. Maier, Reflections on Transnational History, Forum edited by K.H. Jaraush, posted on 23 Jan. 2006, http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-german&m onth=0601&week=d&msg=fz4or79bUjZXO9rM/LT0ZQ&user=&pw (accessed 17 Jan. 2011). 67. I. Tyrrell, ‘Reflections on the Transnational Turn in United States History: Theory and Practice’, Journal of Global History 4 (2009): 453–74, at 467. 68. G. Frank, Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit. Ein Entwurf (Munich 1998). 69. D. Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire ­1815–1914 (Princeton 2012). 70. For the role of issues as federators of public action see, among others, D. Cefai and D. Trom (eds), Les formes de l’action collective. Mobilisations dans des arènes publiques (Paris 2001); P. Laborier and D. Trom (eds), Historicité de l’action publique (Paris 2003); L.  Thévenot, ‘L’action comme engagement’ in L’analyse de la singularité d’action, ed. J.-M. Barbier (Paris 2000), 213–38.

Part I Experts

(

Chapter 1

Professionalism or Proselytism? Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century

( Vincent Viaene

Introduction: An Unusual Type of Transnational Expert Maria Droste zu Vischering was an enfant terrible, who was happier in the fields of her native Münsterland on horseback or in a fight with boys than among her dolls or in the parlour;1 ‘My wild girl’, her maternal granduncle Wilhelm-Emmanuel von Ketteler affectionately called her. He was a well-known bishop, the patron of social Catholicism in Germany. The other famous bishop in her family was her paternal great grand-uncle, Clemens-August Droste zu Vischering (the son of her favourite uncle, Ferdinand von Galen, who himself would later in turn become a famous bishop under the Third Reich, was named after him). His imprisonment in 1837 by the Prussian government – due to a conflict over ‘mixed marriages’ between Catholics and Protestants – caused an outcry among the faithful in Western Europe. It was the first time political Catholicism and the Catholic press mobilized a transnational campaign encouraged by the pope – and a successful one too. In contrast, when Maria was in her teens, Catholics in Europe and the Americas mounted a much larger ‘relief operation’ to assist their German co-religionists in their Kulturkampf. The string of government discriminations, expulsions and clandestine acts of resistance left a deep impression on the girl, and broadened her horizons. She followed her father to Berlin, where he participated in the debates on the May laws as a member of the Reichstag. When her sister had to continue her education in Paris after the nuns of her boarding school were expelled from Germany, the family brought her there and participated Notes for this chapter begin on page 41

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in the consecration of the basilica at Montmartre, which was intended to expiate the sins of the French Revolution. Maria herself went to school in Austria, like her brothers. Some historians have claimed that Bismarck essentially succeeded in his aim of nationalizing German Catholicism.2 Much evidence suggests, in contrast, that the Kulturkampf was the high-water mark of its internationalization or ‘Romanization’, perhaps nowhere more so than in the Rhineland and Westphalia, regions bordering on the Low Countries, a sluice of influences from further west or from the south. The culture of Catholic revival took over Germany.3 In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, its sacrificial ethos, originating in France and answering to a revolutionary trauma that was nowhere felt more acutely, established itself as the spiritual grammar of modern Catholicism in Europe, against a background of turmoil in Church and State. Its devotional ABC of gripping emotional icons travelled easily, even if it was subject to local adaptations.4 The Virgin Mary appeared in Marpingen much as she had done in La Salette or Lourdes; her statue replaced a baroque one of Hercules in the fountain adorning the garden of the Droste castle. But it was above all the Sacred Heart that came to enthral the young Maria and clinched her vocation. The cult had been invented in France and Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Around the year 1800, it had become a powerful counter-revolutionary symbol, a rallying cry in the peasant wars of the Vendée, Tirol and Calabria against the French invader.5 Now it found a new home in Westphalia (a region known as ‘Germany’s Brittany’) as it also did in Flanders, on the North American frontier, in Ecuador and in Uganda. The Jesuits were the great promoters of the cult, and if only she had been a man, Maria wrote after a fundraising rally by Jesuit missionaries from the Zambezi, she would have joined that order. She contemplated the Scandinavian mission of the Saint Joseph Sisters and even visited their hospital in Copenhagen, but her weak lungs prevented her from joining them, much to her chagrin. In the middle of these spiritual doldrums, her family went to Rome for the great papal Jubilee of 1888. Her father was part of the German delegation and her brothers added lustre to the ceremonies and festivities as members of the Vatican court, a body reinvented by Leo XIII as the hub of a transnational Catholic elite: on major occasions like these, the Drostes were called upon to perform, parading down Vatican hallways alongside the French industrialist, the Dutch banker or the American philanthropist, all similarly dressed up as seventeenth-century cavalieri. The family also visited the Vatican Exhibition, a Catholic equivalent of the World Fair, which much like the Jubilee was a religious version of the ‘royal cosmopolitanism’ typical of the Belle Époque.6 In the show, which

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took up two dozen rooms of the palace, nations and regions competed to display modern Catholic know-how in the arts and in science, industry and charity.7 Not long after the Jubilee, Maria made up her mind and chose to join a congregation that enjoyed particular papal favour: the Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd, more commonly known as Bon Pasteur. It was one of over four hundred new women’s congregations founded (or re-founded) in France in the nineteenth century.8 While many of these remained local affairs, others mushroomed into large transnational enterprises, and few did so more spectacularly than Bon Pasteur. Founded in 1829, in the provincial backwater of Angers by a doctor’s daughter from the Vendée, the congregation counted 110 houses across five continents by the time of her death in 1868. It owed much of its success to its ‘special’ vocation: the re-education of prostitutes, of girls considered vulnerable to being ‘caught up’ in networks of ‘white slavery’ and, more generally, of (juvenile) female delinquents. Very soon, its services were much in demand by local elites, national governments and colonial rulers. In this highly specialized transnational body, Maria Droste swore obedience to a French sister-general of humble descent. After a few years in Münster she became the superior of the Bon Pasteur-house in Porto, where she led a congregation of German, French and Portuguese sisters, as well as the school for local girls of marginal backgrounds and juvenile delinquents. In a sense, the move to the Iberian peninsula was a spiritual homecoming for Maria, an avid fan of Theresa of Avila. In other respects, she considered herself a missionary in a hostile population lapsed into ‘paganism’, much like the Jesuits from the Zambezi who once fired her imagination. Along with the Sacred Heart and the Christmas tree, she attempted to introduce German organizational Gründlichkeit and the work ethic of industrial Western Europe to her adopted home. She was highly successful, at any rate, in realizing large financial transfers from the close-knit milieu of the Westphalian Catholic aristocracy, saving the indebted Porto convent from ruin. From a spiritual and mystical point of view, Maria stylized her life as one of self-sacrifice to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in line with the revivalist canon. Ill health and nervous exhaustion helped her to excel in suffering. In 1898, towards the end of her life, she started to hear voices. She duly sent these dictations from on high to Rome, where they did not pass unnoticed. They strengthened Leo XIII’s resolve to consecrate the whole world to the Sacred Heart in 1899 – a striking instance of ‘global consciousness’ on the eve of the new century.9 The story of Maria Droste zu Vischering offers a window onto the cluster of overlapping networks that constituted the Catholic International. More particularly, looking at her though the lens of this book project, she

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may be said to have moved between networks of elites and a network of ‘experts’, from one end of Europe to the other, engaging in different forms of ‘cultural transfer’. While, on one level, her experience seems very much part of the concerns at the heart of this volume, on another, it is clearly eccentric among the more secular ones of philanthropists, lawyers, engineers or pedagogues. Maria herself would no doubt have been puzzled by the label of ‘expert’: in her own eyes, if anything, she was a dilettante, an amateur of sacred love. Her life was about Christianizing modern society and converting the world, not about gathering and testing knowledge on the basis of shared causal assumptions. Shrouding their (genuine) expertise in the language of proselytism, consecrated persons like Maria often condemned themselves to invisibility in the world of internationalism.

The Historiographical Problem The problem of low visibility extends itself to scholarship on internationalism. The reflections of social scientists on global civil society have long ignored religion, often because it did not really fit their preconceptions about what a public sphere should look like. Also, it did not matter anyway, because religion was supposed to be on the decline. Even with the reaffirmation of organized religion over the last quarter century as a force to be reckoned with, its ineluctable presence has predominantly been construed as a challenge or a problem, if not an embarrassment.10 The strong focus on fundamentalism is telling in this respect. Social scientists show themselves prone to fall into the trap of approaching religion as a doctor would cholesterol: the point of the exercise now seems to be separating ‘good religion’ from ‘bad religion’ for the international body politic, as measured by the yardstick of liberalism.11 In truth, it should be added that over the last couple of years, a more open-ended concept of civil society is emerging, which considers world religions as one among the contending forces of opinion that are shaping it from within rather than from without.12 Historians of internationalism have generally been more prudent than social scientists, but also more prudish, skirting their way around religion or lifting at most the tip of the veil. The venerable F.S.L. Lyons, founding father of the historiography on the subject, took a very broad view of internationalism, writing that it was ‘virtually all-embracing in its scope and that almost nothing human was alien to it’.13 In consequence, his bracing synthesis, which ranged from economics through the Socialist International and the great humanitarian campaigns to the peace

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­ ovement, could not but accommodate religion. Curiously, it was in fact m taken together with most of the networks this volume is concerned with, under the heading ‘mental and spiritual life’. In practice, however, Lyons’s discussion of religious internationalism was perfunctory, and focused on the Protestant ecumenism that was obviously close to his heart.14 In their seminal Mechanics of Internationalism, Martin Geyer, Johannes Paulmann and Peter Wende provide what is arguably the most precise and practical definition of internationalism so far: ‘political and social movements trying to create international identities and to reform society and politics by way of transnational cooperation, and the process of internationalizing cultural, political and economic practices’.15 Transnational religious organizations like some Catholic congregations combined both roles, aiming at social (and eventually political) reform, and engaging in large-scale operations of cultural transfer. Nor are examples from other creeds lacking, such as the Protestant Salvation Army, Islamic Sufi orders or Jewish philanthropic networks.16 It is no wonder that the editors regret the absence of religion from their volume. The most eminent historian of ‘global community’ today is no doubt Akira Iriye. He defines internationalism commonsensically, if broadly, as ‘the idea that nations and peoples should cooperate instead of preoccupying themselves with their respective national interests or pursuing uncoordinated approaches to them’.17 Again, religious institutions would seem to fit the bill, but Iriye excludes them on the ground that, unlike ‘true’ NGOs, they would not be voluntary. The criterion is debatable because modern world religions tend to be marked by a high degree of voluntarism; in any case, Iriye himself introduces a note of ambiguity by allowing for the ‘secular’ activities religious bodies engage in (like humanitarian relief and cultural exchange). He is honest enough to admit that the distinction is a ‘tenuous’ one.18 Integrating the religious factor into the history of internationalism will not be an easy exercise. There is a danger of making the subject unmanageable, or at least of blurring the focus and comparing apples with pears. There is also the danger of doing violence to the distinctiveness of religion by forcing it into the internationalist paradigm. In my view, these risks are outweighed by the promises of cross-fertilization. It seems obvious, for instance, that some of the penitentiary reformers figuring prominently in this book had at least as much in common with the Bon Pasteur sisters as with some other ‘secular’ experts such as forest engineers or international lawyers. For historians of religion, this is an opportunity to get out of the (often self-imposed) ghetto of their sub-discipline. Historians of internationalism, too, stand to gain rather than to lose from overcoming their timidity of an unfamiliar subject and perhaps their liberal assumptions.19

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Consider the sheer numbers, to begin with. At the end of the nineteenth century, in Europe alone, Catholic orders and congregations like the Bon Pasteur, the large majority of them transnational, totalled almost half a million members in thirty thousand convents.20 The Salvation Army, to give a comparable Protestant example, counted nine thousand stations and almost a thousand philanthropic institutions around the world on the eve of the First World War.21 The challenge is not only an enlargement of scale in the history of internationalism, but also, and perhaps more importantly, a broadening of its scope. Bringing religion back in may mitigate, in particular, the gender and class limitations inherent in the study of nineteenth-century networks of experts. Before the rise of the women’s movement at the end of the century, congregations like the Bon Pasteur (or their Protestant equivalents) opened a unique channel of transnational social engagement: almost two-thirds of the half million European religious I just mentioned were women, and with about three times as many houses as the men, they were much thicker on the ground. They not only played key roles in the penitential world, but also in education and health care. Most religious were recruited from the middle and lower classes. There is no need to be overly romantic about sister- and brotherhood within congregations. If they offered social mobility to talent and were thus essentially meritocratic, they also reproduced the social hierarchy of bourgeois society. Nevertheless, they did engage women and men who were not members of the elite in transnational networks accumulating and exchanging various kinds of social know-how.22

Rome and the Papacy: The X-factor of Catholic Expertise The nineteenth century has gone down as an age of ultramontanism. The most conspicuous effort of the Catholic International after 1850 was undoubtedly the massive mobilization for the pope in the Roman Question, which involved a brigade of military volunteers, mass petitions, large-scale fund-raising rallies, meetings, street manifestations, press campaigns and, a bit later, the papal Jubilees we have already encountered.23 This was one of the great international movements of the nineteenth century (curiously overlooked by F.S.L. Lyons), but it was a classic political campaign. Apart from Catholic international lawyers, whose writings on the Roman Question verged on propaganda, it involved no ‘experts’ and does not concern us here, save as an important political background factor. We are also not concerned here with purely ‘scientific’ (mostly theological or philosophical) networks of Catholic scholars. By the same token, the beehive of ‘periti’, or theological advisors, at the First Vatican

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Council of 1870 – one of the few instances where ‘experts’ were explicitly designated as such in the nineteenth-century Catholic International – falls outside of our scope. The focus of our interest within the framework of this volume is the ‘expertise’ (or rather the know-how) in Catholic transnational networks or organizations pursuing social reform or involved in policy making. In terms of the typology outlined in the introduction, the institutions reviewed here generally wore a double hat of (social) expertise and (religious) advocacy. They constituted the bedrock of the Catholic International. First of all, there were the orders and congregations about which I have already said quite a bit, but to which I need to return in a more comprehensive way because they really were the central pieces of the nineteenth-century puzzle. Second, there were philanthropic or ‘charitable’ networks of laymen. Third, religious and lay elements combined in the overseas mission movement. Before presenting these three categories, however, a word is in order about Rome as a nerve centre of Catholic ‘circulatory regimes’. A magnet of pilgrimage, the city was the transnational fulcrum of Catholic elites.24 We have already seen how the papal court was internationalized at the end of the nineteenth century: from being two-thirds Italian in 1870, its composition became two-thirds non-Italian by 1900.25 The show at the court was embedded in a web of salons run by wealthy Romans and diplomatic representatives or other foreigners (mainly aristocrats). Naturally, the ‘expertise’ displayed there is not the one on our minds now, but these transnational circles of elites were relevant in so far as they buttressed the bodies discussed below, whether by providing a recruiting ground for the upper echelons or a financial fishing pond. Rome, of course, was also the place from where Catholicism was led. The paradox of the Catholic International is that it was governed by a sovereign body that, by and large, was not international in its composition. Successive popes were all Italian. So were almost two-thirds of the cardinals at the end of the nineteenth century, in spite of a policy to see Western and Central Europe, and a bit later also the Americas and Australia, represented in the Sacred College. Apart from papal elections, non-Italian cardinals were as a rule not involved in the government of the universal Church but rather in that of their archdioceses across the world. The overwhelming majority of prelates staffing the Congregations of the Curia (a religious version of Ministries, not to be confused with the congregations of consecrated women and men at the heart of this essay) were also Italians, in general from the pope’s (former) territories in Central Italy.26 The rare non-Italians who pursued la carriera sometimes did so by developing a ‘specialty’ – like the Belgian Mgr. de Merode did in prison reform or the Polish Mgr. Czacki did in press matters.

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Transnational expertise entered the picture more systematically in the bodies of consultores or ‘consultors’ attached to the congregations. They drafted ‘scientific’ reports on the issues of the day, which exceeded theology and ecclesiastical law in three congregations: those of Ecclesiastical Affairs (church–state relations and political questions), Propaganda Fide (missions) and the Index (books, including those on secular matters).27 By the last third of the nineteenth century, between one-fourth and one-fifth of the consultors in these congregations were non-Italians, from Western or Central Europe, apart from the odd Armenian (by 1914 the Americas were also represented).28 While not meeting formally as a body, consultors were all based in Rome, met in the Vatican offices, at ceremonies and in social circles, and in fact consulted each other. Consultors were often taken from religious orders, and the process of  Roman centralization facilitated the pooling of their expertise. As part  of a strategy to get out from under local bishops, religious communities increasingly moved their headquarters to Rome, or opened a ‘procure’ there representing them. In 1866, there were 59 such male orders and 29 female ones. By 1914, there were 102 male orders or congregations; and the editors of the Vatican yearbook had given up counting the female ones.29 The geographical concentration of decision-making centres thickened the Roman knot of the Catholic International and made it easier for the Vatican bureaucracy to streamline the proliferating world of orders and congregations, which could be intense rivals. Territorial divisions were imposed between congregations sharing the same hunting grounds (especially important for the missions). Rules, spirituality and devotions were made to converge following standardized models. Expertise was exchanged – directly between the leading lights of dozens of institutions concentrated on a few square miles, or through the consultors of the congregations. The downside of centralization was that it could stifle creativity and reinforce the ‘tunnel vision’ of the Catholic International.

The Circulation of Knowledge in the Three Pillars of Catholic Internationalism: Congregations, Lay Charity and the Mission Movement The religious communities carrying most prestige were the male orders dating back to the Counter-Reformation or the Middle Ages, such as the Dominicans, the Franciscans or the Jesuits, to name only those claiming an expertise that extended to secular disciplines. All three were large international orders with a global presence, but the Jesuits were undoubtedly

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the most reputed where scientific ‘expertise’ was concerned.30 They were also the most genuinely transnational, as a result of their controversial nature that had made them the scapegoats of anti-clericalism. Having been suppressed in 1773, the order survived in the British Isles, the United States and the Russian Empire. Reassembled from the periphery in 1814, its membership rose from six hundred to fifteen thousand by the end of the century. Periodic expulsions from different countries caused new diasporas and a high degree of mobility. The Belgian province, for instance, was resurrected in 1832, repatriating Jesuits from their places of exile in Switzerland, France, Germany, North America, Austria, Rome and other parts of Italy. In the course of the nineteenth century it served, in its turn, as a haven for fathers expelled from France, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. The Jesuits had their own university in Rome and several other centres of higher learning elsewhere. Apart from a reputation in areas ranging from astronomy to linguistics, they also developed a more technical expertise. They had a network of about twenty observatories around the world and busied themselves with things like the wind meter (the Chinese mission), gas lighting (Great Britain), modern brewing (Germany) and radio and film (Italy, Belgium and the United States). Cecil Demille had a Jesuit advisor, and Jesuits introduced the radio station to the Vatican and the Congo. The ‘new’ congregations of the nineteenth century were modelled on the older orders, but they were more flexible in their rules, more directly involved in social work and generally more democratic in their recruitment. As said, they played a key role in hospitals, schools and the penitentiary world. Hospital sisters present many fascinating cases where the know-how of the nurse, inflected by traditional medical practices and by religious zeal, clashed with the scientific expertise of the modern (anticlerical) doctor. However, with the notable exception of the Sisters of Charity, congregations of hospital sisters were a relatively ‘localized’ category in the landscape of Catholic religious institutions, where the transnational dimension was less pronounced than in congregations running schools and prisons or asylums. The majority of sisters and brothers, or fathers, worked in primary and secondary schools. While secondary education of elite boys was reserved for the (local) diocesan secular clergy or the old orders, with the famous network of Jesuit colleges in the lead, a congregation like the Salesians of Don Bosco, founded in Turin in 1855, specialized in the vocational training of working-class boys. It quickly spread across Europe, running two hundred schools by the early twentieth century. Other institutions specialized in primary education for the people, like the Christian Brothers schools, fifteen thousand strong in 1904: they were concentrated in France, where

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they were originally created, but also had important subsidiaries in other European countries, the Ottoman Empire and North America. One of the female equivalents was the Poor Sisters schools, originally founded in France but with their headquarters in Bavaria at the end of the nineteenth century and spread evenly over Europe and North America. A posher variant was (to give only one example from female secondary education) the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, whose network of over one hundred boarding schools across Europe aimed at daughters of the elite.31 The congregations involved in penitentiary work were numerically less important but they were arguably more interesting because of their  pioneering role in new or radically renewed penitentiary systems, and because of their interaction with the lively transnational network of secular prison reformers. We have already discussed Bon Pasteur which counted 2,700 sisters in 1870 and about 5,000 in 1930.32 A few other congregations, originally Belgian, need to be mentioned: the Holy Cross sisters, the sisters of Providence and two distinct congregations of Brothers of Charity.33 They originated (or expanded) in the 1830s, in the climate of enthusiasm created by the Belgian revolution. Though founded by priests from the ‘old’ patrician bourgeoisie, they recruited from the lower-middle to lowest classes of society. They came to specialize in the surveillance and re-education of prison inmates, in particular juvenile delinquents (the Holy Cross sisters also ran asylums along the lines of Bon Pasteur). After 1850, they spread from Belgium to Italy, the British Empire and Germany. All were dedicated to a philosophy of ‘tough love’ for inmates, which mixed stern monastic discipline with an evangelical fraternity valuing a romantic spirit of compassion. They combined these levers of spiritual regeneration with a new determination to attain the self-improvement of inmates through hard labour, allowing their reintegration into society. The ethos mirrored the personal history of many brothers and sisters who had escaped the poverty trap in exactly this way. It tallied well with, and was in part influenced by, the programme of secular prison reformers (who, in turn, were largely Christian inspired). That Belgium played a disproportionate role in the history of ‘prison congregations’ was not a coincidence. The country was the first to industrialize on the continent, but at the same time its older ‘industrious’ sector of domestic spinning and weaving was wrecked. While the new socio-economic order brought mobility for some, it meant massive impoverishment for others, with overflowing prisons and ‘dépôts de mendicité’ (or ‘begging depots’). Edouard Ducpétiaux, the inspector-general of these institutions, was a key figure in the transnational web of mid-nineteenth-century philanthropy. It was Ducpétiaux, a convinced liberal Catholic, who enlisted religious brothers and sisters as the agents of prison reform, partly replac-

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ing lay guards, and as the suppliers of ‘data’ for his studies. The apparent early successes of the formula, well advertised by Ducpétiaux, subsequently made the religious sought after by governments and philanthropists elsewhere. This provoked intricate experiments in cultural transfer between Western Europe and the Mediterranean.34 Introducing modern penitential institutions in papal Rome, the Brothers of Charity moderated their stringent emphasis on work ethic as the key lever to self-improvement, something that would eventually feed back into the revision of prison models by Belgian and French philanthropists. The world of religious congregations was interconnected with that of lay charity. The most important organization in this field was the Society of St Vincent de Paul, founded in France in 1833. By the beginning of the twentieth century, eight thousand local sections had been established and the Society was present on the five continents, with over one hundred thousand active members and donations totalling 15,000 francs a year.35 They were recruited among (mostly young) men from the higher classes, who committed themselves to visiting and assisting poor families. By and by, a package of institutions of philanthropy and patronage was grafted upon the poor visit, like soup kitchens, cultural circles and training programmes, insurance schemes and pension funds, or cooperatives and housing projects. While such paternalism only reached a small fraction of the working poor, the Society was highly effective in forging a Catholic lay elite with a transnational outlook. Local councils affiliated themselves with the General Council in Paris, which approved their statutes, guarded their application and gave good advice or instructions. The annual reports of local councils were published in the Society’s Bulletin, which was translated into several languages. Through the Paris ‘central’, innovations from the periphery (like the cooperatives experimented with in Ghent or the insurance ‘mutuelles’ in Lyon) thus spread throughout the network. The process was buttressed by private correspondence and travel, especially in the first decades. The knowledge the Society of St Vincent de Paul (and similar organizations) accumulated on the social question was the subject of systematic reflection in the ‘Société d’Economie charitable’, a Paris think tank that also had its own journal, the Annales de la Charité – later rebaptized Revue d’Economie chrétienne, so as to better underscore the programme ‘to elevate Christian charity to the height of a science’.36 While not an international institution, the Société did have foreign ‘membres correspondants’, like Ducpétiaux, and also drew on experiences outside France. Influential in this milieu was Frédéric Le Play, whose thick ‘scientific’ tomes on Les ouvriers d’Europe were as dazzling as the later ‘criminocurology’ of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, and equally ideological.

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There was a complementarity between the efforts of lay Catholic elites to keep the poor on the straight path, and those of religious congregations to reform the ‘fallen’ poor. Religious and lay persons cooperated more actively in the mission movement, which went through a renewed phase of expansion after 1830. By the end of the nineteenth century, over twenty thousand missionaries (men and women) were working outside Europe.37 Missions did not only ‘happen’ overseas, but also in Europe: they were critically dependent on populations at home for recruits and funds. Converting ‘savages’ overseas and re-converting the ‘modern barbarians’ on the home front were analogous and interdependent enterprises in the global consciousness of militant Catholics. The specialized missionary congregations were often national, and France in particular was over-represented here. However, the older orders involved in missionary work were transnational, like the Jesuits, and they played a key role in the taking-off of the modern mission movement. Their mid-nineteenth-century missions in North America, Asia and Africa involved men from different nationalities: in India, for instance, French, Belgian, English, German, Dutch and Portuguese missionaries were active. The centrepiece of transnational missionary culture in Europe consisted of two organizations run in large part by laymen: the ‘Oeuvre pour la propagation de la foi’ and the ‘Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance’.38 Both had their headquarters in Lyon. They were classic modern fund-raising operations, aiming above all at obtaining small contributions from the mass of the faithful, sensitized through door-to-door campaigning by volunteers. This yielded the rather handsome sum of seven million francs by 1870, which was (re)distributed according to need. The success was in part due to the organizations’ journals, published in several languages with a print run of hundreds of thousands of copies. They contained missionary adventure tales from all over the world, sent in by the missionaries themselves. These reports were above all propaganda, of course, but mixed with interesting, sometimes pioneering descriptions and observations. That Jesuits were especially good at posing as amateur geographers or ethnographers comes as no surprise. Building up a store of knowledge about regions and peoples to be converted was a necessary tool for proselytism, but by flashing their scientific credentials, missionaries also wanted to drive home the point that the cause of ‘true’ civilization and progress was served by religion.

Religious and Secular Bodies of Experts Organizational acumen, high mobility and mass print facilitated the flow of knowledge within the Catholic International and underpinned

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­ rocesses of cultural transfer. But what about interaction with more secup lar bodies of experts? I limit myself here to the example of the penitentiary field, within the larger landscape of philanthropy. More research is needed on the interaction between missionaries and the geographical movement, or educational congregations and pedagogical networks, but I expect findings to point in the same direction. The religious appeared seldom, if at all, directly in the conferences and journals tying the philanthropic reformers together. Then, too, their involvement was quite controversial: when it was explicitly discussed at the end of the 1847 penitentiary congress in Brussels, the session ended in general uproar and the debate was not resumed at subsequent conferences.39 Middlemen like Ducpétiaux, who enjoyed credit in both philanthropic circles and the Catholic revival, were therefore crucial. They introduced congregations to the models and experiments discussed in philanthropic networks: the cellular system, of course, of which Ducpétiaux was an ardent champion, but also the agricultural colony of F.-A. Demetz in Mettray (France) or the Protestant experiments of the ‘Rauhe Haus’ in Hamburg and the ‘Dutch Mettray’ of Willem Suringar in Frisia.40 Conversely, the middlemen translated back the know-how accumulated by congregations in the latter’s own transnational worlds, to the ‘scientific’ discourse of philanthropic prison reform. Originally Ducpétiaux intended the brothers and sisters to be reliable, well-motivated bookkeepers of his ‘comptabilité morale’ in cellular penitentiary institutions, enforcing a strict separation between inmates. In reality, they developed a greater degree of agency. They were more like plumbers: they fixed leaking theoretical systems and made them work. The social origins of most brothers and sisters are important here: coming from peasant or artisan backgrounds, they were above all down-to-earth pragmatists. They adopted the cellular system, with its monastic echoes, but they adapted it as they went along, especially in youth penitentiaries. Strict separation, constant silence and forced labour in closed spaces were simply impracticable in overcrowded and understaffed penitentiary institutions. This proved to be the case in Belgium, and even more so in Italy, as we have already mentioned. The input from the field joined ‘scientific’ or humanitarian criticism from within the philanthropic world, and the growing vogue for the agricultural colony in preference to the cellular prison. Eventually Ducpétiaux too had to allow for ‘exceptions’ in a moderated cellular system.41 Congregations seemed a success formula in penitentiary institutions around 1850, but their professionalism remained a sore point. Significantly, Demetz, although a practising Catholic and close to liberal-Catholic circles, chose to rely on well-trained specialist lay personnel at Mettray, the most famous penitentiary experiment of the mid nineteenth century. After

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all, congregations aimed first and foremost at the conversion of sinners. This could put a premium on religious exercises and learning by rote of the catechism over a thorough education or professional training. Many brothers and sisters had only received rudimentary training themselves, and were thrown into extremely trying prison work after an all-too-rapid novitiate. Some religious resorted to corporal punishments, and there were also repeated sex scandals involving the abuse of juvenile delinquents by brothers. Unlike congregations, lay charity operated more along the lines of a horizontal network model: there was a hub (in Paris or Lyon), but it had little authority to impose a policy. This is one of the reasons why international congresses became an important means of communication for this milieu between the mid-1840s and the mid-1860s, and an important forum to meet more secular reformers.42 The Brussels penitentiary congress of 1847 was the first to have the allure of a general congress of charity: it led to the creation of a Société Internationale de Charité, but the organization was shipwrecked in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848. The World Exhibition of 1855 in Paris offered the occasion to reconvene an international congress of charity, followed by congresses of ‘bienfaisance’ in 1856 (Brussels), 1857 (Frankfurt) and 1862 (London). Efforts to revive an umbrella organization foundered, however. These congresses were non-denominational, but arguably the most important ones – Brussels in 1847 and Paris in 1855 – were dominated by Catholics. More narrowly Catholic were the international congresses of Mechelen (Belgium) in 1863, 1864 and 1867, which were ‘general’ but also tended to focus on charity. Congresses assembled between a few hundred and a few thousand participants from the elites, the clear majority of them laymen. Playing host to five of the eight conferences, the Belgians were over-represented, but the French sent strong delegations to the Belgian conferences and even played a leading role in their debates. This predominance of the French and the Belgians reflected the core position of their countries in both religious and secular networks of (prison) reform. Up to fourteen other nationalities were also represented, however, and the Germans, British, Dutch, Italians and Austrians at one time or another played an active role in the sessions. Congresses thus sharpened the self-consciousness of Catholic internationalism. They were important occasions for exchanging, comparing and opposing expertise or experiences. While the model of a Catholic milieu ‘from cradle to grave’ for workers was generalized, the congresses also served to sharpen strategic choices, such as the paternalist (Franco-Belgian) patronages versus the more ‘democratic’ (and clerical) Gesellenvereine of German-speaking lands.

Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century | 37

But the congresses also underscored the weaknesses of Catholic internationalism. They were undermined by national animosities and religious or ideological divisions. For the British and the Belgians, the French were verbose and pompous; for the French, the Belgians were parochial and the Germans too direct. The failure to revive an umbrella organization in the 1850s was essentially due to French insistence upon pulling the strings of internationalism. In addition, the Catholic French did not like the replacement of (Christian) ‘charité’ by the more neutral ‘bienfaisance’ in the title of congresses: they even boycotted the congresses of Frankfurt and Brussels in 1856–57. The last time a non-denominational congress could be convened was in the year 1862. Nonetheless, the exclusively Catholic congresses that followed at Mechelen (Belgium) in the mid-1860s were wracked by sharp internal ideological divisions between liberal Catholics and more radical ultramontanes, which made the continuation of such general jamborees impossible after 1867. The congresses of Mechelen, in particular, bore out a further weakness: they were a hybrid of ‘expert’ conference, political rally and religious selfhelp session. Taking place under the shadow of the Roman Question and the ensuing Catholic mobilization for the pope, know-how was swathed here in thick clouds of revivalist rhetoric. These were above all occasions to affirm and celebrate a world view, to make a statement against liberalism in the new climate of ‘culture wars’ engulfing Europe.

Outlook: The Growing Weight of Politics There was a paradox in the relationship between the Catholic revival and the modern state. Revivalist discourse excoriated its ‘totalitarian’ tendency, but on the ground the movement achieved close cooperation with that self-same state in the religion-friendly climate of the mid nineteenth century. Religious congregations in penitentiary institutions, for instance, were subsidized and to a certain extent also controlled by the state. The entente became problematic after 1860, and especially after 1870. ‘Culture wars’ electrified the existing field of tension between ‘scientific’ expertise and religious know-how, between professionalism and proselytism. This led, for instance, to the expulsion of congregations from penitentiary institutions for men and boys in Belgium, Italy and France; and, to give one more example, at the famous International Geographical Conference of Brussels in 1876, missionaries were snubbed. If liberalism dealt some blows to transnational religious institutions, culture wars generally gave a fillip to the Catholic International. They galvanized the counter-hegemonic potential latent in lay charitable net-

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works and they challenged congregations to professionalize. In the wake of political mobilization for the ‘prisoner of the Vatican’, there was a new wave of international ‘expert’ conferences and congresses:43 the general assemblies of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Paris in 1872 and 1883; the meetings of militant Catholics in Switzerland in the early 1870s, which had an important social dimension; the workshops of the Union de Fribourg (Switzerland) in the mid-1880s, followed by the large-scale social congresses at Liège (Belgium) in 1886, 1887 and 1890; the anti-slavery congress in Paris in 1890; and the fourth ‘general’ Catholic congress in Mechelen in 1891. From the point of view of genuinely international input and of expert knowledge, the Fribourg workshops and the Liège congresses, in particular, compare favourably with their predecessors of the mid nineteenth century. They played a major role in the genesis of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, which distilled the experience accumulated in Catholic transnational networks since 1830 into a highly successful social doctrine. To put this doctrine into effect, religious congregations remained a ‘silent force’ in the background, numerically stronger than before, and more professional: they affirmed their transnational competence in fields like education, penitentiary institutions for women and the colonial world. More than ever, lay middlemen played a key role in connecting their know-how to secular expert networks. Indeed, there was a striking partial ‘laicization’ of Catholic penitentiary initiatives in the triple context of a new round of prison reform, the campaign against ‘white slavery’ and the rise of the women’s movement: this was apparent in the founding of the ‘Union des Patronages’ based in Belgium (1894, non-denominational but in practice led by Catholics) and the ‘Association catholique des oeuvres de protection de la jeune fille’ based in Switzerland (1896).44 Catholic internationalism seemed to thrive, but more than before, it was also hollowed out by national and imperial rivalries. After 1891, it proved impossible to convene a ‘general’ international Catholic congress. The creeping process of nationalization was particularly insidious in the once vibrantly transnational field of the mission movement, and in the closely related campaign against slavery. The growing part of ‘neutral’ Belgian and Swiss Catholics as internationalist go-betweens, much like in the field of international governmental organizations, underscores the point. In Belgium, the only European country where political Catholicism was in power between 1884 and 1914, there was a tacit alliance between the internationalist strategies of Church and State as a ‘back door to power’.45 The other major springboard for Catholic internationalism was of course the Vatican, which reinvented itself as a ‘moral great power’ in the

Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century | 39

last quarter of the nineteenth century.46 If the Swiss and the Belgians tried to steal through the back door of the great power system by way of internationalism, the papacy attempted to break through it in the same way. The effects of the ‘internationalization of the papacy’47 on the Catholic International were ambiguous. On the one hand, it was definitely a multiplying factor, not least in the field of expert knowledge. On the other hand, the instrumentalization of knowledge in the service of political ends (regaining a territory or at least full sovereign status) or of religious orthodoxy could also discredit expertise. After the First World War, together with internal ideological divisions and national rivalries, the Vatican agenda would undercut a full integration of Catholic international expertise in the world of the League of Nations.

Conclusion Religion has long been neglected by scholarship on internationalism, whether in the social sciences or in history. The subject sits uneasily with traditional notions about what civil society should look like, or seems just too large to handle. In particular, religious experience would appear worlds apart from the secular expertise sported by networks of philanthropists, lawyers, engineers or pedagogues, one of the principal assets of ‘modern’ civil society. Considering religion as one among the contending forces that shape the transnational sphere from within rather than without, the present article has questioned this picture. The modern era saw the rise of new transnational religious organizations on a voluntary basis, aiming at social reform and engaging in large-scale operations of cultural transfer. Within this framework, some religious bodies developed a specific expertise or know-how pertinent to problems of modern society. Not only were such bodies marked by similar fundamental trends as more secular networks of experts, they also overlapped and interacted with them. This suggests that they should be considered as an integral rather than an eccentric part of the story. The nineteenth-century Catholic revival produced a particularly dense proliferation of bodies of this kind, showing a remarkable degree of social activism. Religious congregations and charitable associations of laymen were fully implicated in processes of modernization, and in projects to discipline the masses. Overseas, missionaries were among the principal ­protagonists of interaction between Europe and the other continents. The rise of Rome as an organizational and physical nerve centre gave this movement exceptional visibility and increasingly integrated it in a ‘total’ political project. Lay initiatives, such as the Catholic philanthropy of the Society

40 | Vincent Viaene

of St Vincent de Paul and the missionary ‘awareness-raising’ of the Oeuvre pour la Propagation de la Foi, fit most easily into the burgeoning world of nineteenth-century expertise. Led from France, these were ­essentially horizontal networks consisting of fairly autonomous national units. As in more secular counterparts, knowledge was exchanged ­internationally through congresses, journals and private correspondence. More ­peculiar, but also more important, were the orders and congregations: their memberships were much larger than those of lay organizations, and they played indispensable roles in health care, education and penitentiary systems throughout the nineteenth century. Congregations bear out most clearly the difficulty, but also the promise, of integrating the religious factor in the history of expert networks. Consisting of consecrated persons pursuing a religious vocation, and closely tied to Rome’s project of ‘alternative modernity’, these organizations held a largely pragmatic notion of expertise as a means to another end. Their expertise was real nonetheless, and travelled easily across borders. Congregations can be seen as an early form of INGOs, characterized by the high mobility of their members and by considerable vertical integration. Their strong command structure under a general superior ensured the central codification, imposition and periodical revision of specialized know-how accumulated in their different parts. Internationalization nevertheless involved intricate operations of cultural transfer, for instance when the Belgian Brothers of Charity and Sisters of Providence transposed a West European model of prison reform to the Papal States in Central Italy in the 1850s, ­‘indigenizing’ it in the ­process. Recruited from the middle and lower classes, and consisting in large part of women, congregations invite a reappraisal of nineteenth-­ century expertise as the privilege of elite networks of men. In the evolution of the religious bodies discussed here, two fundamental trends stand out, underscoring their distinctive position within the landscape of nineteenth-century experts. First, from being decidedly transnational, these organizations and networks gradually became more ‘inter-national’, in the narrow sense of the term. This did not necessarily reduce effectiveness: a good inter-national reordering of organizations and networks allayed fears of domination by the country in which they had originated, and facilitated expansion. The pull of Rome also helped to counterbalance centrifugal tendencies. National rivalries nonetheless left a growing mark, especially on congresses. Secondly, the tension between professionalism and proselytism emerged as another leitmotif, marking the singularity of confessional religious activism in the transnational sphere. On another level of analysis, however, this is but a special, exacerbated case of the ambiguity between knowledge and advocacy marking almost all nineteenth-century networks of self-anointed experts.

Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century | 41

Before the culture wars of the 1860s and 1870s, there was a considerable degree of cooperation between revivalist and liberal varieties of philanthropy, facilitated by shared romantic assumptions about religion, and by key middlemen like the Belgian Edouard Ducpétiaux. Thus, in penitentiary reform, rather than being mere bookkeepers of ‘comptabilite morale’, sisters and brothers from peasant or artisan backgrounds added a touch of pragmatism, contributing to the softening of the cellular system. And the Society of St Vincent de Paul was among the first to experiment with youth circles and cooperatives. These synergies were undermined by the deficient professionalism of congregations, and above all by the increasingly divergent agendas advocated by ultramontanism and liberalism. After 1860, congregations were pushed out of prisons (for men), and it became impossible to convene pluralist philanthropic congresses of laymen. However, culture wars also galvanized the counter-hegemonic potential latent in lay organizations and challenged congregations to professionalize. In the medium run, this allowed Catholic networks to renew themselves and extend their expertise, (re)gaining recognition as major players in the transnational (social) sphere during the 1880s and 1890s. Catholic internationalism seemed to thrive once more, but it was hollowed out by national and imperial rivalries, only partly offset by the leading role of ‘neutral’ Swiss and Belgian Catholics, and by the papacy’s attempt to reinvent itself as a ‘moral great power’. The pre-eminence of Rome, in particular, had an ambiguous effect on Catholic internationalism. From an X-factor, it tended to become a cross. The papacy multiplied international networks, but, increasingly, it also overshadowed and isolated them. The more all roads led to Rome, the less they served to connect Catholic organizations to each other and to non-Catholic bodies. This, too, was portended when Leo XIII consecrated humanity to the Sacred Heart on the eve of the twentieth century, the sublime gesture of papal imperialism inspired by Maria Droste zu Vischering.

Notes 1. Most of the data for this introduction were culled from the following (hagiographical) literature and source publications: M. de Kerdreux, Comme une flame: Maria Droste zu Vischering, Mère Marie du Divin Coeur, religieuse du Bon-Pasteur d’Angers 1863–1899 (Salvator 1968); L. Chasle, Soeur Marie du Divin Coeur (Beauchesne 1905); Maria Droste zu Vischering: eine Dokumentation (Rome 1975). 2. H.-U. Wehler, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918 (Darmstadt 1997). See also O. Blaschke, Katholiken und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Reich (Göttingen 1997).

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3. D. Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (Oxford 1993). 4. M. Heimann, ‘Catholic Revivalism in Worship and Devotion’ in The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 8: World Christianities c.1815–1914, eds S. Gilley and B. Stanley (Cambridge 2006), 70–83. On the sacrificial ethos, see V. Viaene, Belgium and the Holy See from Gregory XVI to Pius IX (1831–1859): Catholic Revival, Society and Politics in 19thcentury Europe (Leuven 2001), 185ff. 5. D. Menozzi, Sacro Cuore. Un culto tra devozione interiore e restaurazione cristiana della società (Rome 2001). 6. J. Paulmann, Pomp und Politik: Monarchenbegegnungen in Europa zwischen Ancien Regime und Ersten Weltkrieg (Paderborn 2000). 7. J.-M. Ticchi, ‘Le Jubilé pontifical de 1888’ in The Papacy and the New World Order: Vatican Diplomacy, Catholic Opinion and International Politics at the Time of Leo XIII (1878–1903), ed. V. Viaene (Leuven 2005), 225–48. 8. C. Langlois, Le catholicisme au feminin. Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle (Paris 1984). 9. Menozzi, Sacro Cuore, 212ff. 10. M. Jürgensmeyer (ed.), Religion in Global Civil Society (Oxford 2005). 11. P. Berger, ‘Religion and Global Civil Society’ in ibid., 11–22. 12. P. Beyer and L. Beaman (eds), Religion, Globalization and Culture (Leiden 2007). 13. F.S.L. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 1815–1914 (Leiden 1963). 14. Ibid. 15. P. Wende, ‘Foreword’ in M.H. Geyer and J. Paulmann, The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford 2001), v. The definition is elaborated upon in the introduction by the editors, ‘Introduction: The Mechanics of Internationalism’, ibid., 1–25. 16. For a more recent, stimulating overall introduction to religion’s place in the history of globalization, see C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden and Oxford 2004), 325–65. 17. A. Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley 2002), 9–10. 18. Ibid., 2–3. 19. V. Viaene, ‘International History, Religious History, Catholic History: Perspectives for Cross-Fertilization’, European History Quarterly 38 (2008): 578–607. 20. P.M. Baumgarten, Die katholische Kirche unserer Zeit, vol. 3 (Berlin 1899), 168–69. 21. H. Fischer-Tiné, ‘Global Civil Society and the Forces of Empire: The Salvation Army, British Imperialism and the “Pre-history” of NGOs (ca.1880–1920)’ in Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s–1930s, eds S. Conrad and D. Sachsenmaie (New York 2007), 29–30. 22. A fuller version of this argument will be found in A. Green and V. Viaene, ‘Introduction: Rethinking Religion and Globalization’ in Religious Internationals in the Modern World, eds Green and Viaene (forthcoming, Palgrave 2011). 23. V. Viaene, ‘The Roman Question, Catholic Mobilization and Papal Diplomacy during the Pontificate of Pius IX (1846–1878)’ in The Black International: The Holy See and Militant Catholicism in Europe, ed. E. Lamberts (Leuven 2002), 135–78. 24. P. Boutry, La Restauration de Rome. Sacralité de la Ville, tradition des croyances et recomposition de la Curie à l’âge de Léon XII et de Grégoire XVI (1814–1846) (Paris 1994). 25. This is a first approximation on the basis of the data in the Annuario Pontificio, which lists all dignitaries of the court.

Catholic ‘Internationalists’ in the Nineteenth Century | 43

26. C. Weber, Kardinäle und Prälaten in den letzten Jahrzehnten des Kirchenstaates (Stuttgart 1978); F. Jankowiak, La Curie romaine de Pie IX à Pie X: du gouvernement de l’Eglise et de ses Etats à celui de la seule Eglise universelle (Rome 2007). 27. On these respective congregations (and consultors in them) see L. Pasztor, La curia romana (Rome 1971); C. Prudhomme, Stratégie missionnaire du Saint-Siège sous Léon XIII (1878–1903) (Rome 1994); H. Wolf, Verbotene Bücher: zur Geschichte des Index im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Paderborn 2008). 28. Annuario Pontificio. 29. Ibid., 1866 and 1914. 30. M. Heimbucher, Die Orden und Kongregationen der katholischen Kirche, vol. 2 (Paderborn 1934), 135ff. 31. Examples taken from Baumgarten, Die katholische Kirche, 1:240ff. 32. Heimbucher, Die Orden, 2:477ff. 33. On these congregations and the context, see Viaene, Belgium and the Holy See, 168–85. 34. Viaene, ‘Roman Question’, 141. 35. G. Cholvy, Frédéric Ozanam (Paris 2003), 736. 36. J.-B. Duroselle, Les débuts du catholicisme social en France 1822–1870 (Paris 1951), 217ff. 37. Baumgarten, Die katholische Kirche, 3:168–69. 38. R. Drevet, ‘Laïques de France et missions catholiques au XIXe siècle: l’Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi, origines et développements lyonnais (1822–1922)’, (Ph.D. dissertation, Lyon-II, 2002); H. Harrison, ‘“A Penny for the Little Chinese”: The French Holy Childhood Association in China 1843–1951’, American Historical Review 113(1) (2008): 72–92. 39. Duroselle, Les débuts du catholicisme, 225. 40. On all these experiments, see M.-S. Dupont-Bouchat (ed.), Enfance et justice au XIXe siècle: essai d’histoire compare de la protection de l’enfance 1820–1914 (Paris 2001), 44–51, 63–96. 41. The assessment in this and the following paragraph is principally based on original research in the archives of the Brothers of Charity in Mechelen (Belgium) and in Rome; but see also Dupont-Bouchat, Enfance et justice, 156–64, 197–204. 42. Duroselle, Les débuts du catholicisme, 605–56. 43. C. Langlois and C. Sorrel, Le catholicisme en congrès (XIX–XX siècles) (Paris 2009). 44. Dupont-Bouchat, Enfance et justice, 385–412. 45. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht: Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierten Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA 1865–1914 (Munich 2000). 46. Viaene, V. (ed.), The Papacy and the New World Order. Vatican Diplomacy, Catholic Opinion and International Politics at the Time of Leo XIII (1878–1903) (Leuven 2005), 10, 28. 47. J. Pollard, Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican 1850–1950 (Cambridge 2005).

Chapter 2

Sanitizing the City The Transnational Work and Networks of French Sanitary Engineers, 1890s–1930s

( Stéphane Frioux

Around the year 1896, Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées1 engineer M. Dupin drew up a sanitation project to create a modern sewage system for Montluçon, a middle-sized provincial and industrial city in France. Dupin’s hundred-page report contained more than one hundred references to other European cities, including Berlin, Brussels and London. This type of document, which can easily be found in a number of other French cities like Dijon and Toulon, among others, not only shows very clearly how, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most sanitary engineers had substantial international knowledge and information, but also how the progress of sanitary engineering, as well as the fame of prominent experts in that field – such as the British engineer William Lindley, Parisians Eugène Belgrand and Alfred Durand-Claye, and the German James Hobrecht – crossed national borders. After France’s defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1870–71, leading French engineers and physicians often complained about the demographic weaknesses of their own country. They frequently quoted mortality statistics to show that public health and urban sanitation systems were lagging behind those of Great Britain and Germany and required serious reforms. ‘Sanitary engineering’, a phrase coined on the other side of the Channel in Britain in the 1870s, was one of the solutions put forward for fighting ‘avoidable’ diseases: securing the purity of the water supply, preventing the discharge of raw sewage into streams in the vicinity of inhabited areas and finding an efficient way to dispose of garbage were the three ‘pillars’ of this new field of specialism.2 In every industrializing and urbanizing country, technical innovations that facilitated these urban Notes for this chapter begin on page 56.

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environmental improvements were promoted by various professionals: engineers, ­physicians, chemists and bacteriologists. They used specialized journals to circulate relevant information, and formed associations.3 Meanwhile, some of them were progressively building a network of personal correspondence aimed at obtaining advice from top experts of various nationalities. Interconnected by a dense exchange of information and a shared discourse, they sought access to decision making on the basis of their expertise. In most of the writings and discussions studied, the issue of modernizing the city by improving public health conditions and the everyday environment was indeed treated in a very transnational way: some cases were widely commented on, such as the Hamburg tragedy, where the polluted water of the Elbe River contributed to a terrible cholera epidemic in 1892.4 While discussing very technical questions, sanitary experts also hoped to shape the climate of public debate and to influence urban policies, both local and national. In a seminal article about technologies, ­environmental issues and the growth of cities, the American historian Martin Melosi asked a few ‘key questions . . . about the role of decisions makers . . . Who were the primary decision makers? politicians? bureaucrats? business leaders? engineers? civic leaders? . . . How did advocates of new urban technology . . . act as a “carrier” of that technology or some technical knowledge from city to city?’5 The role of experts in technology transfers to and from France must thus be questioned as well as the issue of the scale of these decisionmaking and transfer processes. This chapter will focus both on the written legacy of these professional networks and on the regular practice of municipal engineers and public health services. The attention paid by municipal authorities and technicians to ideas and techniques implemented outside their own city produced a great number of documents. The historian can use these to highlight the factors leading to the dissemination of urban sanitation innovations in France from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1930s. One of the important problems is nation-centred: was the diffusion of innovation state-driven, or did it result from mere inter-city imitation? If it is the latter, two paths deserve to be followed. Firstly, asking how the exchange of information worked in the French urban system, and secondly, determining the degree of openness of municipal administrations to cross-border flows of information. A subsequent question then needs to be posed: was France mostly an importer or an exporter of sanitation techniques invented at that time? As the chapter argues, these networks of experts seem to be in an intermediary position between two categories: they do not completely fit in the ‘epistemic community’ class, and are not true ‘transnational advocacy networks’, although they use aspects of both spheres.6

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This chapter begins with a presentation of some of the main communication tools that were available to French technicians working in the sanitary engineering field. Subsequently, the question of city networks and documentation will be raised, before trying to summarize the evolution of the position of French stakeholders in these transnational scenes.

Communication and Technology Transfers: Transnational Connections between Expert Sanitary Engineers During the nineteenth century, engineers already displayed an interest in studying work that was being done abroad. Of course, the phenomenon was not new. It was attested to as early as the Renaissance, and during the eighteenth century a number of technical exchanges took place between England and France.7 American medical students frequently attended British and French universities and their fellow countrymen aspiring to become engineers went to French elite academies, such as the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, at the start of a period of intense ‘transatlantic crossings’,8 American engineers formed associations and sent representatives to the other side of the Atlantic for study tours, just as the city administrators of the Progressive Era did.9 The circulations observed here must be understood in this context. In the space of a few years many international exhibitions and congresses took place, bringing together specialists of urban and public health issues and creating potentially efficient ‘connections’ in environmental sanitation (see Table 2.1). In addition to the major international congresses of public health, like those held in Paris 1900, Brussels 1903 and Berlin 1907, where sewage purification and sewerage design issues were discussed, specific exhibitions dealing with public health and sanitary engineering, like those of Dresden 1911, Düsseldorf 1912, Ghent 1913 and Lyon 1914, also attracted professionals. Germany, England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands were at the core of this movement. Some congresses were truly international in terms of participants, but could not eradicate the expression of nationalistic feelings;10 others were more dedicated to horizontal and friendly cooperation, like the congresses of the Union Internationale des Villes (International Union of Local Authorities, see below). These events created a place where municipalities could learn from fellow cities that used these opportunities to demonstrate the results of their policies and achievements. Not only did the events serve as forums of discussion, but they also provided a platform where inventors and small private firms could try to obtain contracts or at least be noticed by the main experts and engineers. After a learning phase marked by study

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Table 2.1. A selection of international congresses and exhibitions dealing at least in part with sanitary engineering issues

Date

Place

Title

1907

Berlin, Germany

International Congress of Public Health

1911

Dresden, Germany

International Hygiene Ausstellung

1914

Lyon, France

Exposition internationale urbaine

1923

Strasbourg, France

Où en est l’urbanisme en France et à l’étranger?

1924

London, UK

First international Congress of Sanitary Engineering

1930

Prague, Czechoslovakia

Congrès international de technique sanitaire et d’hygiène urbaine

1931

Milan, Italy

Congrès international de technique sanitaire et d’hygiène urbaine

1931

London, UK

First international Congress of Street Cleaning

1932

Lyon, France

Congrès international de technique sanitaire et d’hygiène urbaine

1934

Geneva, Switzerland

Congrès des grands travaux d’hygiène publique

1934

Lyon, France

Conférence internationale de l’Union internationale des Villes (UIV/IULA)

1935

Frankfurt, Germany

Second international Congress of Street  Cleaning

1938

Glasgow, UK

Round table on Sewage Disposal (Union  internationale des Villes/IULA)

1938

Vienna, Austria

Third international Congress of Street Cleaning

1939

Liège, Belgium

Exposition internationale de l’eau

tours to cities and exhibitions, followed by the implementation of innovative devices and measures, a municipality could then return to the exhibits and use them as a means of promoting its own practices.11 At a governmental level, other connections were formed that were totally independent from private interests – at least in theory.12 After the First World War, the League of Nations tried to foster international cooperation on public health issues through its Hygiene Committee, which had an office in Geneva. However, international arrangements and information exchange had already been in place since the sanitary conferences of the nineteenth century, especially for quarantine measures, and the creation of

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the ‘Office international d’hygiène publique’ in Paris in 1907.13 Although the actions of the Hygiene Committee of the League of Nations were mainly oriented towards medical exchanges, it organized a few study tours in the field of sanitary engineering, for instance to allow engineers from continental European countries to learn from the British experience, or to provide a survey of public health in France to various European sanitary inspectors and officials of hygiene ministries.14 In 1924 the committee was contacted by a Russian engineer living in London, named Rashkovitch, who suggested creating an ‘International Institute of Sanitary Engineering in which [he would] be assisted by expert engineers fully competent to prepare reports, drawings, specifications and to supervise the management of all kinds of sanitary works’; nevertheless, there is no documented record demonstrating the slightest realization of any of his goals.15 Many other international institutions dealing more specifically with urban problems were created in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1913, in the context of the International Exhibition of Ghent – and three years after the founding of the Union des Associations Internationales and of the Institut international des Sciences administratives in Brussels – an international association dealing with urban problems was constituted, the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA).16 The two main aspects of the founders’ programme were, first, to seek administrative responses to the increasing spatial and demographic growth of cities, and secondly, to share the best practices invented in order to improve the urban environment and to plan its utilization.17 The members of the board of IULA, which included the French socialist mayor Henri Sellier, were personally and heavily involved in the development of international cooperation and circulation of documents.18 Most of them were also in favour of the municipal operation of urban public services. Until the Second World War, sanitary engineering, city planning and municipal administration improvements and reforms remained this association’s main interests. For example, in 1934, fully one half of the IULA international conference organized in Lyon (France) was devoted to the question of garbage collection and disposal. Engineers and city managers from throughout Europe gave their opinion about various city cleansing practices and shared their experiences. The most remarkable report was the British one, which contained very detailed statistics. The Polish representative, Rudolf Zygmunt (1897–1990, engineer of Warsaw), declared: The fact that the international assembly of cities and communities is going to take care of this problem allows us to hope that sanitary engineers from different countries will no longer remain isolated in their efforts, and that their projects

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geared towards solving the important question of waste treatment will obtain the necessary support of the municipal authorities and will be rapidly realized.19

Apart from trips to congresses and exhibitions, other activities were crucial for the circulation of sanitary engineering innovations, namely reading specialized journals and writing to these ‘networks of paper’. In the 1920s and 1930s, the IULA edited the Tablettes documentaires municipales, a bimonthly publication where city engineers could read summaries of articles published in American, British and German periodicals that covered topics like sewage treatment, water filtration, or garbage collection and disposal. In its other publication, L’Administration locale, comprehensive surveys of those problems were published throughout the 1930s: for instance, a study of sewage management issues by an English engineer, and a series of articles about garbage collection and disposal, and street cleaning, by Victor Van Lint (see below). An English edition was launched in 1936. Examining the brief articles of the Tablettes documentaires municipales provides a clear map of the birth and international dissemination of innovations. The models were located in the United States, Great Britain and Germany.20 These interwar publications edited in Brussels broadened the scope of other francophone journals. Many prominent periodicals emerged in the last decade of the nineteenth century. After the creation, by a French engineer, of the monthly Le Génie sanitaire (1891), the Belgian engineer Victor Van Lint launched La Technologie Sanitaire (1895), which presented itself as an ‘international biweekly review’. In 1897 a Parisian journalist, Albert Montheuil, launched the Revue Municipale, in which water, sewage and garbage issues were very regularly discussed. La Technique Sanitaire et Municipale replaced La Technologie Sanitaire in 1906. This journal, which still exists under another title,21 was originally conceived as an international review published for a French-speaking professional readership, above all from Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and France,22 embodied by the Association Générale des Hygiénistes et Techniciens Municipaux (AGHTM).23 According to its co-founder, Édouard Imbeaux, this association had foreign predecessors: Of its German brothers, one, the Verein of water and gas engineers, is forty-five years old and the other, the Verein of hygienists, thirty; respectively, they count 900 and 1,200 members. There are a number of English associations, which are at least as old. The American ones are about twenty years old. Lastly, the Russian association of waterworks engineers is ten years old. It is thus high time that French-speaking engineers had their own organization.24

The originality of AGHTM, according to Imbeaux, was that ‘we bring a new idea, that is precisely this union of engineers, constructors or per-

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formers, and of hygienists, advisers, and it is this union which, in our opinion, must be fruitful and eminently beneficial to public health’.25 The AGHTM organized yearly congresses in various countries before 1940. Some of its members hailed from all around the world, like Saturnino de Brito, an engineer from Brazil,26 or Allen Hazen, an American sanitary consulting engineer who sent several thousand dollars as a mark of solidarity towards his French colleagues and their families after 1918.27 Just before the First World War, in the aftermath of the 1913 AGHTM congress in Italy, some of its members even made a plan to create an International Society of Sanitary Engineers.28 Its co-founder Édouard Imbeaux is one of the best examples of a French transnational expert sanitary engineer. For almost twenty-five years, he headed the public works services of Nancy. Having gained his doctoral degree in medicine, he was a specialist of waterworks, and also very competent on questions concerning waste water disposal and purification, and garbage collection and disposal. In the second part of his career he belonged to the ‘Conseil supérieur d’hygiène publique’, the National Sanitary Board,29 and taught at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. His numerous publications include several books, among which was a general report on sanitary engineering at the Paris International Exhibition of 1900.30 In this voluminous work, as well as in a comprehensive report on the different sewerage systems delivered at the International Congress of Public Health in Brussels in 1903,31 he displayed a strong skill for synthesizing all the available international information in his field. With the help of his AGHTM colleagues he also published a statistical directory of the waterworks of several countries; three updated editions were released in 1903, 1910 and 1931.32 Even if La Technique Sanitaire et Municipale, a truly international ­journal – at least before 1940 – was rather an exception in French sanitary ­engineering, readers of other French engineering and public health periodicals were made aware of the international dimension of environmental sanitation by the publishing of hundreds of reviews from foreign journals, whether they were edited in Great Britain, the United States, Germany or Italy: for instance, respectively, The Surveyor, Engineering-News Record, Gesundheits-Ingenieur and La Ingeniera sanitaria. The spread of knowledge regarding technical innovations devised to improve the urban environment, like garbage incineration, biological treatment of sewage or chlorination of water, was undoubtedly facilitated by these transnational networks. But once this knowledge was acquired, how did its implementation come about? All these networks were indeed not restricted to sanitation specialists: cities were also involved, becoming an essential market of potential clients for private sanitary engineering companies. The other issue will be to understand how the worldwide

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spread of techniques occurred: in other words, what was the geographical logic behind the decision-making process?

Characteristics of Networks Used by Cities in their Quest for Information Urban authorities used various methods to create a network to gather documents and information about sanitary innovation. Around 1900, it was already common to study the practices of other cities to develop one’s own local sanitary services: for instance, Helsinki used the resources of Western Europe, and improved the municipality’s capital of knowledge by sending employees and councillors to foreign cities, in particular to ones in Germany.33 Study tours, letter exchanges and even telephone calls were the main tools of inter-city communication in many countries.34 The geographical expansion of the network did not necessarily depend on the size of the city. For ordinary problems, including police, local taxes or market fees, a regional scale was usual for any inquiry. Nevertheless the information network often reached a national or transnational dimension when the issue at stake was complicated and new, as in the case of water purification plants and waste treatment facilities. This is a well-known characteristic of the early adopters of innovations; relative to late adopters are usually more cosmopolitan, well-informed by mass media, and have a higher socio-economic status.35 If we extend this analogy to the level of cities, we would expect to see the largest French cities at the cutting edge of innovation – for instance, in the case of water purification techniques. Surprisingly, however, it is the middle-sized towns with populations of about thirty thousand, or even smaller ones with less than ten thousand inhabitants, that emerge. The first category is represented by Cherbourg, Pau or Chartres; the second, by Annecy, Lectoure, Cosne-sur-Loire or Châteaudun. This means that even in provincial France, far away from the main centres of expertise, some town councillors and technicians were able to gather sufficient information to take the risk of innovating. Let us consider the case of Pau, in south-western France. Between 1900 and 1907, while studying the improvement of the city’s water supply system, several members of the municipal administration made enquiries in various cities in France, starting in Lectoure, a little town located in the same region. Faced with difficulties in providing enough pure water for their citizens, the officials of Lectoure trusted Andrew Howatson, a British engineer established in Neuilly, near Paris, to purify the local stream’s water with chlorine. Then the mayor of Pau used the occasion of his 1903 summer holidays to visit sand filters in Annonay, an industrial

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town eighty kilometres away from Lyon, and in Zurich. Foreign cities, sometimes quoted as references by competing firms trying to win public bids, like Ostende and Reading, are well represented in the panel of cities found in the archive files of Pau. Finally, the municipality decided to trust the French firm Puech & Chabal, which presented the largest number of references, among them Paris and London. Pau became itself a reference for other cities: for instance, the Puech & Chabal company sent brochures about Pau’s water purification facilities to Annecy, Avignon, Chartres and probably many other cities.36 The example of Puech & Chabal provides an insight to the great role played by sanitary engineering firms. It may have been previously underestimated because the research conducted so far has mostly dealt with public health officials and city administrations. Nevertheless, private companies, struggling to develop sanitary engineering in France, were another force pushing towards environmental sanitation: their engineers attended congresses, exhibitions and monthly meetings of sanitary associations to promote their new systems, like water purification by ozone, incineration and other garbage treatment methods. An example of this is Bernard Bezault, who had trained as an architect and was the founder of the Société générale d’épuration et d’assainissement by 1900. In 1911, he published the Annuaire-statistique international des installations d’épuration d’eaux d’égouts, in which he listed more than three thousand sewage treatment plants and presented each country’s legislation regarding water purity protection in order to foster the desire in his fellow citizens to keep up with other countries, such as Great Britain, and in the same way gain new contracts with public authorities.37 Let us try to get a more precise idea of the geographic distribution of the cities that served as inspirational models. In the case of cities with no pre-existing local inspiring model to follow and lacking any commercial solicitations, two other solutions remained: to imitate the example set by Paris or to find models abroad. Because many mayors of the French Third Republic also served as representatives at the Chambre des députés or at the Senate, they thereby gained exposure to the transformations in everyday life in Paris, such as lighting, garbage collection and street-cleaning practices. Once back in their own cities, they described these innovations to their councillors, asking them to consider implementing the same devices. Nevertheless, the Parisian reference did not always function as a guarantee of success; for example, Paris held a competition to find the best process for water purification, such as filtration, ozone or chlorine, but no clear winner emerged – various methods were equally valued, but none was selected over the others. To a provincial municipality, solicitations by several companies pretending to be the best could sound like a confusing cacophony.38

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Following examples from abroad was often the solution chosen by the pioneers, deciding at a time when there was no existing sanitation process in France similar to the one they selected. It was normal to seek foreign experience in the issues of sewage treatment and garbage incineration where French experience was limited to agricultural utilization. Large study tours, in which the municipalities took pride, were organized by Rouen in September 1908 on garbage incineration and by Lyon in the winter of 1918–19 on the issue of sewage treatment. This type of international inquiry was not limited to great cities with financial means and skilled civil servants. When a city was interested in adopting a foreign system, writing letters was the easiest and cheapest way of getting information. Around the year 1905, Annecy, then a little town on the banks of an Alpine lake with less than fifteen thousand inhabitants, was studying the possibility of filtering its water. After reading an article written by Dr Jules Courmont, a French public health specialist who taught hygiene at the Medical School of Lyon, about a system called ‘American’ filters, the town administration initiated relations with the cities of Alexandria in Egypt and Fiume in the Austrian Empire (today Rijeka, Croatia).39 The city of Chartres made the same transnational inquiries but with a different outcome: rather than the ‘American’ filters, the councillors chose the system of water sterilization by ozone.40 As we can see, in general, even small cities did not limit their investigation to inside French borders. Most of their correspondence was directed to British cities referenced by private firms, such as Reading. To the east, the Swiss city of Zurich was a great place to get information on the new systems of water filtration, and later on garbage incineration.41 Having found many information networks with both transnational and regional dimensions, the idea that urban sanitation innovations spread into the French city system ‘from the top to the bottom’, that is from Paris to provincial capitals and then on to little towns, can be discounted. Between the years 1900 and 1914, French cities looking for the latest developments in urban sanitary engineering often used the resources of transnational means of communication. This was moderately efficient: political and financial considerations of municipal administrations could lead city councils and their technicians to give up their projects. About ten garbage treatment plants and probably only a half-dozen sewage works were realized by 1914. Then, the outbreak of the First World War postponed a number of projects. Did this wide and international spectrum of sanitary engineering references continue after 1918? In the French case, it is possible to highlight an evolution between the two periods. Before the First World War, French cities and sanitary engineers looked abroad to find examples to follow. They went first to Great

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Britain, then to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands; only Paris could afford to pay for a transatlantic trip for its engineers.42 When the trips were extended to other countries, especially for the garbage issue, it was to capitals and big cities like Vienna, Prague or Budapest. The majority of technologies proposed to cities for the disposal of their waste were indeed foreign (British or German). The rhetoric used in advertisements and brochures sent to municipalities often referred to foreign expertise and the need to catch up with statistics of facilities in other industrialized countries. French cities, which experienced industrialization mostly in the second half of the nineteenth century, were newly confronted with urban problems already familiar to British cities, like water purification and garbage treatment. The incineration of city refuse started in England in the 1870s and experiments were conducted with it in Paris in 1884 and 1895, but the real application of this system started as late as 1906. The sewage treatment issue also came to the fore after early attempts at solving the problem were made in Great Britain and the United States. The engineerin-chief of Lyon travelled to several British cities in 1894 but his sewage farming project was ultimately buried in archival boxes.43 In November 1900, his Parisian colleague Felix Launay and the director of the Pasteur Institute in Lille, Dr Albert Calmette, visited the first sewage treatment plants that used the ‘biological method’ working in English cities.44 Many cross-exchanges between Paris and Berlin took place in these years of experiments,45 but Great Britain remained the place to visit on this matter up until 1914. Similar to many other processes of technology transfer, there was more to them than mere imitation. The exploitation of foreign patents formed an integral part of an ‘economy of risk and uncertainty’.46 Sometimes, technologies that were specific to France were created, for instance, in the field of water treatment with the ‘ozonization’ method that Germany, the United States and Great Britain neglected; another technique developed was called ‘Verdunisation’, in reference to the place made famous during the First World War where its inventor had been in charge of managing water supplies to the French army in 1916.47 Moreover, in some cases French engineers were reluctant to adopt foreign methods, like garbage incineration. Some of them did not believe that the process could be economically viable and stressed the different composition of French garbage: the proportion of organic matter that could be used to produce fertilizers was much more important in France than in British industrial cities.48 Lastly, the slow spread of the method outside Anglo-Saxon countries did not help to dispel doubts: in 1907, an article published in the sanitary engineering review La Technique Sanitaire et Municipale estimated that there were only 11 plants on the continent,

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while 290 were in use in Great Britain. Quoting these figures in his report to the mayor, the engineer-in-chief of Lyon stated that the time for incineration had not yet arrived.49 After 1918, the interwar period saw the development of a French urban engineering industry and the diminution of transnational study tours from French cities. The garbage issue became more urgent year upon year and the situation changed. A French firm, SEPIA (renamed CAMIA in 1927),50 managed to obtain contracts with a dozen cities. One of its founders, the engineer Antoine Joulot, developed a nationalistic rhetoric in the official competition for an incineration plant opened in 1929 by Lyon: he emphatically asked the municipality to avoid a new ‘Waterloo’ for the French industry. He also highlighted the fact that his company had won the bid for Bogota, defeating American, English and German competitors, and had signed contracts in Moscow and Bucharest.51 His point of view was shared by the municipality of Toulouse, which proudly stated in publications that the new plant – built by CAMIA – ‘honours French industry which shows that it is “in any case” inferior to its English and German rivals . . . English plants have retained processes which, in twenty years, have become archaic. As for the Germans, they design sophisticated systems; their plants cost twice to three times the price of French plants and require a sizeable workforce, making incineration expensive’.52 The French desire to distance themselves from the ‘British’ method of garbage incineration was also repeated in brochures, articles and leaflets promoting an industrial composting method invented in Italy. A company, writing to Chambéry in 1935, concluded that ‘the benefits of our process over incineration cannot be discussed any more. That system imported from England cannot be adapted to our needs. What is true in England is not true any more in France’.53 In five Mediterranean cities (Cannes, Narbonne, Aix-en-Provence, Avignon and Valence), the municipal enquiry processes and the trust given to French engineers developing the Italian method led to the building of composting plants. The interwar period was indeed a time of nationalization for sanitary engineering in France, and transnational contacts of middle-size municipalities are far less documented than they were for the pre-1914 phase.

Conclusion That an international network was established before 1914 to consider environmental problems cannot be refuted. Then as now, cities do not exist in a vacuum but rather look to experiments conducted by other

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municipal administrations when seeking solutions to particular problems. Both local sources and the national context offer much information about the transnational dimension and characteristics of urban sanitary engineering before the Second World War. The rise of the French branch of this field occurred after its birth in Great Britain and its development in Germany and the United States. Sanitary engineering innovations spread across France into various cities, following networks created by municipalities themselves and by private companies. The state and the central administration played a very discrete role in this process. In this matter, France rarely served as a model for these industrialized countries. Further research may show whether France possibly served as a model for ‘peripheral’ countries such as those in the Mediterranean.54 The sources in the municipal archives indicate that major French cities, like Paris and Lyon, were approached by foreign town councils and magistrates from all over the world to share their experiences of water and garbage issues.55 Integrated in transnational networks for technical innovation and business, French experts in sanitary engineering had multiple relationships with their foreign counterparts. The main trend shows a period of learning from Anglo-Saxon and Germanic countries, then a narrowing of the networks after 1914. A new period of openness, in particular to American urban experiments, is noticeable after the Second World War. Why did French cities not always follow foreign examples? Among the plausible explanations an emphasis can be placed on the slower rate of urbanization and urban growth experienced in France; furthermore, there were periods of reluctance to implement foreign techniques since the French administration and engineers were often suspicious of their efficiency; and finally, state legislation was not very compelling at that time. Nevertheless, some engineers and some cities that were well integrated in transnational networks of specialists (like Paris, Lyon and Nancy) boosted the French urban sanitation field at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sanitary engineering became more ‘independent’ of foreign influences during the ­interwar period, preparing for its impressive growth and worldwide spread after the Second World War.

Notes 1. Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées is the famous French school of civil engineering, founded in 1747.

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2. M. Melosi, The Sanitary City (Baltimore 2000), 261. 3. This work relies on research mainly focused on the Revue d’hygiène et de police sanitaire, founded in 1879 in France, and the Technique Sanitaire et Municipale (1905). Both reviews were connected to associations dedicated to public health or sanitary engineering. 4. For an excellent study on this case, see R.J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 (Oxford 1987). 5. M. Melosi, ‘Cities, Technical Systems and the Environment’, Environmental History Review 14(1–2) (1990): 45–64, quotation at 60–61. 6. D. Rodogno, B. Struck and J. Vogel, ‘Introduction’ in this volume. 7. P. Burke, The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford 1998); L. HilairePérez, ‘Échanges techniques dans la métallurgie légère entre la France et l’Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle. Du modèle de la supériorité à l’histoire des hybrides’ in Les idées passentelles la Manche? Savoirs, Représentations, Pratiques (France-Angleterre, Xe–XXe siècles), eds J.-P. Genet and F.-J. Ruggiu (Paris 2007), 161–83. 8. For this term see D.T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA 1998). 9. H. Harter, Les ingénieurs des travaux publics et la transformation des métropoles américaines, 1870–1910 (Paris 2001); P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Les voyages municipaux américains en Europe 1900–1940. Une piste d’histoire transnationale’ in Formation et transfert du savoir administratif municipal, Annuaire d’histoire administrative européenne, ed. N. Randeraad (BadenBaden 2003), 267–88. 10. As can be deduced from the accounts of International Congresses of Public Health at the French Conseil supérieur d’hygiène publique. The field of French science, proudly descended from Pasteur, actively competed against its German counterpart. 11. P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Changing the City: Urban International Information and the Lyon Municipality, 1900–1940’, Planning Perspectives 14(1) (1999): 19–48. 12. The archives of the League of Nations’ Hygiene Committee contain some letters from private entrepreneurs trying to draw attention to their processes. For instance, file 40844, letter from the Compagnie Générale de l’Ozone, 22 Nov. 1924, and file 992, letter from E. Gubler and Waldemar Idess, Zurich, 28 Feb. 1927. 13. M. Roemer, ‘Internationalism in Medicine and Public Health’ in The History of Public Health and the Modern State, ed. D. Porter (Amsterdam and Atlanta 1994), 403–23; M.D.  Dubin, ‘The League of Nations Health Organisation’ in International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939, ed. P. Weindling (Cambridge 1995), 56–80. 14. League of Nations’ Archives, C.H./E.P.S. 112, ‘Échange d’ingénieurs sanitaires en Grande-Bretagne, voyage d’étude entrepris sous les auspices de l’organisation d’hygiène de la SDN (21 juin–20 juillet 1926)’ and Box 5946 (Study Tour in France, 1930). 15. League of Nations’ Archives, file 40874, copy of a letter to Sir George Buchanan, 12 Nov. 1924. 16. P.-Y. Saunier and R. Payre, ‘Municipalités de tous pays, unissez vous! L’Union Internationale des Villes ou l’Internationale municipale (1913–1940)’, Amministrare 30(1–2) (2000): 217–39; O. Gaspari, ‘Cities against States? Hopes, Dreams and Shortcomings of the European Municipal Movement, 1900–1960’, Contemporary European History 11(4) (2002): 597–621. 17. Premier Congrès international et exposition comparée des villes, 3 vols (Brussels [1914]). 18. Sellier was mayor of Suresnes, a suburban town in the Paris area, and in 1919 he founded the ‘Union des Villes et Communes de France’, which viewed itself as a subsection of the IULA. Municipal Archives of Lyon (henceforth AM Lyon), 1112 WP 01.

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19. AM Lyon, Union internationale des Villes et Pouvoirs locaux, Conférence internationale de Lyon (1934), Collecte, transport et destruction des ordures ménagères (proceedings of the conference), 110. 20. As can be deduced from a statistical approach (years 1926–28). 21. Techniques, Sciences, Méthodes. 22. The four founding members were Victor Van Lint (Brussels), Edouard Imbeaux (Nancy), Klein (Luxembourg) and Peter (Zurich). 23. V. Claude, ‘Technique sanitaire et réforme urbaine: l’Association Générale des Hygiénistes et Techniciens Municipaux 1905–1920’ in Laboratoires du nouveau siècle. La ‘nébuleuse réformatrice’ et ses réseaux en France 1880–1914, ed. C. Topalov (Paris 1999), 269–98. 24. Revue d’hygiène et de police sanitaire (Dec. 1905): 1102. My translation. 25. Ibid. My translation. 26. A. Bertoni, ‘L’ingénierie sanitaire et la construction d’un nouveau paysage urbain au Brésil: l’oeuvre de Saturnino de Brito (1898–1909)’ in 135e Colloque du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, ed. Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Neuchâtel 2010). 27. La Technique Sanitaire et Municipale (June 1919): 148. 28. Ibid. (Jan. 1914): 12. 29. This board covered both public health and sanitary engineering. 30. E. Imbeaux, L’alimentation en eau et l’assainissement des villes (Paris 1902). 31. Municipal Archives of Annecy, 4O 79, XIe Congrès international d’hygiène et de démographie (Bruxelles 1903). Troisième section: Technologie sanitaire, sciences de l’ingénieur et de l’architecte appliquées à l’hygiène. Rapport de M. le Dr E. Imbeaux, Les avantages et les inconvénients des égouts du système unitaire et du système séparatif (25 May 1903). 32. E. Imbeaux (ed.), Annuaire statistique et descriptif des distributions d’eau de France, Algérie, Tunisie et colonies françaises, Belgique, Suisse et Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (Paris 1903). 33. M. Hietala, Services and Urbanization at the Turn of the Century: The Diffusion of Innovations (Helsinki 1987). 34. For a study of British cities, see J. Moore and R. Rodger, ‘Municipal Knowledge and Policy Networks in British Local Government, 1832–1914’ in Formation et transfert du savoir administratif municipal, Annuaire d’histoire administrative européenne, 29–57. 35. E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th edn (New York 1995). 36. Municipal Archives of Pau, 2O 2/9. 37. B. Bezault, Annuaire-statistique international des installations d’épuration d’eaux d’égouts (Paris 1911). 38. See for instance the various articles published about the Marseilles competition in TSM, 1911 and 1912. 39. Municipal Archives of Annecy, 4N 87. 40. Municipal Archives of Chartres, DC4/175. 41. Documents about Zurich can be found in archives of Lyon, Pau, Annecy, etc. 42. P. Tur, Les ordures urbaines en Amérique. Rapport de mission de l’Ingénieur en chef des ponts et chaussées (Paris 1906). 43. AM Lyon, 923 WP 206. 44. A. Calmette, ‘Les procédés biologiques d’épuration des eaux résiduaires’, Revue d’hygiène et de police sanitaire (March 1901): 216–40; and F. Launay, ‘L’épuration bactérienne des eaux d’égout. Rapport de mission en Angleterre (novembre 1900)’, ibid., 240–45.

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45. In the 1870s and 1880s, the engineer in charge of the sewage management question, Alfred Durand-Claye, studied Berlin’s sewage farms while the Germans were doing the same at the Parisian sewage farms of Gennevilliers. 46. L. Hilaire-Pérez, ‘Échanges techniques’, 181. 47. P. Bunau-Varilla, Guide pratique et théorique de la verdunisation (Paris 1930). 48. La question des gadoues en Angleterre, rapport de mission (Paris 1894). 49. AM Lyon, 923 WP 236. Report of the municipal engineer, 14 June 1907. 50. SEPIA: Société d’Entreprises Pour l’Industrie et l’Agriculture. CAMIA: Compagnie Auxiliaire des Municipalités pour l’Industrie et l’Assainissement. 51. AM Lyon, 937 WP 157. Records of the commission on refuse incineration, hearings of 28 Dec. 1929. 52. Municipal Archives of Saint-Étienne, 4O 1. Brochure Ville de Toulouse. La Cité Industrielle Municipale du Ramier-du-Château. My translation. 53. Municipal Archives of Chambéry, 1O 93. Letter from Société de Grands Travaux et d’Assainissement Général Urbain, to Mayor of Chambéry, 11 Oct. 1935. The special font is in the original quote. 54. Archives of Paris, VONC 130. 55. For instance, some colleagues have found the Parisian influence in Lisbon (sewers) and Athens (water). French companies won contracts in various European countries, like Italy, Greece and Russia. The influence of Parisian architecture and street design of the Second Empire is also well known – see A. Lortie (ed.), Paris s’exporte (Paris 1995).

Chapter 3

Policy Communities and Exchanges across Borders The Case of Workplace Accidents at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

( Julia Moses

Industrial work was a driving concern for many states, social scientists, natural scientists, lawyers, physicians and, of course, workers and their  families in the long nineteenth century. It was an issue relevant to both industrialized and industrializing states across the world, from Peru to Japan, and especially throughout Europe, eastwards from Great Britain to Russia, and southwards from Sweden to Italy. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the workplace, and, in particular, accidents at work and industrial hygiene, was the topic of an efflorescence of interconnected transnational networks in the period from the late 1880s to the 1910s. Nor is it surprising that these bodies had intellectual links with earlier networks interested in broader themes, such as the role of statistics and of social science within governmental administration, policy making and general social life. By the 1880s, industrial accidents were increasingly the subject of new legislation targeted at prevention and compensation. By 1914, over seventy countries and federal states across the globe adopted some form of compensation policy for workers who had suffered industrial accidents. Laws on workplace safety were even more widespread. Given the timing of many of the local and national discussions about adopting legislation on industrial accidents, it is clear that accidents were first recognized as a political problem within a variety of local and national, rather than transnational, contexts. As John Ruggie has observed, transnational networks emerge as an international response to technological change after that change has been registered as a ­problem, relatively Notes for this chapter begin on page 78.

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simultaneously, within multiple national contexts. He has shown how transnational ‘epistemic communities’ provide one form of international response to technological change because they ‘delimit, for their members, the proper construction of social reality’. Transnational epistemic communities do not seek to make collective arrangements, which are rather the business of international regimes or international organizations. Instead, they are Durkheimian in that they make ideas ‘socially causative’ by bringing together experts to agree on the social impact of these ideas, for example, on the social impact of workplace risk.1 In this respect, epistemic communities act as a type of transnational ‘circulatory regime’.2 Epistemic communities draw their authority as transnational networks from their claim to expert knowledge, yet expert knowledge can be politically loaded. According to Ruggie, transnational networks are not a ‘simple response to technology, but, rather, a more complex product of . . . the tension between science . . . and politics . . . and the tension between the need of states to respond collectively to problems . . . and their desire to maintain national autonomy and flexibility in so doing’.3 Moreover, as Peter Haas has noted, the interaction between experts within epistemic communities and governmental bureaucrats has an effect on policy choices, and even seemingly technical issues that have a ‘veneer of objectivity and value neutrality’, such as accident prevention, ‘remain highly political’.4 In this respect, epistemic communities reflect the paradoxical nature of the processes of ‘scientization’ and professionalization that began to escalate from the turn of the twentieth century.5 The tensions between ‘expert knowledge’ and national politics are magnified further in other forms of transnational networks, such as what Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink have classed as ‘transnational policy communities’. Policy communities resemble epistemic communities but include a greater proportion of governmental representatives, who are often themselves experts of one kind or another.6 In policy communities, therefore, political agendas hold greater potential to intermingle with and steer discussions and decisions about policy issues. This chapter focuses on a case study of the International Congress on Accidents at Work (ICAW), a transnational policy community, in order to explore the development of a particular kind of transnational network that flourished at the cusp of the twentieth century.7 In particular, it investigates why and how a transnational network thrived in an era that paradoxically saw the increasing importance of national borders and national forms of social legislation.8 Moreover, it examines how national governments operating within this transnational policy community conceptualized its utility and the ideas that circulated within it.

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This chapter argues that the ICAW both confirmed and further defined the problem of workplace accidents in the period from the late 1880s to  the 1910s, but its influence on national politics was limited. This policy  community served an important role in framing the problem of workplace accidents by arguing for international labour statistics and international standards for accident prevention. The group did not, however, attempt  to create a binding convention on these issues, nor did it espouse  a particular model for the compensation of injured workers and their dependants. The issue of compensation remained contested  throughout this  period due to its implications for the relations between states, businesses and workers and, on a more fundamental level, to its implications for the relationship between state structures and national identity. Not least, the matter proved especially contentious because the idea of compulsory compensation for accidents at work was predicated on specific understandings of fault and liability which not only differed in different national legal systems but also resonated differently within different expert communities, with, for example, engineers, physicians and lawyers abiding by their own understandings of causation and risk. Like other transnational networks, therefore, the ICAW provided a forum that governments could choose to ignore, manipulate or search for new ideas. Social, economic, cultural and political conditions within individual states influenced why and how particular ideas were transferred or were proposed in the first place.9 In many ways, the ICAW functioned as an optic for second-order observation, where governments could gauge the success of their own policies based on the values of the transnational policy community.10 The nature of the relationship between national governments and this community therefore had implications for the ICAW’s influence on national policy. The argument will proceed in the following two sections. The first traces the emergence and nature of the transnational networks that focused on workplace accidents, industrial hygiene and social insurance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It considers the predecessor, successor and parallel organizations to the ICAW, and it outlines the foundation and day-to-day functioning of the group. The second section examines how the ICAW framed workplace accidents as a political issue and considers the extent to which the group was able to reach a consensus and call for international standards. This section investigates the role of national governments in these discussions, and it focuses on several smaller case studies in addition to a more detailed exploration of the role of the German government, which was the first to espouse a ­comprehensive system of social insurance.

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The Emergence of a New Network From the mid nineteenth century, accidents at work were a well-known problem in Western Europe. While newspapers publicized major ­‘catastrophes’ or ‘disasters’ involving collapsed mine shafts or derailed trains, and realist literature detailed the losses that accidents could bring to families and communities, national governments began to consider whether and how to protect workers. Several states responded to this problem by adopting laws that generally targeted the workers who were perceived to be the most vulnerable – women and children – or workers in the industries that were perceived to be the most ‘dangerous’ – mines, quarries, railways, and factories involving heavy machinery, especially steam power. For example, Britain adopted a Factory Act in 1833 that prohibited children under eight years old from working, while Prussia adopted an ordinance on the safe operation of steam boilers in 1831, and Piedmont adopted a law in 1859 that required employers to pay medical expenses for injured miners. By the 1850s, networks of experts, some with links to governments, began discussing accidents at work as one of several pressing issues for social scientists to observe and, eventually, for governments to act upon. These groups acted as epistemic communities. Few of these networks, however, were transnational in nature, and it is difficult to observe clearly their influence on policy making at national or local levels. Moreover, as demonstrated in the chapters by Christian Müller and by Chris Leonards and Nico Randeraad, these networks generally focused on relatively broad themes, such as the social sciences, statistics or the development of international law, rather than more specific policy areas like safety at work. For example, the International Statistical Congress (ISC) was founded in 1853 with the mission of encouraging the use of social sciences and, in particular, the collection of statistics for social goals. The group included several key political figures with ties to government, such as the head of the British Royal Statistical Society, the Prussian Imperial Statistical Office and the Piedmontese Statistical Office. By the late 1860s, it began lobbying for governments to collect statistics on accidents in mines.11 Yet, several member governments in the ISC, including Britain, France, Germany and Italy, had already been collecting statistics on mining accidents when the resolution was made, as they participated in the ‘avalanche of numbers’ that took off across Western Europe from the late eighteenth century, when a variety of governments and individuals alike began calculating everything from grain imports to suicide rates.12 France had been collecting mining statistics since the 1830s, and Britain had been involved in tabulating a broader range of accident statistics since the 1840s, before the

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ISC was established. Italy, Prussia and Saxony began collecting a range of accident statistics in the late 1860s, before the ISC made its resolution.13 While government officials from these states were involved with the congresses, there is no clear evidence that it was the ISC’s activities that led towards the adoption of accident statistics. While the ISC continued to meet in the latter part of the century, it did not play a major role in advocating accident statistics at that time. Its main concern remained the international standardization of statistics in general, and the promotion of statistics as a discipline.14 The experience of the ISC was not dissimilar to that of the Social Science Association (SSA), which operated in Britain but had international contacts, including the pan-European Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, and was founded in Brussels in 1862. The group met regularly and advocated policy changes in the period between 1857 and 1886. The SSA reflected the nature of these mid-century networks, which often served as informal, middle-class epistemic communities that were able to influence government before the establishment of more formalized governmental bureaucracies. The SSA, which included members attached to Whitehall, lobbied for some sort of compensation policy for workplace accidents in the late 1860s and 1870s. It is likely that its voice was heard in government, which established a consultative commission that led to the adoption of an employers’ liability law in 1880. Again, however, it is difficult to establish any direct influence on policy.15 The collapse of the SSA soon afterwards, as its historian Lawrence Goldman has noted, was due both to the changing nature of British political life and the transformation of expertise from an informal and gentlemanly activity to a more positivistic pursuit from the 1880s.16 The reason for its decline foreshadowed the nature of later networks of experts interested in workplace accidents. In 1889, three years after the SSA held its final meeting, the ICAW met for the first time. From its first meeting until its last, more than a quarter of a century later, the ICAW acted as a policy community that integrated governmental officials and extra-governmental experts in a forum that agreed about the general problem of industrial accidents but did not always agree on the solutions to that problem. The organization therefore avoided making strong resolutions that would have major implications for national policies and, in particular, policies involving the issue of compensation. In this respect, and surprisingly in light of their similar composition and heritage, the group differed markedly from those outlined in the chapter by Martina Henze. The setting of the ICAW’s first meeting was Paris in the autumn, which was hosting an ‘Exposition universelle’ in honour of the centenary of

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the French Revolution. The environment was especially suited to a discussion of industrial accidents, as Gustave Eiffel’s new tower loomed over the Fair as a reminder of the wonderment and potential brutality of modern industry and technology. The French Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Colonies played a role in spearheading the first meeting of the ICAW, which it had helped to plan for most of the previous year. Its interest in the conference is evident in the membership of the organizing committee and in the list of conference participants. Most named delegates at the conference came from France, and there was a particularly large representation of governmental administrators associated with mining. In fact, the French Corps of Mines had long been interested in workplace accidents and had played a key role in organizing the 1889 meeting.17 Oscar Lindner, the Inspector General of Mines and President of the Central Commission on Steam Machines, served as the president of the organizing committee for the congress. The organizing committee also included several prominent French political figures, such as the Chief Mining Engineer and Professor of the École nationale supérieure des mines, Louis Aguillon, the Head of Office at the Ministry of Commerce, Louis Bouquet, and the MP Félix Faure, who would soon become President of France, as well as several French industrialists and representatives of insurance firms.18 The organizing committee set out a single, broad goal for the congress: to ‘study questions on the nature of workplace accidents’. As Lindner explained in the first session, the ‘true solution’ to the problem of accidents had not yet been found, despite the fact that employers had created mutual associations to prevent accidents; that governments had been inspecting workplaces; and that a variety of states had adopted new legislation to encourage safety at work. Although Lindner conceded that insurance was a possible solution to the problem, he did not suggest that the ICAW advocate it. The conference organizers decided that participants should merely discuss these issues rather than vote on resolutions.19 As the ICAW stated in a later circular, the organization would aim to be ‘scientific and absolutely independent’.20 The congress would achieve its goal by dividing the task of investigating workplace accidents into three sections: technical matters related to accident prevention; statistics and general administration; and economics and legislation. As we shall see below, these initial decisions would set the tone for all subsequent meetings of the congress and would influence fundamentally the nature of the congress as a policy community. The conference organizers sought to attract a wide-ranging group of participants and therefore kept membership fees relatively low, at 10 French francs in 1889. They sought donations from throughout

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France to help to fund the first event, receiving 3,500 French francs from chambers of employers, associations of industrialists, and insurance societies, amongst other groups. By the opening of the ICAW’s first meeting  in  1889, the group had received 720 subscriptions for membership.21 Members at the first meeting included honorary delegates from  abroad,  such as the  president of the internationally renowned Society for the Prevention of Factory  Accidents at Mulhouse, the Chief Factory Inspector from Britain,  the President of the Italian Royal Statistical Office,  the head of  the  Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs and Commerce, and the Spanish Chief Forestry Engineer. Other conference delegates came from across Europe – from Norway, Portugal and Romania – and from as far as Canada. The General Consul of Brazil for Belgium also attended on behalf of his country.22 Throughout its existence, membership expanded widely, but the organization remained predominantly middle class and male in composition. The German government, which did not participate in 1889, became a very active member of the congress through its various representatives from the Imperial Insurance Office and related bodies. Moreover, the United States began to take a stronger role in the congress and had planned to hold the first extra-European meeting of the ICAW on American soil. States further afield, from Guatemala to China, regularly began sending local consuls to ICAW meetings. From the first meeting onwards, several delegates were asked to pre-circulate papers on themes that related to the three sections of the Permanent Committee. These were distributed to participants before the congress and were later bound, along with the conference proceedings, in volumes that were made widely available for purchase. Primarily French, but also foreign, delegates gave papers at the first congress, whose days were divided into several sessions that attracted audiences of varying sizes. The organizing committee also invited conference participants to explore beyond the halls of the conference venue. It organized visits to the concurrent Exposition universelle and to various nearby industrial establishments.23 Throughout its existence the ICAW maintained these social aspects alongside the more earnest business of discussing industrial accidents. The social element of the congresses depended on the individual organizing committees and therefore differed somewhat, though not substantially, from meeting to meeting. In 1902, for example, the German government hosted the congress in Düsseldorf, which was also featuring a state exhibition of commerce and industry. The conference organizers scheduled visits to the exhibition, to see the Krupp factory in nearby Essen and to view the arbitration of an injured worker who sought

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compensation. They also took conference participants on a steamship tour of the Rhine and on a visit to the resort town Königswinter.24 In 1908 the Italian Ministry of Commerce organized similar outings when it played a key role in organizing the congress’s eighth meeting, which took place in Rome. The ministry planned a railway journey as far away as Terni, in Umbria, so that conference participants could visit a steel mill as well as a local waterfall. Earlier in the week, conference participants were also invited to a lavish banquet at a hotel on the Via Veneto and to a show at the Theatre Costanzi.25 These social outings, alongside the ordinary business of discussing the accident problem and potential solutions to it, helped to provide members of the ICAW with a group identity and confirmed this identity as rather middle class, professional and masculine in nature. In this respect, the ICAW was not dissimilar to other transnational networks, such as feminist organizations, that were operating around the same time.26 Following the first congress in Paris, the ICAW met every two to three years and maintained a Permanent International Committee in Paris. Between 1889 and 1912 it held eleven congresses (see appendix). The Permanent Committee regularly published a Bulletin with articles on parliamentary bills, recently adopted laws and national accident statistics. The articles appeared in their original language as long as they were in French, German, Italian or English. Members of the congress, including governmental administrators based in statistical departments, ministries of commerce and social insurance offices, received copies of the Bulletin, which proved an important means for governments to stay informed of recent developments abroad. This was certainly the case for the German Imperial Office of the Interior and Imperial Accident Insurance Office, and it was likely to have been the case elsewhere, although subscription records and original copies of the Bulletin have rarely been saved for historical memory.27 Over the course of its existence, the ICAW gradually extended its focus  to social insurance in general, rather than just accidents at work,  which reveals the potential for epistemic change within a policy community. By its second meeting, in 1891, members of the group had expressed an interest in exploring disability and sickness insurance as issues related to the treatment of accidents at work and their compensation. The group changed its name to the International Congress on Accidents at Work and Social Insurance, as a reflection of its broadened scope.28 By 1908, accidents at work were subordinated to one of a myriad of issues that the group addressed, as it now featured papers on themes ranging from maternity insurance to old-age pensions. The group therefore dropped ‘Accidents at Work’ entirely from its name. In the latter

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years of the organization, accidents at work nonetheless received greater attention than these new areas of inquiry. Papers still focused on the ongoing issues of tabulating accurate accident statistics, new devices to prevent injuries and new legislation to deal with them.29 The ICAW’s last meeting was to take place in Washington, DC, in the autumn of 1915. The meeting would have been quite significant, as it was the first scheduled reunion of the group outside Europe. However, the congress was cancelled due to the outbreak of the First World War,30 and even after the armistice the ICAW never met again, which reflected the gradual transition from an era of relatively informal transnational networks to one characterized by more formalized international organizations, as illustrated in the chapter by Sandrine Kott. During and immediately following the war, members of the ICAW who served as administrators for national governments focused on other issues, including the retraining of injured soldiers, the postwar economic recovery, revising existing social insurance programmes, and the establishment of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Extra-governmental experts affiliated with the ICAW assisted their governments in these activities or participated directly in the new international organizations that were established by the peace settlement.31 Some members of the congress eventually acted as advisors to the newly formed ILO. For example, Édouard Fuster, a professor based in Geneva who had served on the Permanent Committee of the ICAW, was invited by the ILO in 1921 to participate in one of the first meetings of experts interested in social insurance. The ILO also tried to reorganize the Permanent Committee of the ICAW, but it was unsuccessful in its attempt.32 Throughout its existence the ICAW was the most important transnational point of contact for experts, including governmental officials, interested in industrial accidents and, in particular, social insurance as a possible means to address them. It was one of the first of several related transnational networks that were established between the late 1880s and the 1900s in order to investigate the protection of workers and the problems of workplace accidents and industrial hygiene. These points of contact, like the International Congresses on Workers’ Protection, which began meeting regularly from 1889, the International Association for the Legal Protection of Workers, which was founded in 1897 and met regularly at conferences, and the International Congresses on Professional Diseases, which met first in Milan in 1906, amongst others, proved important for framing the problem of industrial accidents both before and after governments adopted legislation for their prevention and compensation. In the case of the International Association for the Legal Protection of Workers, which has been discussed extensively elsewhere, including in

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this volume, these points of contact could also act as important advocacy groups for the adoption of new international treaties on workers’ protection.33 The following section outlines how the ICAW operated, by contrast, as a relatively neutral community that both confirmed and further defined the problem of workplace accidents without mounting a lobby for comprehensive international standards or changes to national policy. It shows how, nonetheless, the ICAW provided various interest groups, including national governments, with a means to argue for their own policy preferences and thereby test the consensus of the policy community.

National Prerogatives within a Transnational Community The Permanent Committee of the ICAW claimed that all ‘civilized nations’ would come together in a form of ‘social solidarity’ to combat the accident problem and related issues.34 There was a great deal of ‘solidarity’ amongst congress participants, who were able to agree about the general nature of workplace accidents, preventive measures, ways to collect statistics and, ultimately, the necessity for some minimal legislation on compensation. Yet, given that the ICAW acted as a policy community in which national governments and their expert representatives played a fundamental role, it is not surprising that national objectives often drove participants within this community. In the ICAW, as in other transnational networks involved in social policy at the time, tensions between national and international goals were always present.35 As Sandrine Kott has observed, the building of nation-states and the establishment of social policy were often concurrent enterprises, and concerns about the nation were crucial for how individuals viewed different forms of social policy.36 On the one hand, the simultaneity of these two developments influenced the form of social legislation that countries adopted: in the contexts of state-building and of nation-building, it mattered to governments and citizens alike whether new social legislation would involve the expansion of governmental departments and taxes. The nature of the state – and especially whether it was perceived to be ‘authoritarian’ or ‘liberal’, caring or indifferent – played a large role in the formation of national identity at this time.37 On the other hand, as shown in Damiano Matasci’s chapter, the simultaneous experience of building nation-states and adopting new social legislation affected how governments represented their policies abroad and engaged with transnational communities of relevant experts.

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The tension between national prerogatives and epistemic consensus within the policy community did not, however, predominate within the ICAW. In fact, there was a great deal of agreement within the group about  most issues and especially about those which were perceived to be most ‘neutral’ due to their seemingly scientific and objective nature. In particular, collecting statistics, devising strategies for preventing accidents and defining the general problem of accidents and all its constituent elements – workplace risk, issues of negligence, difficulties with malingering – were never contentious matters within the group. The lack of disagreement surrounding definitions is all the more surprising in light of the fact that member states within the ICAW held vastly different understandings of some of these concepts, and, not least, understandings of liability, which was already noted in an extensive report to the first congress in 1889. Moreover, different legal understandings of ‘occupational risk’, fault, force majeure – known in the English context as ‘Acts of God’ – and accidents proved difficult to translate across cultures, let alone from language to language.38 Nonetheless, it was perhaps within national delegations that some of the greatest disagreements about definitions arose, as was the case when French members of the Permanent Committee debated a bill that would introduce statutory insurance in France.39 The fact that defining the basic tenets underlying accidents and risk and agreeing on preventive measures involved the insights of seemingly apolitical experts such as actuaries, engineers, lawyers and physicians may have played a role in easing translation and coming to a consensus within the network. It was thus possible, even by the end of its first meeting in 1889, for members of the ICAW to reach an agreement over the most essential aspect of the accident problem: the legal concept of risque professionnel – that certain risks are inherent to certain kinds of jobs and that, as a consequence, workers injured due to those risks should receive compensation from their employers. Moreover, participants concurred that risque professionnel should be extended gradually to all industries – even those that were not generally perceived to be particularly dangerous – and to all types of injuries, including those related to occupational illnesses. The group also agreed that employers should adopt preventive measures against workplace accidents and ailments, and it recommended that either official factory inspectors or private associations of experts examine workplaces.40 Throughout its existence the ICAW routinely hosted papers on these topics, for example, featuring diagrams of best practice for preventing the inhalation of toxic dust in mines, or outlining how national jurisprudence had further developed the meaning of risque professionnel by allowing for certain occupational illnesses to receive compensation.41

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At each meeting of the ICAW, participants reconfirmed their agreement about these issues. Members of the ICAW not only agreed on the need to collect reliable accident statistics, but they even advocated the goal of reaching an international standard for their compilation. It was on this issue, in particular, that the ICAW most clearly resembled its forerunners in the form of midnineteenth-century epistemic communities. At its first meeting, members agreed that statistical comparisons between countries must be made in order to understand the causes and consequences of accidents. Yet, as participants in the Statistical Section reported, accident statistics were not only imprecise, due to the variety of categories adopted and the mathematical calculations employed, but they were often quite incomplete. The head of the Swiss Workers’ Secretariat, for example, decried that it was doubtful whether many accidents had been tabulated at all.42 Participants at the first congress concluded that accident statistics should be collected along ‘uniform principles’. They argued that the ‘nature and duration’ of injuries should be taken into consideration and suggested sending a form to national governments for this purpose.43 Five years later the group passed a formal resolution that states should compile annual statistics on workplace accidents, including occupational illnesses, and that they should use as a model the form of the German Imperial Accident Insurance Office, which was founded following the adoption of Germany’s accident insurance law in 1884. The Permanent Committee of the ICAW also circulated the German form in its Bulletin.44 It is unclear, however, to what extent the ICAW’s efforts in standardizing accident statistics had an impact on the activities of member governments, which had generally been collecting similar statistics by this point. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that the ICAW’s efforts did have an impact. For example, the Italian National Fund adopted the statistical categories proposed at the congress in 1891.45 The German government saw the ICAW’s advocacy of its statistical form as a victory.46 At the meetings of the congress it was the German government, in particular, that sought to advocate its own model for dealing with the accident problem. Accident statistics were not, however, what it was most concerned to propagandize. Members of government especially sought to show policy experts operating within communities such as the ICAW that social insurance was the optimal solution to the accident problem. For the German government, like others, the meetings of the ICAW provided an excellent opportunity to encourage other states to adopt its own policy solutions. In this respect the example of the ICAW demonstrates the extent to which transnational networks could be sites of competition and contestation.

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In fact, for many states, the meetings of the ICAW, like those of other transnational networks, presented a conundrum: if a national government sent an official delegation to the congresses, it could indicate that  the  government embraced the ICAW’s approach to the accident problem. Thus,  Britain, which was ambivalent about compulsory compensation, and especially compulsory insurance, for workplace accidents, declined participating officially when invited in 1891. The fact that Britain dealt with the issue of workplace accidents primarily under  common law  – despite the existence of an Employers’ Liability Act since 1880 – may also have contributed to the government’s stance on participating in the  ICAW. The common law allowed for a fair degree of privacy in matters related to labour. By contrast, most members of the ICAW stemmed from countries in which accidents were handled through  civil codes,  which granted  greater scope for intervention into the issue. In this light, compulsory compensation may have seemed too great a breach of the private arena. Nonetheless, Britain sent an ‘unofficial’ delegate to the meeting of the ICAW, who was not subsidized by the Treasury but received leave from his government post in order to attend the congress.47 For other states, the existence of a national law on accident compensation determined whether participating in the ICAW was a worthwhile activity. In this light, Switzerland stopped sending ‘official’ representatives to the congresses from 1894. It nonetheless continued to send administrators as the representatives of particular governmental departments – but not on behalf of Switzerland as a whole. The Swiss government changed this practice once it had adopted national legislation for social insurance. As it claimed, Switzerland now had a reason to send official representatives on behalf of the national government.48 By contrast, Germany did not send official delegates to the first several meetings of the ICAW precisely because it already had comprehensive national legislation and argued that it had nothing to gain from attending. It finally began sending official representatives to the congresses in 1902, with the first ICAW meeting to take place on German soil. The fact that the German government had not been invited to the first, French-sponsored congress of the ICAW might have also been a reason for its disinclination towards – and embitterment about – sending official representation to the ICAW and similar congresses.49 Although the German government was ambivalent about sending official representation to the first few meetings of the ICAW, it nonetheless  encouraged administrators within the Imperial Insurance Office  to  attend the congress. The government was especially anxious that compulsory accident insurance might burden domestic ­industry

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financially by forcing employers to pay for medical treatment and insurance premiums. In domestic debates about adopting social insurance,  many  throughout the country argued that such legislation might make German business uncompetitive, especially if industry abroad had no such burden to confront.50 Out of this economic rationale, as well as out of the desire to exhibit the success of the newly unified German Empire, promoting social insurance abroad became a goal within central government.51 From the late 1880s until the outbreak of the First World War, it commissioned numerous posters, pamphlets and books on German social insurance for international exhibitions, including those of the ICAW.52 Advocating the German model of social insurance at meetings of the ICAW became all the more important after other states began introducing less comprehensive legislation for the compensation of workplace accidents. While Germany required employers in similar industries to join syndicates to pay for insurance and provide medical treatment to injured workers, all under the supervision of national and regional departments specializing in social insurance, other states allowed employers to join any one of a variety of public or private insurance funds or simply to pay compensation out of pocket. Thus, for example, trumping the British and French models on display at the 1900 World’s Fair, which ran parallel to the 1900 ICAW meeting, was a particular aim of the administration in Berlin.53 While the British legislation on workmen’s compensation, which it had enacted in 1897, allowed employers to pay compensation in lump sums and out of pocket, the French accident insurance law of 1898 allowed employers to join a variety of insurance funds to pay for compensation. The three displays at the exhibition, therefore, showed competing solutions to the accident problem. Many members of the ICAW were sceptical about the German solution, and the roots of this scepticism went back to the origins of the policy community. As Oscar Lindner, the French President of the thoroughly French Permanent Committee, put it at the first congress, Germany’s approach was ‘authoritarian’ in nature.54 His derision for the German model was evident in the decision of the Permanent Committee not to invite Germany to attend the meeting. Throughout the first several years of the ICAW, the German model of compulsory social insurance remained entirely unappealing to many congress participants. In fact, there was a noticeable split between what some at the time called the ‘Anglo-Saxon’, ‘Germanic’ and ‘Latin’ elements of the policy community when it came to deciding how to treat the problem of industrial accidents.55 The German government had long been aware of the allegation about  the ‘authoritarian’ nature of its programme of compulsory social

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insurance, and sought to combat it at the ICAW’s meetings. Various groups throughout German society had made similar claims about social insurance when it was first adopted in the early 1880s.56 At the time the government responded with a propaganda campaign based on the idea that it was the duty of the state to care for its ‘helpless co-citizens’ through a policy of ‘state socialism’.57 As part of its later publicity efforts, which it used both at home and abroad at world’s fairs and congresses such as those of the ICAW, the administration in Berlin emphasized that social insurance would lead to social unity. It created this impression through various pictorial motifs displayed on posters at congresses and through the many brochures and full-length texts that it produced for participants. The texts of these displays indicated the success of social insurance by pointing to the millions of workers covered, the medical services offered to the injured and ill, and other feats of what would come to be known as the German ‘social state’. The accompanying imagery typically portrayed a harmoniously unified and industrious vision of Germany, for example, with ‘Germania’, the mythical personification of the nation, flanked by bustling farmland, factories and ports, and the occasional injured worker being carried towards medical treatment.58 The question about whether the German solution to the accident problem was indeed the best option was finally resolved at the 1908 meeting of the ICAW. At this particular congress, members of the ICAW resolved that a compulsory, yet minimal, level of compensation was the best remedy for workplace accidents. They did not, however, agree to compulsory insurance, let alone through a corporatist arrangement like Germany’s. In a speech at the congress, held in Rome, it was one of the Italian governmental representatives, Luigi Luzzatti, who proposed the resolution. Luzzatti, a political-economist and former Minister of the Treasury, had founded the semi-public National Accident Insurance Fund in Italy. As he argued to fellow members of the ICAW, until Italy adopted a policy of compulsory accident insurance in 1898, only two hundred thousand workers had been insured through the variety of voluntary funds operating throughout the country; but under compulsion, the number of insured workers had been able to reach nearly twelve million. Luzzatti claimed that a minimum standard of compulsory compensation would, therefore, greatly help workers who would otherwise receive no coverage. At the same time, the policy would not necessarily damage private insurance.59 The Italian example provided an excellent case for his argument. After  Italy had adopted a compulsory insurance law, employers were allowed to insure their workers either through the National Accident Insurance Fund or through a variety of approved commercial or mutual

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funds. In Italy, private insurance continued to flourish after the new compensation law was enacted. The Italian example stood as the perfect foil to that in ‘authoritarian’ Germany, where many accident insurance companies lost significant business and had to impose widespread layoffs upon the introduction of compulsory and mutual accident insurance  in  1884.60 Luzzatti’s argument proved amenable to delegates from those states that had been most ambivalent about compulsory insurance, and it even appealed to representatives from private or mutual insurance funds, which would have the most to lose if states adopted compulsory insurance in the form of a single national fund or several corporatist funds.61 It is not entirely surprising that members of the ICAW were able to reach an agreement by 1908 about the need for at least a minimal  degree  of compensation to workers injured in industrial accidents.  By  this time,  many  member states had adopted some form of compulsory compensation anyway, and reaching an agreement over a minimum standard of compensation, and not insurance, was not very difficult. Just as  significant, however, was the reality that the accident problem was no  longer as contentious by this point in time. Congress participants were now increasingly interested in different facets of a more general ‘social question’, which ranged from treating poverty amongst the elderly and unemployed to lowering infant mortality rates. Epistemic consensus had been, by and large, reached within the policy community on the accident issue, and now the group was ready to extend its remit to new categories.

Conclusions The experiences of the ICAW provide a meaningful optic into the nature of transnational networks of experts in the period before the First World War. The organization grew out of a variety of national pressures to address workplace accidents and their consequences, and especially the impetus of governmental ministries that were already investigating the issue. Yet, its intellectual roots also extended to the earlier efforts of transnational and domestic networks of experts interested in cognate areas, such as statistics and the social sciences. Its relationship with these earlier organizations is evidenced, to a certain degree, by shared membership rosters. While its mid-century predecessors often acted more forcefully as epistemic communities interested in changes to national policy, the ICAW generally towed a neutral and more official line. Like its predecessors, the

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ICAW focused primarily on issues that appeared to be objective due to their scientific nature, such as preventing accidents and tabulating statistics, but it rarely made strong resolutions that would have an impact on governmental policy. When it did call for standards, in the case of statistics and compensation, it never pushed for a binding international convention. In this respect it differed from the other major transnational network investigating accidents at this time, the International Association for the Legal Protection of Workers. Members of the ICAW were mostly governmental officials and experts who worked closely with governmental departments, and whether attending officially or unofficially, they served national objectives. It is clear that, for all participants, the ICAW provided an opportunity to obtain information about foreign legislation and about medical and scientific innovations. Yet, the ICAW also provided a valuable means to lobby for national policy models. Nonetheless, while the group experienced, at times, very sharp divisions, it agreed fundamentally on the nature of the issue at hand. In this sense, the ICAW resembles what Keck and Sikkink have identified as a transnational policy community. It is misleading, however, to see the ICAW as a bounded group. Networks consist of nodes that connect to other networks, acting, as  Patricia Clavin has noted, as honeycombs that contain ‘hollowedout spaces where institutions, individuals and ideas wither away to be  replaced by new organizations, groups and innovations’.62 For example, governmental representatives within the ICAW were linked to a variety of other communities, such as the epistemic communities of doctors, lawyers, actuaries and others whom they encountered in the everyday process of administering social legislation. They were also linked  to  these  communities through national and international congresses of different groups interested in the accident problem. After the First World War, remnants of the ICAW filtered into the newly founded ILO, a different kind of network altogether – an international organization with a unique tripartite construction consisting of employers, workers and governmental representatives. The governmental representatives at the ICAW were also connected to a variety of advocacy groups, in the form of national and transnational workers’ organizations and associations for the injured and disabled.63 Indeed, the porous nature of the group, along with the often fiercely national politics within it, seemed to run against the ICAW’s official imprimatur as a policy community. In these respects, the case of the International Congress on Accidents at Work reveals the very complexity of transnational networks, indicating that the framework outlined by Keck and Sikkink merely provides a ­variety of ideal types.

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Appendix Table 3.1. Meetings of the International Congress on Accidents at Work

Name

Year

Location

1st International Congress on Accidents at Work*

1889

Paris (parallel event to the Exposition universelle internationale)

2nd International Congress on Accidents 1891 at Work and Social Insurance

Berne

3rd International Congress on Accidents  at Work and Social Insurance

1894

Milan

4th International Congress on Accidents at Work and Social Insurance

1897

Brussels

5th International Congress on Accidents at Work and Social Insurance

1900

Paris (parallel event to the Exposition universelle internationale)

6th International Congress on Industrial Accidents and Social Insurance

1902

Düsseldorf

7th International Congress on Industrial Accidents and Social Insurance

1905

Vienna

8th International Congress on Social Insurance

1908

Rome

9th International Congress on Social Insurance

1910

The Hague

10th International Congress on Social Insurance

1911

Dresden

11th International Congress on Social Insurance

1912

Zurich

12th International Congress on Social Insurance**

1914

Paris

13th International Congress on Social Insurance**

1915

Washington, D.C.

* To reflect the increasing importance of social insurance for accidents, the congress added ‘social insurance’ to its name in 1891. It modified its name again in 1908 to reflect the increasing importance of new forms of social insurance. ** Cancelled because of the First World War. Sources: M. Herren, Internationale Sozialpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg: Die Anfänge europäischer Kooperation aus der Sicht Frankreichs (Berlin 1993), 253f; A. Rabinbach, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity (New York 1990), 183–84f; A.R. Schäfer, American Progressives and German Social Reform, 1875–1920: Social Ethics, Moral Control, and the Regulatory State in a Transatlantic Context (Stuttgart 2000), 195.

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Notes 1. J.G. Ruggie, ‘International Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends’, International Organization 29(3) (1975): 557–83 at 569f; J.G. Ruggie, ‘What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge’, International Organization 52(4) (1998): 855–85, especially 857f. 2. P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux’, Genèses 57(4) (2004): 110–26. 3. Ruggie, ‘International Responses’, 558. 4. P.M. Haas, ‘Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination’, International Organization 46(1) (1992): 1–35, especially 10f. 5. L. Raphael, ‘Die Verwissenschaftlichung des Sozialen als methodische und konzeptionelle Herausforderung für eine Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22(2) (1996): 165–93. The International Labour Organization provides a poignant example of these paradoxes: S. Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalization des politiques socials dans l’entre-deuxguerres’, Genèses 71(2) (2008): 26–46. 6. M.E. Keck and K. Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca and London 1998), 1ff. 7. To reflect the increasing importance of social insurance for workplace accidents, the congress added ‘social insurance’ to its name in 1891. It modified its name again in 1908 to reflect the increasing importance of other forms of social insurance. 8. C.S. Maier, ‘Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era’, American Historical Review 105(3) (2000): 807–31. 9. J. Paulmann, ‘Grenzüberschreitungen und Grenzräume: Überlegungen zur Geschichte transnationaler Beziehungen von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis in die Zeitgeschichte’ in Geschichte der international Beziehungen: Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen Disziplin, eds E. Conze, U. Lappenküper and G. Müller (Cologne 2004), 169–96, ­especially 178f. 10. R. Muhs, J. Paulmann and W. Steinmetz, ‘Brücken über den Kanal? Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert’ in Aneignung und Abwehr: Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert, eds Muhs, Paulmann and Steinmetz (Bodenheim 1998), 7–20, especially 19; on second-order observation, see N. Luhmann, Ecological Communication, trans. J. Bednarz (Chicago 1989), 11–21. 11. S. Brown, ‘Report on the Eighth International Statistical Congress, Held at St Petersburg, 22nd/10th August to 29th/17th August, 1872’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London 35(4) (1872): 431–57 at 451f. 12. I. Hacking, ‘Making Up People’ in Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought, eds T.C. Heller, M. Sosna and D.E. Wellbery (Stanford 1986), 222–36 at 222. See also R. Romanelli, ‘La nuova Italia e la misurazione dei fatti sociali: Una premessa’, Quaderni storici 15 (1980): 765–78; I. Hacking, ‘Prussian Numbers, 1860–1882’ in The Probabilistic Revolution, eds L. Krüger, L. Daston and M. Heidelberger (Cambridge, MA 1987), 377–94; M.J. Cullen, The Statistical Movement in Early Victorian Britain: The Foundations of Empirical Social Research (Hassock 1975); E. Brian, La mesure de l’état: administrateurs et géomètres au XVIIIe siècle (Paris 1994). 13. J. Moses, ‘Risk, Humanity and Injuries to the Body Politic: Governmental Representations of “The Industrial Accident Problem” in Britain, Germany and Italy, 1870–1900’ in Imagination and Commitment: Representations of the Social Question, eds

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C. Smit, I. van den Broek and D.-J. Wolframm (Leuven 2010); M.-F. Conus and J.-L. Escudier, ‘Les transformations d’une mesure: la statistique des accidents dans les mines de charbon en France, 1833–1988’, Histoire et Mesure 12(1–2) (1997): 37–68; P.W.J. Bartrip and P.T. Fenn, ‘The Measurement of Safety: Factory Accident Statistics in Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, Historical Research 63 (1990): 58–72. 14. E. Brian, ‘Statistique administrative et internationalisme: Statistique pendant la second moitié du XIXe siècle’, Histoire et Mesure 4 (1989): 201–24. 15. P.W.J. Bartrip and S. Burman, Wounded Soldiers of Industry: Industrial Compensation Policy, 1833–1897 (Oxford 1983), chap. 3. 16. L. Goldman, Science, Reform and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857–1886 (Cambridge 2002), chap. 11, 369 and 377. 17. Conus and Escudier, ‘Les transformations’, 42f. 18. É. Gruner (ed.), Exposition universelle internationale de 1889: Congres international des accidents du travail, vol. 1: Rapports presentés sur la demande du comité d’organisation . . . (Paris 1889), 1ff. 19. É. Gruner (ed.), Exposition universelle internationale de 1889: Congres international des accidents du travail, vol. 2: Comptes Rendus des séances et visite du congrès (Paris 1890), 7, 11ff., 19. 20. Congrès international des accidents du travail et des assurance sociales, troisième session, Milan, 1–6 octobre 1894, vol. 1: Rapports presentés . . . (Milan 1894), 8–10. 21. Gruner, Exposition universelle, 2: 5ff. 22. Ibid., 1ff. 23. Ibid., 8. 24. Congrès international de accidents du travail et des assurances sociales, sixième session tenue a Düsseldorf du 17 au 24 juin 1902, publie par les soins du comité allemande d’organisation (Breslau and Berlin 1902). 25. Actes du VIII Congrès international des assurances sociales, Rome 12–16 octobre 1908, 2 vols (Rome 1909), 1: 9. 26. See L.J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton 1997). 27. Bundes-Archiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (henceforth BArch) R89: 110527: unnumbered: Secretary of the Permanent Committee to the President of the Imperial Insurance Office, 13 June 1900. 28. Congrès international des accidents du travail et des assurances sociales, troisième session, 8ff. 29. Actes du VIII Congrès international des assurances sociales. 30. A.R. Schäfer, American Progressives and German Social Reform, 1875–1920: Social Ethics, Moral Control, and the Regulatory State in a Transatlantic Context (Stuttgart 2000), 195. 31. For example, ‘Conferenza internazionale per gli invalidi di guerra’, Rassegna di assicurazioni e previdenza sociale: bollettino mensile della cassa nazionale d’assicurazione per gli infortuni degli operai sul lavoro 3(12) (1916): 1894; ‘La cassa nazionale infortuni alla terza conferenza interalleata per lo studio delle quetsioni interessanti gli Invalidi di guerra’, Rassegna di assicurazioni 6(9–10) (1919): 1201–19. 32. G. Tamburi, The International Labor Organization and the Development of Social Insurance (Geneva 1981), 11f. 33. M. Herren, Internationale Sozialpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg: Die Anfänge europäischer Kooperation aus der Sicht Frankreichs (Berlin 1993). For an analysis of the group as an epistemic community, see J. van Daele, ‘Engineering Social Peace: Networks, Ideas and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’, International Review of Social History 50(3) (2005): 435–66. See the chapter in this volume by S. Kott.

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34. Congrès international des accidents du travail et des assurances socials, troisième session, Milan, 1–6 octobre 1894, 1: 8. 35. R. Gregarek, ‘Le mirage de l’Europe sociale. Associations internationales de politique sociale au tournant du 20e siècle’, Vingtième siècle 48 (1995): 103–18, especially 115–16; Herren, Internationale Sozialpolitik, 8. 36. S. Kott, ‘Der Sozialstaat’ in Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, eds E. Francois and H. Schulze, 3rd edn, 3 vols (Munich 2001), 2:485; S. Kott, L’État social allemande: representations et pratiques (Paris 1995). 37. J. Moses, The First Modern Risk: Workplace Accidents and the Origins of European Welfare States (forthcoming). 38. C. Dejace, ‘La responsabilité des accidents du travail et le risque ­professionnel’ in Gruner, Exposition universelle, 2: 194ff. On translation, see also J. Moses, ‘Foreign Workers and the Emergence of Minimum International Standards for the Compensation  of Workplace Accidents, 1880–1914’, Journal of Modern European History 7(2) (2009): 219–39. 39. ‘Séances du comité’, 22 Apr. 1892, Congrès international des accidents du travail et des assurances sociales, Bulletin du comité permanent (Paris 1892), 3: 485–89. See also ‘Séances du comité’, 7 May 1892, pp. 489–95. 40. Gruner, Exposition universelle, 2: 19ff. 41. For example, see G. Pesaro, ‘Des dispositifs adoptés dans les divers pays pour prévenir les accidents du travail’, Congrès international des accidents du travail et des assurances sociales, troisième session, 1: 29–51; V. Magaldi, ‘Les accidents du travail en Italie: Progrès legislatifs – Applications de la loi’, Congrès international de accidents du travail et des assurances sociales, sixième session, 681–99. 42. Gruner, Exposition universelle, 2: 135ff. 43. Ibid., 21. 44. BArch R1501:100645: 100–1: Copy of the resolutions from the 1894 meeting of the ICAW. 45. Congrès international de accidents du travail et des assurances socials, sixième session, 921ff. 46. BArch R1501:100645: 100–1: Copy of the resolutions from the 1894 meeting of the ICAW. 47. National Archives (henceforth NA): HO: 45:9841:B11058: 1ff: Secretary of State in the Home Office to G. Lushington, 6 July 1891. 48. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914 (Munich 2000), 283f. 49. BArch R1501:100645: 154–68: Secretary of the Interior to the Foreign Secretary, 24 Apr. 1897; 197–98: Secretary of the Interior to the Imperial Chancellor, 8 Sept. 1901. 50. Geheimes-Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (henceforth GStAPK): I.H.A. Rep. 84a. 11031: 168–73: 11th Session of the Permanent Committee of the Volkswirthschaftsrath, 24 Mar. 1882, 296–97, 300; BArch R 1501: 100393: 37–38: Committee of the FabrikArbeiter-Unterstützungs-Kasse of Lüdenscheid to the Minister of the Interior, 2 Feb. 1881. This concern was reiterated during later discussions about revising the accident insurance laws: BArch R 1501: 101098: 27–29: Chancellor Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst to Secretary of the Interior Boetticher, 25 July 1895. 51. See, in particular, BArch R1501:100645: 92–95: Head of the Imperial Accident Insurance Office to the Secretary of the Interior, 31 Oct. 1894. 52. For example, G.A. Klein, Die Arbeiterversicherung des Deutschen Reichs (Berlin 1904); L.  Lass and F. Zahn, Einrichtung und Wirkung der Deutschen Arbeiterversicherung: Denkschrift für die Weltausstellung zu Paris, 1900 (Berlin 1900). See also G. Zacher, Leitfaden

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zur Arbeiterversicherung des deutschen Reichs: Neu zusammengestellt für die Weltausstellung in Paris 1900, 3rd edn (Berlin 1900). 53. BArch R 1501: 101093: 7–10: President of the Imperial Insurance Office to the Secretary of the Interior, 30 Mar. 1899. 54. Gruner, Exposition universelle, 2: 12. 55. NA: HO: 45: 9841:B11058:5: British Envoy to the Swiss Confederation to the Secretary of State for the Home Office, 28 Sept. 1891. 56. H.-P. Benöhr, ‘Soziale Frage, Sozialversicherung und Sozialdemokratische Reichstagsfraktion (1881–1889)’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, German Divison 98 (1981): 95–156; J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago 1978), 153–58; R. vom Bruch, ‘Bürgerliche Sozialreform im deutschen Kaiserreich’ in Weder Kommunismus noch Kapitalismus: bürgerliche Sozialreform in Deutschland vom Vormärz bis zur Ära Adenauer, ed. R. vom Bruch (Munich 1985), 61–179, esp. 99–112; see also G.A. Ritter, Soziale Frage und Sozialpolitik in Deutschland seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (Opladen 1998), 17–21. In part, Bismarck devised social insurance in order to integrate Social Democrats into national politics, which led to much criticism of the policy. See O. Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, vol. 3: The Period of Fortification, 1880–1898 (Princeton 1990), 150–62. 57. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags, 2 Apr. 1881, vol. 62, 712; 15 Mar. 1884, vol. 75, 87–88. 58. Cf. n. 50. 59. Actes du VIII Congrès international des assurances socials, 67ff; C.R. Henderson, ‘The Logic of Social Insurance’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 33(2) (1909): 41–53 at 51ff. 60. For example, BArch R101:331: 1–2: Petition of the Employees of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Versicherungs-Verein in Stuttgart (Reichstag petition Nr. 44); BArch R1501:100403:2–5: letter from the Department for Accident Insurance of the Magdeburger Allgemeine Versicherungs-Actien-Gesellschaft, 14 May 1881, to the Bundesrath. 61. Henderson, ‘Logic’, 51ff. 62. P. Clavin, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, Contemporary European History 14(4) (2005): 421–39 at 438f. See also M. Castells, ‘Towards a Sociology of the Network Society’, Contemporary Sociology 29(5) (2000): 693–99. 63. Especially, however, after the war, see M. Dreyfus, ‘Mutualité et organisations politiques et sociales Internationales (1889–1939)’, Vingtième Siècle 48 (1995): 92–102.

Chapter 4

The Rise of Coordinated Action for Children in War and Peace Experts at the League of Nations, 1924–1945

( Dominique Marshall

As Edward Fuller was compiling the third edition of the International Handbook of Child Care and Protection in 1928, he received a note from ‘an official of one of the states’ of whom he had asked ‘questions as to “child welfare” activity’. ‘We do not know what you mean by “child welfare”’, his correspondent had replied. Yet, pondered Fuller, that state harboured ‘public and private activities for the care and protection of children’. In a text that promoted the exchange of information and the production of uniform statistics, Fuller also noted that ‘word agreement’ was urgently required.1 This chapter considers a network of experts and transnational advocacy groups that gathered to realize these aims. This network, which included Fuller, was created and operated by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the League of Nations,2 an appointed body of national delegates and independent ‘assessors’ from voluntary organizations that met eleven times in Geneva, from its creation in 1924 until the interruption of the activities of the League in 1939. Endowed with a relatively small budget, the Child Welfare Committee was entrusted with a set of universal standards that had been adopted in the year of its creation by the General Assembly of the League of Nations – the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The committee was to establish detailed norms, conduct inquiries, organize conferences and contribute to the construction of new institutions. A corresponding and relatively small number of permanent employees of the Social Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations were to ensure the implementation of the wishes of the committee. Child welfare was one of the six domains of the Social Notes for this chapter begin on page 101.

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Section, headed, until 1931, by Dame Rachel Crowdy, a British charitable worker associated with Armenian relief and leader of the British Voluntary Aid Detachment during the First World War. Crowdy was then replaced by the Danish lawyer, diplomat and humanitarian Erik Einan Ekstrand. Only one member of the staff of the League worked solely on questions of child protection, the Belgian Andrée Colin, former secretary of the Brussels-based International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare.3 The Child Welfare Committee also answered to the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly of the League, on ‘Social and General Questions’. This chapter identifies the variety of traditions that informed the work of transnational child-welfare experts, the kind of expertise they claimed to possess, and the nature, methods and objects of concern of the institutions and networks they helped to put in place. The discussion uses the tools of a cultural history of knowledge that is attentive to the elaboration of legitimate expertise, of a history of transnationalism that considers networks as hybrid and polyvalent and of a history of state formation that considers public institutions as a variety of bodies with relative autonomy in reciprocal relations with the wider political culture.4 The reflections in this chapter on such deep relationships between the constitution of expertise and the wider transformations of political cultures are mostly informed by the history of Canadian public life.

Objectives and Composition of the Child Welfare Committee and the Selection of Topics of Transnational Exchange In his 1936 history of the League of Nations, Alfred Zimmern, former deputy director of the League’s International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, argued that cooperation by those he called ‘practical men’ and ‘masters of theoretical knowledge’ represented ‘a radical change – indeed a revolution – in the conduct of international affairs’.5 The League had been ‘able to draw upon a reservoir of knowledge and public spirit which few, if any, national governments had hitherto systematically employed’. By selecting specific international problems, by isolating them from ‘entanglement with Power-politics’, by organizing meetings away from ‘habit and precedent’, the League had allowed experts to work ‘according to the best light of their professional craft’. Such was the success of the system that it was ready to grow. ‘If this method worked so satisfactorily and led to results both more rapid and substantial than was expected in 1920, why, it was natural to ask, should it not be extended

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indefinitely throughout the field of public affairs?’ Finally, to show how even ‘civil servants from departments other than Foreign Offices’ had contributed to this movement, Zimmern singled out one of the protagonists of this chapter, S.W. Harris, the British Home Office expert concerned with child welfare. Similarly, shortly after her appointment to second the work of the Child Welfare Committee, Andrée Colin predicted that the resources made available by the League would enable meetings between experts that would otherwise be impossible and yet were crucial for international understanding. Colin’s experience at the International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare had demonstrated that meeting faceto-face could accomplish what written correspondence alone could not. Such encounters had made exchanges of views and experiences between Belgium and the United Kingdom possible, and a personal visit by the American reformer Grace Abbott to the association in Brussels had shown her the value of the organization. Colin also anticipated what she called ‘real discussions’, which she contrasted with all-too-frequent conferences that only made for mere gathering of data.6 The Child Welfare Committee met for the first time with few indications to guide the procedures of its work and select the kind of knowledge to be shared. It was as if ‘science’ was an uncontroversial notion that would lend itself naturally to cooperation, as if the contacts between child welfare experts would naturally bring about the ‘best solutions’. Articles 24 and 25 of the League Covenant had made for the League’s control of former international institutions for the ‘regulation of matters of international interest’, but by the mid-1920s the nature of the pre-existing institutions to be brought under the umbrella of the League was still the object of legal and political discussions within the Secretariat and between members of international associations of child welfare and the Secretariat.7 According to a historian of the League of Nations, in the haste to address the more pressing problems of peace, the structure of the new technical collaboration had been left undefined by the author of the Versailles Treaty: social and economic questions were rapidly sent to the League, with ‘casualness, lack of concern’, with the exception of issues concerning work and the International Labour Office. The institutions devoted to such social and economic questions, which came to be called ‘technical organizations’, were thus left to rise unevenly, ‘under the pressures of needs and circumstances’.8 As soon as the Secretariat started its activities, the question of who would be part of the League’s new technical committees generated debates of a nature more political than had been expected.9 The relationship of the League to private associations was still under discussion in

The Rise of Coordinated Action for Children in War and Peace | 85

spring 1924.10 It was eventually resolved that membership of the Child Welfare Committee would consist of three categories. The first grouping was formed by national delegates with voting privileges; the Swiss jurist Alfred Silbernagel, author of a treatise on comparative law in matters of child protection, quickly noted that the Great Powers were over-­ represented, irrespective of their record on child welfare.11 The second category comprised representatives of the Health Organization of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office, who would ensure that there was no duplication of work between League agencies.12 Finally, a consultative role was given to assessors drawn from five charities specializing in child welfare: the International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare mentioned above, the League of Red Cross Societies and the Save the Children International Union (SCIU), all three of which had already called for the League to take some responsibility in matters of child welfare; the two others were the American Social Hygiene Association, probably because it had promised a financial contribution, and the International Organization of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, possibly because its international delegate, the English woman Katherine Furse, was close to Crowdy.13 In addition to the composition of the committee, the ‘specific international problems’ – to use Zimmern’s expression – to be selected were also the object of debate. Many questions pertaining to childhood had already been channelled to the International Labour Office, which even after the creation of the Child Welfare Committee retained responsibility for child labour. Similarly, children’s health landed on the desk of the Health Section of the League Secretariat, although much effort in child welfare concerned the fight against infant mortality. More successful than the Child Welfare Committee in convincing international delegates and civil servants that the League should take a large role in the promotion of its field, the Health Organization contained sanitary catastrophes with enough visible success to demonstrate its further utility. Its success was also due to ‘the pressure of urgent need’, an ingredient Zimmern believed conducive to productive exchanges by experts.14 In 1925 Colin, the secretary of the committee, was still asking Grace Abbott of the U.S. Children’s Bureau to help her to define a ‘very wide field of research and education’ for the committee.15 Some themes were particularly suited to cross-border work, as is evident in the role of epidemics in shaping the constitution of the Health Organization of the League.16 Such issues also included the trafficking of women and children, to tackle which there had been an international agreement in place since 190417 and an international office for more than a decade; both would be absorbed by the League of Nations. Also inherently international were legal questions

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such as the repatriation of alien children and cross-border adoption. The specific demands of national circumstances could favour expert knowledge, and Canadians had become particular specialists in international adoption in light of the large number of ‘Home Children’ that had been sent to the dominion by the mother country since the mid-1800s. Charlotte Whitton, the main Canadian member of the Child Welfare Committee, had conducted an inquiry into abuses of this system in Canada that had put an end to the migration schemes. Accordingly, Whitton’s first trip to the League in Geneva ended with a stay in Paris, for a special session working with the child welfare subcommittee that was devoted to the codification of international adoptions.18 Another legal issue ready for exchanges and codification was juvenile delinquency. Julia Lathrop, the first director of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and assessor at the Child Welfare Committee from 1925, belonged to a tradition of legal experts and philanthropists involved in juvenile justice. Having developed their own transnational networks at the end of the nineteenth century, legal experts would contribute to a series of five reports by the Child Welfare Committee on juvenile courts and auxiliary services.19 Other themes were promoted by prominent members of the committee. Sidney Harris’s personal interest in the censorship of films for the young, for example, would have substantial influence on the 1928 Child Welfare Committee publication on the subject. The dominant currents in social work help to explain some decisions about the remit of the committee. Whether all children should be a concern, not only those in distress, had, for example, been an issue of debate when the committee was formed and when the Declaration of Children’s Rights was ratified.20

Progressive Businessmen, the Internationalization of Charities, the Professionalization of Social Work and the Rise of Welfare States Many traditions informed the early work of the committee. One was the belief in efficient administration that came from the world of business and trade, and shaped ‘the skilful marshalling of the Secretariat’ which, according to Zimmern, was essential to the revolution in the conduct of external affairs by experts.21 Chief amongst the high civil servants of the Secretariat were ‘practical men’, to use Zimmern’s words. In Europe and Canada the cause of social reform had long attracted businessmen such as Canadian Herbert Brown Ames. Ames was a Montreal shoe manufacturer, insurance broker, philanthropist and politician, who in the 1890s had written a survey of the lives of poor people the south-west of the city,

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fought for electoral reform, entered municipal and federal politics and built philanthropic houses. Ames’s war service in social welfare – the management of the Canadian Patriotic Fund, which raised and distributed funds for the families of men at the front – contributed to his appointment as financial director of the League of Nations, a position he held for its first seven years. In this post he created a model of administration that outlasted the League.22 Moreover, ‘next to [Secretary General] Drummond, Ames was the pivot around which most of the activities of the senior League officials and delegates revolved’. He also became an ‘unsurpassed’ propagandist for the League of Nations’ activities, a testimony to the quest by such businessmen for legitimacy amongst the broader public.23 Ames provides an example of how what North Americans called ‘progressive’ beliefs in social reform and public institutions could extend to diplomacy. Having worked at restoring order at home, they believed that they could apply business solutions to world problems.24 More generally, the idea of a mutually beneficial relationship between, on one hand, the extension and the integration of economic relations and, on the other hand, transnational exchanges between individuals away from national strife had long had significant purchase.25 Tellingly, the first time social worker Charlotte Whitton had travelled in Europe professionally had been to accompany a senior civil servant from the Canadian Department of Trade to London, where Whitton had attended a conference on social work at which she had presented a paper on Canadian child welfare.26 The tradition of social work also informed the work of the committee. Prominent amongst the experts called upon to form the committee were the Canadian assessor Whitton, head of the newly founded and semi-private Canadian Council of Child Welfare, and Grace Abbott, Julia Lathrop and Katherine Lenroot, social workers associated with the U.S. Children’s Bureau. The creation of a committee devoted to all children was informed by, and reinforced, the ongoing transformation of the episteme of child welfare work from the protection of vulnerable children to the promotion of the welfare of all – a movement with universal claims that lent itself well to transnational ideas and actions.27 Not unlike the work of progressive businessmen, this form of social work had proven its worth during the war, when the ‘organising and business ability’ of many American social workers, their casework methods and their thorough, democratic, non-condescending and impartial approach had earned them the respect of Europeans.28 It had a profound influence on the committee’s agenda. Early on, Grace Abbott was consulted by Colin, who hoped to counter both the embroilment of the League’s technical work in European rivalries and British domination of the League’s Secretariat. At Abbott’s recommendation the committee was to use ‘detailed social research following

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scientific principles as a basis for defining broad social welfare policy’ and to adopt a broad concern for the normal child, not only for children in difficulty.29 Social workers from North America and Britain shared a belief in the ability of knowledge to solve social problems, as did the progressive businessmen mentioned above.30 Whitton believed that each ‘piece of useful research’ would further strengthen the legitimacy of the new transnational network.31 In her view, social work was equipped with an episteme that would lend itself to a consensus: the superiority of child placement in families over institutional life, the casework method and the techniques of behavioural sciences. In the words of Abbott, ‘the trial and error method in the care of children [was] slowly giving way to scientific determination by means of careful study of accumulated experience and by research in new fields’.32 In the early 1930s Whitton secured the leadership of the inquiry into the placing of children in families and from this position was able to involve, in the writing of the final report, colleagues from outside the League who shared her views on the conduct of scientific inquiries. This process recalls the manner in which Ludwik Rajchman, the man at the helm of the much better equipped Health Organization, used his personal intellectual networks to exert a profound influence on the production of the League.33 Humanitarian workers associated with private charities also brought their traditions to the new committee. The League’s covenant welcomed the participation of such charitable agencies, to the satisfaction of Eglantyne Jebb, the British founder in 1920 of the Save the Children International Union, who would first sit on the Child Welfare Committee in the name of this organization. While some of Jebb’s colleagues had wished to remain at arm’s length of the League in order to preserve their independence, most believed that the inclusion of volunteers in the intergovernmental organization would be to their advantage. According to Linda Mahood, Jebb’s biographer, such inclusion continued the war trend towards the ‘internationalization of charity’.34 The Save the Children International Union’s postwar work had been largely responsible for the creation of both the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Child Welfare Committee, in particular the contribution of Jebb and the Hungarian philanthropist Julie Vajkai. For Mahood, work with the League also answered the wish of many voluntary workers for public institutions that would ensure the prevention of poverty, and it showed the adaptability of the voluntary sector. In addition, she writes that Jebb ‘was more an educationalist and a social scientist than a philanthropist’. From the Charity Organisation Societies in England, whose methods she now applied to the international scene, Jebb had learned to favour fieldwork that would in time be taken over by public authorities.35

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The charities that held the new assessorships would now be able to focus their energies and would be provided with both a legitimacy that would help their local work and the means to ensure the adoption of their goals. In return, assessors ‘would serve a twofold purpose: to reflect and stimulate public opinion in the different countries and to provide the Committee with expert advice’.36 In Britain and Canada many charity workers believed in increasing relations with public institutions and in the extension of their activities beyond their national borders. Their associations provided not only the education of the public that would prepare the ground for the adoption of social legislation but also a grassroots network through which a ‘new diplomacy’ more open to citizens’ expectations could be conducted.37 Like progressive businessmen and social workers, workers of these private associations relied on scientific expertise for the administration of their operations and sought to extend their geographical scope and increase their legitimacy amongst a broad public. ‘The modern charity, according to Eglantyne Jebb, must have the same clear conception of its objects and seek to compass them with the same care, the same thoroughness, the same intelligence as are to be found in the best commercial and industrial enterprises.’38 Scientific management had allowed modern charities to run large operations, as demonstrated by the unprecedented scale of the many child-feeding operations of businessman and humanitarian leader Herbert Hoover.39 It enabled charities not only to reach a larger public in funding campaigns but also to reassure donors of the solidity of the work undertaken with their contributions. In addition, advertising techniques borrowed from professionals, journalists, marketing men, photographers and cinematographers helped volunteers to reach people of all ages, classes and regions. New mass communications included the dissemination of moving pictures of suffering, convincing portraits of the charities’ accountability and a clear presentation of the efficiency of the work.40 This expansion of the scope of charity represented a democratization of philanthropy.41 Finally, interest in the international dimensions of child welfare had also arisen amongst national civil servants and politicians involved in international affairs. As states had taken more responsibility for child welfare over the preceding decades and as the community of social policy makers and social service workers increasingly believed in the ability of experts to solve social problems, the condition of the young had become a legitimate object of concern for public officials. Several diplomats and international civil servants owed at least some of their prestige to their own expert work on social questions at the national level. Canadian Senator Raoul Dandurand, best remembered for his work at the League

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of Nations’ General Assembly on behalf of minorities, had helped to put in place at home a federal system for the treatment of young offenders. A lawyer who specialized in criminal law and was involved in provincial educational institutions, Dandurand belonged to a tradition of reform and internationalism that was committed to science, efficiency and modernity in the administration of social problems.42 Similarly, Walter Riddell, the Canadian permanent delegate in Geneva, better known for his support for sanctions against Italy during the invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, had first come to the League as an expert in labour legislation and policies, to work at the International Labour Office. As deputy minister of labour in Ontario, he had organized a programme of allowances for mothers.43 Sidney Harris, a senior civil servant of the British Home Office and British delegate to the Child Welfare Committee, was an expert in juvenile justice.44 Such biographies show that the lines between ‘knowledge and power’, to use Zimmern’s means of distinguishing between the League’s technical and political work, were not rigid.45

Expert Exchanges in a Transnational Context: Methods, Channels and Debates The confluence of various traditions of expert work did not always run smoothly. The difficulties of constructing a new ‘machinery of international co-operation’46 were compounded by the fact that the episteme of child welfare work was younger and less outwardly successful and consensual than those of public health, international law and labour relations, which were also present at the League of Nations. Assessors and national delegates at the Child Welfare Committee did not have the relatively homogenous background and professional affiliations of experts in these fields. Schools of social work were only starting. Charlotte Whitton, for example, had been trained in history and in ‘social hygiene’.47 Andrée Colin’s former role in Brussels had been as a librarian, organizer and propagandist; her International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare was valued for its bulletin, with eight hundred subscribers, which contained a compilation of laws and a review of journals of child welfare, for its answers to requests for information and for its directory of associations.48 Sidney Harris had studied literature and classics. Léonie Chaptal, head of the 1928 Child Welfare Committee report on children in moral danger, was an international leader in nursing.49 More firmly grounded in local contexts, child welfare research and field experiments could not be exchanged between countries as easily as epidemiological knowledge. Not surprisingly, one of the main suc-

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cesses of the Child Welfare Committee, in the eyes of Whitton, was its collaboration with the Health Committee of the Health Organization for a universally acclaimed report on nutrition, based on biological data.50 The Child Welfare Committee also collaborated in the composition of the International Labour Office’s 1926 report on family allowances, in which labour lawyers and trade unions experts could rely on established networks. Such endeavours convinced the child welfare experts of the need to coordinate the work of the Child Welfare Committee with that of the International Labour Office, the Health Organization and the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. The recent institutionalization of social work had made the Child Welfare Committee vulnerable. Despite these limitations, the creation of an international committee devoted to child welfare made for a new kind of exchange among experts. The new institution was to act as an umbrella for all international activities related to child welfare. The considerable clout charitable organizations retained at the committee corresponded to the division of labour in large-scale relief activities. As the field remained mainly in the hands of voluntary organizations, in the interwar years it often fell to their officers to consolidate and establish transnational institutions and practices.51 The Save the Children International Union ‘became a clearing-house for academic developments in scientific child study and welfare, and took on an educative role by commissioning child welfare studies, reports, fact packs and pamphlets, and publishing books like Edward Fuller’s International Yearbook of Child Care and Protection (in 1928)’.52 In 1935, to assist the inquiry by the Child Welfare Committee into the placing of children in families, Julie Vajkai, a leader of the Save the Children International Union, conducted an inquiry of her own about countries little covered by the committee authors’ synthesis of publications.53 Based in London, the Child Protection Committee of the Save the Children International Union, devoted to ‘non-European children’, also sent a report, partly based on the documentation accumulated for its Conference on the African Child in 1931.54 The two documents underlined the value of the placement of children in large and small institutions, in specific circumstances, against the North American social work principle that considered the placement of children in families as superior to institutional placement. The humanitarian workers of the Save the Children International Union were also attempting to rehabilitate the value of qualitative data against the authors of the League’s report, who privileged quantitative information and governmental accounts. Similarly, the British lawyer Harold Grimshaw, Chief of the Indigenous Labour Section of the International Labour Office and member of the Temporary Commission on Slavery of the League of Nations (1924–25),

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used volunteer agencies to bypass ‘the requisites of intergovernmental compromise and consensus [which] make for heavy, slow-moving operations’.55 In order to collect information about bound labour in Africa that colonial states had refused to send, Grimshaw collaborated with the Save the Children International Union as an individual in the planning of the preliminary research for the Conference on the African Child of 1931. This position gave him access to the impressive network of voluntary and religious experts corresponding with the organization and also helped him to muster the kind of public support such an association was able to provide. We know that a few years later the documentary work accomplished by Grimshaw’s section at the International Labour Office helped to attract public attention to labour conditions in colonies in ways that had far-reaching consequences and may have strengthened movements of decolonization.56 In these three examples, encounters in Geneva revealed differences between methods of enquiry, with one being more attentive to local knowledge, values and actions, and the other reliant on statistics, official reports and the neutral claims of experts. More deeply, these two methods also represented two ways to understand ‘the epistemic relation of social scientists with the public’.57 Moreover, the cooperative work at the Child Welfare Committee exposed the divergences between, on the one hand, American and British experts who took the superiority of the scientific methods of their respective countries for granted and, on the other hand, experts who were critical of such assumptions. Thus, in the type of expert work inaugurated by the League of Nations, the ‘universalistic claims on the validity of knowledge’ of the nascent episteme of social work58 were debated in light of the value of qualitative information and local knowledge, the origins of the data collected, the place of interpretation and morality in social sciences, and the superiority of North American conceptions of the treatment of dependent children. Other challenges threatened the scientific consensus for which the founders of the committee had hoped. At times the new transnational networks confirmed the national and professional prejudices of experts and fostered new intolerances. On her first visit to Geneva Charlotte Whitton was surprised to discover the level of contention surrounding such questions as religious education. She saw a group of child welfare specialists already divided along cultural and political traditions: a ‘Latin group’, she contended, dominated the work at the expense of any chance for ‘Englishspeaking and Scandinavian nations’ to perform ‘true scientific work’ in the field.59 From the opposite point of view, ‘Latins’ such as Andrée Colin, Léonie Chaptal and Julie Vajkai argued that a ‘moral’ reflection on the values behind institutions of child welfare was necessary in any trans-

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national fieldwork; they blamed their ‘Anglo-Saxon’ colleagues’ ‘neutral’ techniques of management and inquiry for eluding questions of political philosophy, to poor and shallow avail.60 Conversely, the popularity of child welfare could help to iron out strife between experts of different cultural traditions. Otherwise domineering experts opened their minds and practices to new directions. Despite her exasperation, Whitton had to accept the increase in the number of countries invited to send a delegate to the Child Welfare Committee from the mid-1930s. In the late 1920s she also had to welcome to Canada the League envoy and French nurse Léonie Chaptal to carry out fieldwork on children in moral danger, although she disapproved of Chaptal’s very notion of ‘moral danger’ and of her methods and networks. Furthermore, Chaptal’s visit obliged Whitton to acknowledge the contribution of French Catholic institutions, which she had tended to ignore at home. The activities of the Child Welfare Committee allowed for productive exchanges of knowledge within the League of Nations and across borders, as Fuller had wished in the introduction of the International Handbook. At times the League connected a variety of Canadian institutions to the broader world in a fruitful fashion. In 1926, knowing that the Child Welfare Committee would hold a discussion concerning the protection of the health and life of young children, Whitton asked the sanitary authorities of each Canadian province about their most recent developments.61 Alphonse Lessard, director of the Service provincial d’hygiène in Quebec, reported on recent campaigns against tuberculosis by a hundred regional health units opened by his agency. The results interested Danish, French, Polish and U.S. members of the Child Welfare Committee, and Whitton asked the province for more information.62 By the mid-1930s, in many ways the magic of international encounters in matters of child welfare had lost its sparkle. Funds were lacking. The financial resources of the Child Welfare Committee limited the scope of its inquiries. The report ‘Placing of Children in Families’ of 1938 could not be based on direct fieldwork, unlike the 1928 report on moral danger. Instead, Whitton wrote an analysis of the documentation accumulated by the librarian of the Children’s Bureau of the United States, in collaboration with her U.S. colleagues in Geneva. An ethical discussion composed at her request by the director of the Children’s Aid Agency of Toronto introduced the volumes.63 The centralized collection and classification of laws and regulations became the main activity of the Child Welfare Committee, a task for which, from 1934, a new Child Welfare Information Centre, modelled on the Children’s Bureau, was responsible. On one hand, this narrow work reduced the committee’s significance to the mere collection of facts that Colin had denounced in the early days. On the other hand,

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this work still represented the production of uniform statistics as prescribed by Fuller in the opening lines of this chapter. In addition to the lack of funds, the relationship between voluntary organizations and government delegates had become difficult. In 1936, the British delegate at the Child Welfare Committee, Sidney Harris, argued in a confidential memorandum that assessors were ‘with one or two exceptions, perfectly hopeless and a dead weight on the Committee’; the government members were ‘susceptible to the influence of the assessors’, the topics they brought to the Child Welfare Committee too numerous to tackle seriously, the secretary of little use and the national delegates rarely knowledgeable about welfare. ‘Some of these social questions are of considerable importance … and if … they are dealt with vaguely and ineffectively there is a real risk of considerable damage to the League’s reputation.’64 Harris envisaged a system of rotation for national delegates whereby each country’s League member would take a turn. Their work would be assisted by a system of experts who would attend only on an ad hoc basis, depending on the problems at hand. Instead of an assured seat on the committee, voluntary organizations would be given the status of ‘associate’ or ‘correspondent’. This arrangement would allow them to receive information, promote the League’s work and provide and receive other forms of assistance. Earlier, in 1931, banking on the arrival of Erik Erkstrand as the second director of the Social Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, Harris had attempted to reorganize the section and make its relationship with the Child Welfare Committee more functional and flexible. His various administrative reform projects worried women’s organizations and Catholic charities, which had the support of high-­ranking clerics. In response to the fear that the interests of private associations would be reduced, the British experts opined that the new scheme would open the way for associations that did not currently have a seat on the committee.65 Struggles to make the Child Welfare Committee more effective were part of a larger problem, which the report of the Special Committee on the Development of International Cooperation in Economic and Social Affairs (the Bruce Reform) attempted to tackle in 1939–40. It concluded that the technical work of the League was as dependent on its Assembly and Council as its political work; as a result, the concerns of the League’s commissions had become a secondary consideration. Indeed, as Albert Silbernagel had written earlier, the Child Welfare Committee had been constituted on a political basis and not a technical one. Finally, the League lacked the power to implement recommendations.66

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Child Welfare, the Education of Citizens and the Democratization of Diplomacy The traditions of social work, progressive business, international charities and welfare that converged at the Child Welfare Committee in Geneva did not have only the ideals of expert work and internationalization in common. These movements also coincided on a project for the democratization of international relations. Historians of the League of Nations know well that there existed, amongst the public of Western countries, a ‘more general notion, popular amongst centre-left circles, that citizens needed to be better informed about foreign affairs, and better prepared to hold their governments to account’.67 This aspiration meant not only fostering debates and instruction about international questions – as culminated in the Peace Ballot of 1935 in Britain, on collective security and the League – but also internationalizing topics that already had substantial public backing.68 Chief amongst these themes were the needs and rights of children. During the First World War, Grace Abbott had witnessed the relationship between scientific knowledge as a means to solve children’s problems and the rise of ‘public backing’ for those problems: ‘A new interest in child welfare exists through the world. Progress has not gone far, but already the old fatalism is being driven out by the sheer beginnings of scientific knowledge. Every quarter of the globe is alert as never before to the needs and rights of children, and eager for practicable information.’69 The well-being of the young could not be left in the hands of experts alone: in October 1924 when the relevance of a child welfare committee was questioned by the French representative at the Health Organization, the British delegate, Sir George Buchanan, objected that ‘child welfare in England meant many things with which hygiene had little or no connection’ and insisted that ‘the laity would resent the doctors seeming to grab it all’.70 In particular, child welfare mobilized international women’s movements that fought both for peace and for a say in international affairs. For the International Council of Women ‘advocacy of the League … was concerned with the creation and promotion of an informed and intelligent group of women who could direct the League’s technical organizations relating to women and children’.71 In many countries, the franchise had often been extended to women as a way to improve child welfare, and many women’s suffrage associations had fought for democratic control of diplomacy, such as the Toronto Women’s Suffrage Association.72 As a result, several national delegations at the annual General Assembly of the League would include a woman, who would sit on the Fifth Committee of the Assembly, which was devoted to social, general and humanitarian questions and to which the Child Welfare Committee answered.

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Including public opinion in international policy making offered citizens the means to reflect on policies away from partisan politics.73 In turn, the kind of knowledge about childhood that an international body could procure would attract wide international support. Wrote Julia Lathrop: ‘Geneva is setting up a series of scientific services, of which this Advisory Child Welfare Committee is one. These services – committees or offices – have no authority to enforce their own findings. That is their strength. They have a duty to discover and make known facts. A fruitful fact needs neither compulsory legislation nor military sanction; nothing but a chance to be used.’74 Eglantyne Jebb further argued that if only ‘scientific collection of data’ would provide a ‘possible basis for a scientific world-policy of child saving’, it was ‘of little value for the League to undertake investigations and accumulate information if the results obtained are to remain of mere academic interest’.75 Education offered the bridge between experts and citizens. In 1934 Whitton broadcasted a radio speech from Geneva to Canada about her current work on the Child Welfare Committee,76 and she wrote many articles about the committee for periodicals with a broad circulation. Another aspect of this work for democratization concerned the construction of international norms and measurements. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924, the only document of its time to mention universal entitlements, represented for its author, Eglantyne Jebb, a common reference that would help to carry over into times of peace the large store of energy devoted to children in times of emergency. Written in a simple language that could be memorized easily, the declaration promised that mankind would treat children equally without distinction of creed, race or nationality, anchoring an expansionist agenda in the constitution of the Child Welfare Committee. The Save the Children International Union seems to have played the classic role of what we now call non-governmental organizations (NGOs), ‘in translating issues of transnational concern directly to the level of transnational policy, a task an NGO could ‘perform more effectively and inexpensively than bureaucratically encumbered IGOs [intergovernmental organizations]’.77 We know that ideals of education and international standards met a large consensus in Geneva, Britain and Canada, but the exact role of public opinion and the form of this democratic control remained controversial.78 For many people associated with the Child Welfare Committee, charitable and private associations provided the best vector of popular will. Conservatives such as Whitton believed, for instance, that the Canadian Council of Child Welfare, a semi-public gathering of volunteer and governmental social work agencies, was better placed to represent Canada than was a public institution, precisely because of its popular support. In

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this spirit in the early 1930s Whitton advised her friend Canadian Prime Minister R.B. Bennett to abolish the Division of Maternal Welfare within the federal Department of Health. More liberal experts also trusted voluntary organizations to represent public opinion specifically because during the First World War many of these organizations had adopted a rhetoric of citizenship that departed from earlier uneven and unequal traditions of paternalistic welfare.79 Still, the nature of the connection between private associations and public opinion was debated. After the war Jebb for one had despaired of the parochialism of the national Save the Children Fund in the United Kingdom, which emphasized local projects in order to raise funds. The salvation would be found, she believed, in the international work of the Save the Children Fund movement, its Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and the support that both received from the League of Nations. The association with the League of Nations gave a breath of life to the Save the Children International Union’s scientific and internationalist activities. To the experts of this voluntary organization, the support of a wider public opinion, at the League, offered a place to work away from ‘habit and precedent’, as Zimmern had noted. An additional problem for those who envisaged a direct link between expert exchanges, the production of knowledge, education and the large support of public opinion was that the popularity of the League of Nations faltered. As the historian of the League of Nations Society of Canada found, the very ‘insularity and ignorance’ that had led to war often continued to prevail, and ‘without local nourishment the enthusiasm and membership soon dwindled’.80 This development was compounded by the League’s failures in the realm of collective security: its inability to prevent Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia significantly diminished the idealism that had accompanied its foundation.81 These events threatened the ‘idealist’ approach to diplomacy, held by the founders of the League, and confirmed the ‘realist’ approach of those such as Canadian Prime Minister Bennett who believed that ‘government existed … to confront issues and to confront the people with policy. Policy had to be imposed. The assumption was that the general public was incapable of making policy decisions which were in the nation’s interest; government leaders knew best and had a duty to make policy for all’.82 Just as the conservative understanding of international relations had won the day, so too did, in many ways, the conservative understanding of welfare – a strong voluntary network supplemented by government services and set apart from the control of citizens and beneficiaries. But faith in international exchanges by experts as a means to solve social problems did not die with such general disillusionment about external affairs.83 The very practices of transnational experts since the late 1920s

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had allowed the Canadian chapter of the League of Nations Society to muster some support for the League of Nations, which was presented increasingly as a ‘humanitarian service club’. ‘The growing interdependence of nation upon nation in matters of public welfare and health is enough to justify [the League of Nations’] activities’, Mrs Foster, wife of one prominent Canadian minister and diplomat, told the Moncton Council of Women in 1926.84 In addition to the League of Nations Society, a variety of groups that were already advocating peace started to align their activities on the principles of the League of Nations.85 In this respect, the Child Welfare Committee had an advantage over the Health Organization, which remained more distant from public opinion because of a concentration on laboratory work that often left social questions outside.86 On the whole, Canadian domestic support for the League of Nations was not sufficient for the demands of the ‘concerned public’87 for a new diplomacy to be heard by the prime minister and the members of parliament. However, there was enough public support for the question of child welfare to give Canada some influence on post-First World War diplomacy by channels other than those of domestic politics, namely, through the work of its transnational experts in Geneva. As the historian of the League of Nations in Canada writes: The Canadian colony at the League worked tirelessly, and at a considerable personal sacrifice, in the creation of a public climate upon which positive support for the League could be built … Upon their work and that of a few official delegates, Canada’s reputation rested at Geneva. An indifferent Government gave them no guidance. They found their inspiration in the Geneva experiment itself and they ensured backing for their work by creating [for] themselves a favourable impression at Geneva and public support in Canada.88

Transition to the United Nations The Child Welfare Committee did not survive the Second World War intact, but many traces of its experts’ activities can be found in current institutions. The Bruce Report of 1939–40 finally suggested that a firm separation between technical committees and national governments would solve the problems that had arisen between assessors and national delegates. In this spirit, in 1945 the Charter of the United Nations established the ‘consultative status’ of voluntary associations in relation with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), based on ideas of competence and involvement with the population that are very similar to those discussed around the League of Nations.89 Methods and objectives were also familiar. Called

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by the UN charter to employ ‘international machinery for the promotion of economic and social advancements of all peoples’, a temporary social commission of eight members – with figures familiar to the Child Welfare Committee including Sidney Harris as the British delegate and chairman, and Katherine Lenroot as secretary – recommended a series of established objectives for a now enlarged array of economic and social problems: the ‘collection and dissemination of information, research and field studies, and advisory services and … practical help … the calling of conferences on special subjects, the development of principles or standards, and the drafting of conventions’.90 ECOSOC was not the only legacy of the Child Welfare Committee. During the Second World War, the Allied countries’ total war allowed child welfare experts to obtain promises of public responsibility for postwar civilian relief that they had not been able to secure in 1919. This promise was delivered by 1943 in the temporary United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), an organization for civilian relief of the kind Jebb, Hoover and the Red Cross had all envisaged for the League twenty-five years earlier but not seen realized. One of the six divisions of this new intergovernmental organization was devoted to child welfare.91 The expert chosen to direct the child welfare section was Mary McGeachy, a Canadian graduate and voluntary youth worker whose administrative knowledge, practise of internationalism and public legitimacy all came from twenty years of library and propaganda work at the main office of the League of Nations.92 ‘Her method of winning adherents to the League [had been] by demonstrating how Canada’s social and economic problems were directly related to the League’s activities’.93 McGeachy had particularly encouraged teachers to demonstrate the international significance of daily life and work, and to show that Canadians could advance their own standards by watching the work of the League of Nations.94 At the end of the Second World War, the popularity of technical work related to children prevented the abolition of UNRRA, which had been created only as a temporary body. In 1946, the funds that remained and the organization’s personnel were turned into the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In the new agency, varied, hybrid and popular, many of the lessons of the interwar years seem to have been learned: questions of labour, education, public health and welfare were all coordinated under the same roof; universal standards were promoted worldwide;95 scientific work was possible on the organization’s premises; and a strong link with public opinion was maintained alongside formal links with NGOs. The new director of UNICEF, former head of the Health Organization Ludwik Rajchman, was well acquainted with such activities. He had been excluded from the diplomacy of health by the experts of the new

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World Health Organization who were in quest of North American support and against socialized forms of medicine. To this day UNICEF counts on a well-preserved autonomy from the main political and administrative agencies of the United Nations, an independence largely engineered by Herbert Hoover himself, one of the fathers of the agency. Maurice Pate, Hoover’s most faithful collaborator from the start of his humanitarian work in Europe, became the first executive director of UNICEF, and Canadians, strengthened by the good reputation in technical matters they had earned in Geneva, promptly occupied positions of significance. To this day UNICEF remains the agency of the United Nations that relies the most on popular funding.96

Conclusion ‘The nations have learned not only the techniques of working together’, wrote Herbert Ames in 1927, at the end of his mandate as financial director of the League of Nations, ‘but have already tested the benefits which come from such actions’.97 This analysis of the work of experts at the Child Welfare Committee shows that the ideals of experts from all countries working on child welfare, however ill defined at the beginning, brought together ‘masters of theoretical knowledge’ and ‘practical men’ from a variety of rich traditions. The progressive businessmen, humanitarian workers, social workers and civil servants who came to Geneva all had an interest in internationalizing their activities and in producing and disseminating knowledge in a public spirit. As they discussed the relationship between knowledge, globalization and democracy in ways that were often more explicit, and more naive, than those of their successors, the history of their discussions, their ‘agreements on words’, their methods, their divergences and mistakes in the construction of this particular piece of international machinery help us to understand subsequent developments at the United Nations and current practices and tensions in transnational exchanges of expertise.98 It is true that, in the words of McCarthy, the United Nations ‘never came to symbolize the dream of a democratized global order with which its predecessor, the League of Nations, had inspired the … people between the wars’.99 But in many ways, almost a century later, the question of child welfare has retained a unique power to attract those who wish to discuss and apply ideals of transnational exchange and production of knowledge, with the wide support of citizens of the world.

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Notes This chapter is part of a history of child welfare diplomacy around the League of Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and its Child Welfare Committee that is funded by the following agencies, which I thank: Social Science and Research Council of Canada, Leverhulme Trust, Institute of Historical Research and Carleton University Internal Research and Travel Grants. It has benefited from the comments of Pierre-Yves Saunier and Johannes Pullman, and from the revisions of James Braun, research assistant. 1. Edward Fuller (ed.), The International Handbook of Child Care and Protection (3rd edn, London 1928), vii–xii. 2. In 1924, the new Child Welfare Committee was paired with the Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, which the League had absorbed in 1922; together they formed the Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People. The national members were to work on both issues, but the assessors were nominated for only one. The name changed again in 1936 to ‘Advisory Committee on Social Questions’, now a single committee. H. Aufricht, Guide to League of Nations Publications: A Bibliographical Survey of the Work of the League, 1920–1947 (New York 1951), 200–11. The general information also comes from LONSEA: Searching the Globe though the Lenses of the League of Nations, http://www.lonsea.de/pub. 3. The International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare (French title: Association internationale de protection de l’enfance [AIPE]) had been founded in 1921 to bring together members of the Belgian, French, Italian, Luxemburg and French governments and private individuals. Fuller, International Handbook, 584–85. Andrée Colin headed its office, called the Office international de la protection de l’enfance. 4. M. Poovey, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830–1864 (Chicago 1995); S. Gunn, History and Cultural Theory (Harlow 2006); E. Zimmermann, ‘Intellectual Elites’ in Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, eds A. Iriye and P.-Y. Saunier (Basingstoke 2009), 547–50; P. Abrams, Historical Sociology (near Shepton Mallet, Somerset 1982); Ann Showstack Sassoon, ‘Gramsci’ and ‘Hegemony’ and V.G. Kiernan, ‘Intellectuals’ in Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. T. Bottomore (Oxford 1991), 221–23, 229–31 and 258–60 respectively; D. Rodogno, B. Struck and J. Vogel, ‘Introduction’ in this volume. 5. Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935 (London 1936), 321. The quoted phrases in this paragraph are taken from pp. 318–21. 6. Andrée Colin to Rachel Crowdy, 28 Apr. 1924, Archives of the League of Nations (hereafter ALON), Geneva, 1919–27, box 680, 12 35522. 7. ALON, R 680, 13B R 1028; 13B 32628 11316 ‘AIPE’. 8. V.-Y. Ghébali, La réforme Bruce, 1939–1940 (Geneva 1970), 42, quoting M. Bourquin, Vers une nouvelle Société des Nations (Neuchâtel 1945), 59, 62. 9. For the diplomatic aspects of these disputes, especially the antagonism between Belgium and Britain, see D. Marshall, ‘The Formation of Childhood as an Object of International Relations: The Child Welfare Committee and the Declaration of Children’s Rights of the League of Nations’, International Journal of Children’s Rights 7(2) (1999): 103–47. 10. Andrée Colin to Rachel Crowdy, 29 Apr. 1924, ALON, 12/35688. 11. Alfred Silbernagel to Andrée Colin, 31 Aug. 1925, ALON, 12/37831/3802. 12. Resolution of the Council, 10 Dec. 1924, ALON, 1919–1927, R680, 12/39431/34652; Andrée Colin to Grace Abbott, 16 Jan. 1925, ALON, R681, 12/42399/34652. 13. Andrée Colin to Grace Abbott, 16 Jan. 1925, ALON, R681, 12/42399/34652. 14. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 320.

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15. Andrée Colin to Grace Abbott, 17 Jan. 1925, ALON, 12/42399/3465. 16. Comparisons with the work of the Health Organization are mainly based on the contributions of M.D. Dubin, ‘The League of Nations Health Organisation’; M.A. Balinska, ‘Assistance and not Mere Relief: The Epidemics Commission of the League of Nations’; and P. Weindling, ‘Social Medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office Compared’ in International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939, ed. P. Weindling (Cambridge and New York 1995), 56–80, 81–108 and 134–54 respectively. 17. The agreement of 1904 involved sixteen nations and was the conclusion of a series of conferences held in Europe on the cause and suppression of the white slave traffic; it concerned monitoring and protective measures. The subsequent International Convention for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic of 1910 punished those involved in the recruitment of children and of women against their will. P. de Vries, ‘White Slaves in a Colonial Nation: The Dutch Campaign against the Traffic in Women in the Early Twentieth Century’, Social and Legal Studies 14(1) (2005): 51. 18. Charlotte Whitton to Frederick Charles Blair, assistant deputy minister in charge of colonization and immigration, 29 Mar. 1926, Frederick Charles Blair to W.J. Egan, minister of immigration, 31 Mar. 1926, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Department of External Affairs Fonds, Record Group (RG) 25, G–1, 1355, 1172, pt. 1. Oscar Douglas Skelton to Charlotte Whitton, 10 Sept. 1926, LAC, RG 25, G–1, 1355, 1172, pt. 1. On the conventions, see also Charlotte Whitton to Oscar Douglas Skelton, 12 and 16 July 1929, Memo of Reid, 18 July 1929 and the following letters in LAC, RG 25, G–1, 1356, 1172, pt. 2. Charlotte Whitton to John Joseph Kelso, Children’s Aid Branch, Department of Provincial Secretary of Ontario, 18 Feb. 1826, LAC, MG 28 I 10, vol. 2, 15. American paediatricians still hold that the movement of children across borders requires a transnational perspective on paediatrics and child health; see A.M. Stern and H. Markel (eds), Formative Years: Children’s Health in the United States, 1880–2000 (Ann Arbor 2002), 14. 19. M.-S. Dupont-Bouchat and É. Pierre (eds), Enfance et justice au XIXe siècle. Essais d’histoire comparée de la protection de l’enfance 1820–1914. France, Belgique, Pays-Bas, Canada (Paris 2001), 207. Aufricht, Guide to League of Nations Publications, 207. 20. The very creation of a committee distinct from that on trafficking came from the impatience of American experts at the scope of the older committee. They insisted on bringing in assessors from the world of child welfare distinct from the issue of protection. ALON, 1919–1927, R681, 12/42399/34652, extract of a letter from Raymond Fosdyck to Arthur Sweester, shown by Sweester to Andrée Colin, 6 Feb. 1925. 21. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 319. 22. H.B. Ames, Seven Years with the League of Nations, Henry Ward Beecher lectures, delivered at Amherst College (New York 1928); P.F.W. Rutherford ‘Introduction’ in H.B. Ames, The City Below the Hill (1897, Toronto 1972). See also ALON, Dossiers du personnel, Herbert Ames. 23. Donald Murray Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations before the Manchurian Crisis’, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1972), 498–500. 24. W. LaFeber, The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad (2nd edn, New York 1994), 337, 363, 383. 25. F.S.L. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 1815–1914 (Leiden 1963), 37–38. 26. Curriculum vitae of Charlotte Whitton, 1925, LAC, Ottawa, Canadian Council of Social Development Fonds, MG 28, I 10, vol. 2, 15. Carolyn Cox, ‘Dr. Charlotte Whitton Shines Wherever She Chooses to Be’, Saturday Night, 16 Sept., n.d., in LAC, Charlotte Elizabeth Whitton Fonds, MG 30-E 256, vol.114, ‘Clippings – n.d.’.

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27. P.T. Rooke and R.L. Schnell, ‘“Uncramping Child Life”: International Children’s Organizations, 1914–1919’ in Weindling, International Health Organisations and Movements, 176–202. 28. F.M. Wilson, In the Margins of Chaos: Recollections of Relief Work in and between Three Wars (New York 1945), 132–33, 149–50. Wilson remarked that most European humanitarian workers ‘learnt to know an America that was different from the usual Big Business or Globe-trotting America’. 29. C. Miller, ‘The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations’ in Weindling, International Health Organisations and Movements, 162. 30. A. Irving, ‘Canadian Fabians: The Work and Thought of Harry Cassidy and Leonard Marsh, 1930–1945’ in Social Welfare Policy in Canada: Historical Readings, eds R. Blake and J. Keshen (Toronto 1995), 201–20. 31. Charlotte Whitton to Julia Lathrop, 26 Dec. 1928, LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 15, LON Assessorship, 1928. 32. Grace Abbott, ‘Foreword’ in Fuller, International Handbook, v. 33. Dubin, ‘The League of Nations Health Organisation’, 61–62. 34. L. Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action: Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876– 1928 (Basingstoke 2009), 191. Mahood relies partly on the conclusions of G. Finlayson, Citizen, State and Social Welfare in Britain 1830–1990 (Oxford 1994), 222. 35. Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action, 192–93. 36. Rapport au Conseil de la LON du ACPWCYP sur la réorganisation de la commission, ALON, C. 192.M.121.136.IV, 15 May 1936, 3. 37. H. McCarthy, ‘Democratizing British Foreign Policy: Rethinking the Peace Ballot, 1934– 1935’, Journal of British Studies 49(2) (Apr. 2010): 358–87; and for Whitton’s views on the education of the public, ‘La protection de l’enfance dans les dominions’, Documents préparatoires, Quatrième session ordinaire de l’AIPE (Luxemburg, July 1925), 6, ALON, R681 12/44396/34652. 38. Jebb, cited in Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children, London, Save the Children, Save the Children Fund, information sheet 15 (London 1994), 4. 39. See D. Marshall, ‘Children’s Rights and Children’s Actions in International Relief and Domestic Welfare: The Work of Herbert Hoover between 1914 and 1950’, Journal of the History of Children and Youth 1(3) (2008): 351–88. 40. International Committee of the Red Cross, Humanitarian Action and Cinema, DVD, 2005. Roland Cosandey, Eloquence du visible: la famine en Russie, 1921–1923 : une filmographie documentée, Institut Jean Vigo (Perpignan 1998). On uses of advertising by the Save the Children Fund during the campaign for Russian relief, see also L. Mahood and V. Satzewich, ‘The Save the Children Fund and the Russian Famine of 1921–23: Claims and Counter-Claims about Feeding “Bolshevik” Children’, Journal of Historical Sociology 22(1) (2009): 55–83. 41. H. Slim, ‘Introduction’ in Western Aid and the Global Economy: Archives of Major Aid Agencies, series one: The Save the Children Fund Archives, eds. H. Slim and P. Sellick (Reading 2002), 9–13. 42. Prominent People of the Province of Quebec, 1923–24, The Quebec History Encyclopaedia, http:// faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/RaoulDandurandQuebecHistory.htm (accessed 28 Jan. 2011). Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 45. 43. Walter Riddell was also a universalist informed by the Protestant ideals of the Social Gospel. N. Christie and M. Gauvreau, A Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 (Montreal 1996), 13–14, and chap. 3.

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44. R.M. Morris, ‘Harris, Sir Sidney West (1876–1962)’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.library.carleton.ca/view/article/66856 (accessed 17 Aug. 2009). 45. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 319. 46. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 18. 47. J. Struthers, ‘A Profession in Crisis: Charlotte Whitton and Canadian Social Work in the 1930s’ in The Benevolent State: The Growth of Welfare in Canada, eds A. Moscovitch and J. Albert (Toronto 1987), 111–25. 48. Rachel Crowdy to Eric Drummond, 14 Apr. 1924, ALON, 1919–1927, 12, box 680, 35521. Andrée Colin to Rachel Crowdy, 28 Apr. 1924, ALON, 1919–27, box 680, 12/35522. 49. D. Marshall, ‘Tensions ethniques et religieuses autour des droits universels des enfants: la participation canadienne au Comité de protection de l’enfance de la Société des Nations, entre 1924 et 1945’, Lien social et politique 44 (Autumn 2000): 101–23. See also K. Lindenmeyer, A Right to Childhood: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–46 (Urbana and Chicago 1997) on the Children’s Bureau of the United States, which suffered considerably between the wars from the fight between social workers and public health doctors. 50. Final Report of the Mixed Commission of the League of Nations on the Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture and Economic Policy (Geneva 1937). 51. M. Bulmer, ‘Mobilising Social Knowledge for Social Welfare: Intermediary Institutions in the Political System of the United States and Great Britain between the First and the Second World Wars’ in Weindling, International Health Organisations and Movements, 305–25. 52. Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action, 200. 53. Vajkai to Stellar, 18 June 1935, ALON, R4755, 11C/18551/10854. It was later given to the members of the committee as no. C.P.E. 514, 20 Jan. 1936, ALON, R 4576, 11C/23749/19854. 54. Archives of the Save the Children Fund, London, Minutes of the Child Protection Committee, 1933, C.P. 75, 116, 1935, C.P. 147; The Save the Children Fund Child Protection Committee, ‘Report on the Adoption of Children among Certain NonEuropean Peoples’, 20 Apr. 1935, ALON, R. 4755, 11c 18651/10854, 10p. 55. L.E. Wong, ‘Intergovernmental Organizations’ in Iriye and Saunier, Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, 555. Jebb was equally ‘frustrated by the slowness of the bureaucracy of international diplomacy’, Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action, 200. 56. ‘L’enfance non-européenne’, unpublished document (Geneva 1928), p. 5, Archives de l’Union internationale de protection de l’enfance. Archives d’Etat de Genève, M.8.1. J. P. Daughton, ‘Documenting Colonial Violence: The International Campaign against Forced Labor during the Interwar Years’, Revue de l’Histoire de la Shoah 189 (Oct. 2008). 57. ‘Where the Epistemic and the Political Meet: An Introduction to the Social Sciences and Democracy’ in The Social Sciences and Democracy, ed. Jeroen Van Bouwel (Basingstoke 2009), 3–4. 58. Zimmermann, ‘Intellectual Elites’, 547. On the tensions between ‘the aspiration to universally valid knowledge about human societies and social sciences’ and dependence on nation states, see N. Guihot, J. Heilbron and L. Jeanpierre, ‘Social Sciences’ in Iriye and Saunier, Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, 953. 59. H. Keenleyside, The Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, vol. 1: Hammer the Golden Day (Toronto 1981), 251. Lorna Lloyd brought this passage to my attention. See also Julia Lathrop to Charlotte Whitton, 15 May 1928, LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 2, 15, 1928: ‘To know that you have been on the spot and have triumphed over one or two … as well as a few Latins is delightful’.

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60. J. Harris, ‘Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870–1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy’, Past and Present 135 (1992): 116–41. 61. Charlotte Whitton to Alphonse Lessard, 5 Jan. 1926; Alphonse Lessard to Charlotte Whitton, 12 Jan. 1926; Charlotte Whitton to Alphonse Lessard, 14 Jan. 1926, LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 2, 15. See also Charlotte Whitton to Emile Nadeau, Director, Quebec, Department of Health, 1 Dec. 1937 and Charlotte Whitton to Jean Grégoire, 1 Feb. 1939, LAC, MG 28, I 10, 131, 2359. 62. Alphonse Lessard to Charlotte Whitton, 12 Jan. 1926, LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 2, 15. ‘Lettre de Mlle Charlotte Whitton à l’honorable L.A. Taschereau’, Le Courrier de L’Islet, 7 July 1934, LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 18, file 25. I thank Denyse Baillargeon for bringing this article to my attention. 63. D. Marshall, ‘The Concept of Dominion in Canada’s Early Diplomacy of Welfare’, paper given at ‘The Dominion Concept: Inter-State and Domestic Politics in the British Empire’, Political Studies Association, University of Warwick, July 1998. 64. Sidney Harris to Roger Makins, 16 Jan. 1936, National Archives (NA), London, Foreign Office (FO), 371, 20471. Harris was commenting to his British superiors on the memorandum he had given to Erkstrand, the head of the social section. 65. Roger Makins, account of a conversation with the Polish permanent delegate, 16 July 1936, NA, FO, 371, 20471. 66. Ghébali, La réforme Bruce, 35–36, 42. 67. McCarthy, ‘Democratizing British Foreign Policy’, 362. See for instance Alfred Zimmern’s ‘Introductory’ in the volume he co-edited for the Workers Educational Association, The War and Democracy (London 1914), 1–17, where the need to extend to international questions the interest ‘ordinary working people’ were taking in domestic affairs, thanks to the ‘democratic conception of education’. See also Zimmern’s article ‘Democracy and the Expert’ in The Political Quarterly 1(1) (1930): 7–25. 68. Interestingly, the promotion of discussion of international questions in the public forum and the internationalization of popular issues had been at the roots of the creation of the Save the Children Fund in Britain where efforts by Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy to make news from enemy countries available to a wide public had led to a campaign against the postwar blockade of former enemies and to the creation of a relief fund for the starving children of Vienna. 69. ‘J.C. Lathrop, ‘Participation in International Child Welfare Work’ in National Conference on Social Welfare: Official Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (New York 1926), 128. http:// quod.lib.umich.edu/n/ncosw/ach8650.1926.001/141?rgn=full+text;view=image;q1=prac ticable (consulted 12 May 2011). See also Grace Abbott, CPE (Comité de protection de l’enfance) 14, in ALON, R 681, 12, 44514/34562. 70. Alice Hamilton to Julia Lathrop, 3 Oct. 1924, cited in Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters, ed. B. Sicherman (Chicago 2003), 272. 71. Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 277, note 37. 72. Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 30. L. Mahood, ‘Feminists, Politics and Charity: The Formation of the Save the Children Fund’, Voluntary Action: The Journal of the Institute of Volunteering Research 6(1) (2002): 71–82. The International Council of Women had preceded the Save the Children International Union in drafting a charter of children’s entitlements, and its officials collaborated willingly with Jebb in the preparation of the League of Nations 1924 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, mentioned above. 73. McCarthy, ‘Democratizing British Foreign Policy’, 370. 74. J.C. Lathrop, ‘Participation in International Child Welfare Work’, 128–29.

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75. E. Jebb, ‘What the League of Nations can Do for Children’, The World’s Children (June 1937), 130; and ‘The League and the Child’, The World’s Children (June 1925), 153–55, cited by Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action, 200. 76. ‘Broadcast-Geneva, April 29, 1934’, 7–9, in LAC, MG 28, I 10, vol. 129, file 2344; Charlotte Whitton to Margaret Grier, Apr. 1934, LAC, MG 30, E 256, vol. 133, file ‘Grier, R.-M, 1915–1934–1947’. 77. Wong, ‘Intergovernmental Organizations’, 555–60. 78. McCarthy, ‘Democratizing British Foreign Policy’, 370. See also Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 10–11. Page also writes: ‘For all their talk about public support, Canadian leaders never faced the practical problem of how an international public opinion could be created and interpreted’ (ibid., 71). 79. S. Tillotson, Contributing Citizens: Modern Charitable Fundraising and the Making of the Welfare State, 1920–66 (Vancouver 2009). 80. Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 190, n. 68. ‘Insularity and ignorance’ are words attributed by Page to Lord Cecil in his 1923 speech in Montreal. 81. Ibid., 1. Zimmern says the same for Britain, ‘which had become determined to ignore the security problem’ (Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 323). 82. D. C. Story, ‘Canada’s Covenant: The Bennett Government, the League of Nations and Collective Security, 1930–1935’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1977), 38. For Page, reliance on public opinion seemed to ‘absolve [idealists] from taking any positive action. The Canadian public had already demonstrated its incapacity for independent action and their P.M. gave them neither information on which an intelligent opinion could be forged nor leadership’ (Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 71). 83. Such questions relate to a frequent position amongst historians of the League of Nations, who contrast the failures of disarmament and collective security with the success of the technical work of the League. S. Pederson, ‘Back to the League of Nations: Review Essay’, American Historical Review 112(4) (2007), 1091–1117. 84. Cited in Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 266, note 15. Having failed to interest veterans and businessmen, the League of Nations Society of Canada turned to women. 85. Page, abstract. 86. Weindling, ‘Social Medicine’, 136–37. 87. Page, ‘Canadians and the League of Nations’, 523–24. 88. Ibid., 505–20. 89. http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/, consulted 24 Feb. 2011. 90. A.C. Shaffer, ‘Review of the Work of the Temporary Social Commission and its Report to the Second Session of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations’, The Social Service Review 20(3) (Sept. 1946), 295–99; G.B. Ostrower, ‘United Nations (UN) System’ in Iriye and Saunier, Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, 1068–72; and H. Shinohara, ‘League of Nations System’ in ibid., 647–48. The change of name of the committee in 1936, from ‘Child Welfare’ to ‘Social Questions’, already represented an enlargement in scope. 91. The unprecedented popularity of its film Seeds of Destiny, which raised $200 million in 1946, showed how strong public support still was for the relief of children. http://www. archive.org/details/SeedsofDestiny, consulted 23 Feb. 2011. 92. M. Kinnear, Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation (Toronto 2004). The Information Section was to ‘educate, enlighten, and inform the general public about the League’. Shinohara, ‘League of Nations System’, 648. McGeachy made sev-

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eral educational tours of Canada under the auspices of the League of Nations Society of Canada. 93. Page, ‘Canadians at the League of Nations’, 505–6. 94. Ibid. The work of UNRRA over, McGeachy turned to work with the International Council of Women. 95. D. Marshall, ‘Reconstruction Politics, the Canadian Welfare State and the Ambiguity of Children’s Rights, 1940–1950’ in Uncertain Horizons: Canadians and their World in 1945, ed. G. Donaghy (Ottawa 1996), 261–83; and ‘The Cold War, Canada, and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child’ in Canada and the Early Cold War, 1943– 1957, ed. G. Donaghy (Ottawa 1998), 183–214. 96. D. Marshall, ‘The Transnational Movements for Children’s Rights and the Canadian Political Culture: A History’ in The History of Human Rights in Post-Confederation Canada, ed. J. Miron (Toronto 2009), 157–81. 97. Ames, Seven Years with the League of Nations, 56. 98. Jose Harris makes a similar argument for the experts and politicians associated with the British welfare state: ‘Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870–1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy’, Past and Present 135 (1992), 116–41. 99. McCarthy, ‘Democratizing British Foreign Policy’, 387.

Part II

Networks

(

Chapter 5

Building a Transnational Network of Social Reform in the Nineteenth Century

( Chris Leonards and Nico Randeraad

The general aim of this chapter is to make an empirical and methodological contribution to understanding the transnational dimension of social policy from 1840 to 1880. This period more or less coincides with the first of three consecutive ‘circulatory regimes’ in the field of social policy, which Pierre-Yves Saunier has recently identified. Saunier briefly describes the first circulatory regime as the exchange of words and experiences among churchmen and women, political activists, entrepreneurs, men of learning and migrants in order to resist, devise, support or change the response to problems stemming from the industrial and urban revolutions.1 The first objective of this chapter is to add flesh to this concise typology, and to present a more elaborate picture of the first circulatory regime in this period, in terms of both content and mechanisms. A note of caution in advance: Saunier – probably on purpose – avoids the question of whether ‘regime’ is the best concept to capture what was going on between people and institutions in the nineteenth century. To underline his versatility, he is quite willing to exchange ‘regimes’ for ‘configurations’, although that does not completely solve the issue. Like Saunier’s article, this chapter does not delve into conceptual subtleties, and proposes to use the concept rather lightly.2 A second objective of this contribution is to point out under which conditions ideas on social policy circulating in the transnational arena were likely to have a real impact on social reform. The degree of success enjoyed by transnational ideas and arrangements is a surprisingly neglected theme in literature on transnationalism, particularly in the period under consideration. In order to assess their impact, the chapter highlights the ideas Notes for this chapter begin on page 127.

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and arrangements concerning labour, labour conditions and early welfare arrangements as they were developed by the Belgian reformer Édouard Ducpétiaux. The chapter consists of three parts, the first two dealing with the first objective, and the third with the second objective. To begin with, it zooms in on the substance of social reform, in particular on topics and arrangements put forward by progressive liberal reformers. Subsequently it deals with the channels of communication that were at the reformers’ disposal. It ends with an analysis of the relationship between ideas about social reform and social policies that were eventually implemented. In sum, the chapter successively tackles the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ (i.e. the context) questions related to social reform in the nineteenth century.

Matters of Exchange: The Substance of Social Reform The call for social reform arose from the social question. This apodictic statement conceals a multiplicity of (perceived) problems and solutions. Industrialization and urbanization were causing insecurity, hardship and poverty, in particular for the working classes. In the course of the nineteenth century this persistent state of destitution became known as ‘the social question’. Genuine concern for and fear of social upheaval among the better off gave rise to an amalgam of responses. Some believed free trade and minimal government would automatically restore social harmony; others preached class struggle and revolution to bring about work, justice and food for all. Between these extremes, social reformers of every sort and kind put forward abstract ideas and concrete schemes to alleviate suffering. The diversity of the social reform movements is reflected in the different forms the welfare state has eventually assumed in European countries. Tracing and analysing the foundations of different welfare state arrangements have become major themes in social and political history.3 The framework of the nation-state has often been the starting point for historical analysis, with a certain emphasis on compulsory insurance and other types of government action related to social services.4 Bismarck’s national insurance scheme, introduced in the early 1880s, is the usual benchmark in this line of reasoning. The spectrum of voluntary saving schemes, friendly societies, widows’ and orphans’ benefits, relief programmes run by churches, and the like, based on self-help but often indirectly supported by the state or local authorities (e.g. through legal recognition) preceding the nationalization of social insurance, is often depicted as a sidetrack. In many European countries, however, the mutual benefit societies

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c­ onstituted an important step towards more direct state intervention.5 It is interesting to note that the participants in the earliest international congresses on social reform (of the 1840s and 1850s) were trying to collect and exchange information on exactly these kinds of arrangements. For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels it was easy to explain why these early reformers were addressing the social question: the self-interest of a part of the bourgeoisie, to which the reformers almost invariably belonged, made them anxious to redress social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. Hence, they wrote in their Communist Manifesto that ‘economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, [and] hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind’ were actively propagating some sort of bourgeois socialism, with the sole purpose of maintaining the existing relations between capital and labour.6 Pace Marx and Engels, this is exactly what eventually happened in Western Europe. As Dirk Jan Wolffram concludes, throughout the Western world social policy became a successful project of inclusion: ‘its aim was to tie the worker to the state and the nation’.7 The ideas and projects, therefore, of the ‘bourgeois socialists’ are well worth taking into account when analysing the arena of social reform in the second half of the nineteenth century. Even then social reform was a container concept, including countless attempts to absorb the multiple social costs of industrialization by way of initiatives from below and state regulation.8 The four basic characteristics of bourgeois social reform that Rüdiger vom Bruch held specific for Germany are by and large also applicable to other industrializing European countries: (1) the social reformers originated from typically nineteenth-century forms of sociabilité – learned and professional societies, circles, clubs and church organizations – and mostly belonged to the high-middle classes and to state and local bureaucracies, although we can sometimes also find them among entrepreneurs, clergymen and independent professionals; (2) bourgeois social reform and social policy gradually merged, albeit with considerable variation in different countries; (3) as the nineteenth-century public debate demonstrated time and again, it hovered ‘between communism and capitalism’, and can be regarded as some sort of ‘third way’; morality and patronage played an important role; and (4) bourgeois social reform grew as an autonomous sphere of interest, particularly between the 1830s and the 1870s; thereafter it was gradually absorbed by the state, political parties, and other organizations.9 A fifth characteristic, we would add, is the transnational outlook of the social reformers. It is quite remarkable that from very early on the

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debates were not confined to national or regional contexts. Experts were eager to consult ideas and legislation in countries other than their own. International congresses became an appropriate medium for this mutual consultation. The subject matters seemed to differ widely. Marx and Engels were right about that. Looking at the titles of international congresses held in the second half of the 1840s and in the 1850s, one notes an apparently bewildering variety of interests: prison reform, free trade, meteorology, medicine, international peace, statistics, welfare, hygiene, agriculture and forestry, sanitation, temperance, social sciences, botany and horticulture.10 But on closer inspection a considerable number of these congresses were attended by the same people, in particular the congresses on prison reform, welfare, statistics and hygiene.11 This was not so much because the participants had such diverging interests, but rather because they thought these themes centred round the fundamental problem of how to win the fight against pauperism. The heart of the matter for the transnational reformers was not an abstract arrangement between capital and labour – they were not system builders – but offering concrete solutions to societal problems that they perceived as urgent, because of their strong sense of responsibility and their propensity for patronage.12 The same people who participated in the international congresses that were related to social reform also communicated findings, ideas and strategies about the fight against pauperism in other ways. In sum, social reform was considered a matter of exchange par excellence.

What Matters is Exchange: The Channels of Communication In order to get a better idea of the first circulatory regime, it is important to scrutinize the channels of communication that were available to the activists, not only the traditional media such as letters, books, journals, travels and associations, but also more modern ones such as congresses and expositions. ‘We are living in the century of gatherings’, Marie-Matthieu von Baumhauer wrote in 1856.13 He would know. In a study of transnationalists who were active in the area of social reform in the mid nineteenth century, he came first in terms of the number of visits to selected congresses.14 The congresses related to social reform were connected by the people who attended them and by the topics discussed at them. A striking example of the latter is the issue of prison reform. After two penitentiary reform congresses in Frankfurt (1846) and Brussels (1847), a third gathering was postponed because of the revolutionary uprisings of 1848. The ­proceedings

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of the first continental Peace Congress that took place in Brussels 1848 included an elaborate account of Mettray, the French agricultural colony for young criminals, without any comment as to why this subject would be of importance to the congress, but apparently it was.15 The first Congrès International de Bienfaisance, moreover, which took place in Brussels 1856, devoted one of its three sections exclusively to penitentiary reform, thereby securing the continuity of this theme on the social reform agenda. The hybridity of social reform clearly manifested itself in a great many sessions of the international statistical congress held in these years. The international congresses were the logical successors of national congresses of scientists and philanthropists that had been organized in different European nations, such as the gatherings of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (since 1822), the congresses of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (since 1831), the Congrès Scientifiques de France (since 1833), and the Congressi degli Scienziati Italiani (since 1839). From the 1830s, men and women committed to social reform had been developing networks across borders, paving the way for what has been called ‘philanthropic tourism’. An international meeting on charity during the 1855 World Exhibition in Paris, for instance, prepared the start of a series of welfare congresses from 1856 onwards.16 The actual call for international congresses came simultaneously from different directions. Ducpétiaux and Georg Varrentrapp were certainly among the first propagators. In his correspondence with Karl Josef Anton Mittermaier, the illustrious Heidelberg-based prison reformer, Varrentrapp, relates Ducpétiaux’s idea to organize a first Congreß der Gefängniß-reformfreunde in Paris in the autumn of 1846. After consultation with Mittermaier both he and Ducpétiaux were convinced that Frankfurt was preferable because of its more central location in Europe and because two other congresses had been scheduled in Frankfurt at the same time, which would enhance the appeal of the penitentiary congress.17 Ducpétiaux also initiated the first Hygiene Congress (Brussels, 1852) and the first Welfare Congress (Brussels, 1856). He corresponded with Mittermaier about the organization of both congresses, not only to invite him personally, but also to get acquainted with potential visitors from Mittermaier’s extended German, and indeed international, network.18 Ducpétiaux’s compatriot, the well-known statistician and astronomer Adolphe Quetelet, initiated the first international statistical congress, also held in Brussels, in 1853.19 By the mid-1850s international congresses were an accepted form of scientific and policy exchange in the realm of social reform. Being diverse indeed, the congresses nevertheless had several common and converging traits: gatherings were preferably held in West European cities, including

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Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, London and Geneva, and were often combined with other congresses, exhibitions or festivities. In this kind of environment the organizers could officially receive guests, treat them to banquets and soirées, confer knighthoods on them, and show them around the best examples of local charity, public facilities, hospitals and prisons. Thus entertained, visitors were often in a generous mood, inclined to mutual eulogy and compromise during the actual séances when they had to reach agreement about the issues under discussion. Regarding concrete solutions to societal problems, the shared custom of congresses was to conclude a session with ‘resolutions’ that were preferably made unanimously. These procedures, combined with a tendency to streamline congresses with thoroughly prepared proposals, discussions and outcomes, with permanent central secretariats and local organizing committees, added to the congresses’ gradual transformation from easy-going ‘debating societies’ into authoritative bodies of expert knowledge.20 As one of the most frequent visitors, von Baumhauer was quite positive about the congresses’ potential. So were other, sometimes more famous, individuals such as Gustave Moynier and Edwin Chadwick, Louis Wolowski, Willem Hendrik Suringar and Giovanni (Jean) Arrivabene. Congresses became the main channel for a progressive liberal, transnational ‘epistemic community’, aiming at social reform and patronage of the poor and working classes – but not everybody was as excited about these gatherings. The lithographer Jean Baptiste Jobard from Brussels, for instance, wrote a hilarious parody about some congresses held in the Belgian capital, ending his piece with the rather inglorious statement: ‘These resolutions, voiced and printed, are bound and placed in libraries; then, the sessions are adjourned to the following year, in order to fill another volume with new resolutions, which the governments do not take into consideration for want of time, will, and obligation’.21 Congresses were not the only venues that brought travelling social reformers together. Reciprocal visits and trips to other large-scale events, such as the world exhibitions, contributed to a feeling of transnational connectedness. Scholars have noted a direct relationship between the spread and growth of international congresses and world exhibitions, not only because of common interests among the visitors but also as a result of the wider availability of accommodation and other infrastructural improvements.22 Some of the transnational reformers we have come to know from the congresses began going abroad on traditional Grand Tours as a completion of their studies. Others continued to travel to places of interest, such as industrial sites, public institutions and observatories, and to pay visits to the cultural and scientific heroes of the age. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt ranked first among savants whom

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one should visit. For example, Quetelet, before becoming an academic hero himself, studied with Pierre Simon de Laplace and went to see Goethe. Ernst Engel visited Frédéric Le Play at the École des Mines in Paris, and came to see Quetelet during his stay in Brussels. Ramón de la Sagra toured both the Netherlands and Belgium to collect information about their poor relief institutions, but also travelled to Cuba to study botany. Penitentiary reformers Suringar and Varrentrapp met several times on a personal basis, but individually also went to Belgium, France, England, various German states and Austria to study prison development, poor relief institutions, communal drainage systems and other social reform highlights.23 The economist Jan Ackersdijck was known as a restless traveller. Prior to the late 1840s, his journeys resembled the model of eighteenth-century scientific travelling. Thereafter, when the international congresses became en vogue, he combined his usual travels with congress visits.24 In the meantime traditional media did not become obsolete. On the contrary, correspondence through letters, for instance, occurred more often than ever. Several collections of letters sent or received by social reformers known to have been active congressees have been preserved. Of these, the collected papers of Mittermaier is probably the most extensive and well-known correspondence to survive. Lars Riemer’s twovolume edition of 665 letters to Mittermaier only covers letters that are related to prison reform, although some are of a wider social reform nature.25 Among the direct correspondents to Mittermaier, Varrentrapp, Ducpétiaux and Christian Georg Nathan David are prominent in a ‘top twenty’ list of transnational social reformers.26 Whereas Mittermaier himself can be seen as a true network ‘hub’ and ‘connector’, the three writers mentioned clearly functioned as ‘boundary spanners’: through references made by Varrentrapp, Ducpétiaux and David, no less than fourteen out of the top twenty congress-visiting transnationalists appear in Mittermaier’s correspondence. Moreover, the collection of letters to Dutch philanthropist Suringar, held at the library of the University of Amsterdam, includes twenty-five from Varrentrapp and another twelve from Ducpétiaux.27 Similarly, in Quetelet’s correspondence, fifteen out of the core group of twenty transnational social reformers can be traced.28 It is remarkable that many of the letters do not go into much detail about social reform itself, but rather function as cover letters for the submission of brochures, notices and schedules for congresses and other gatherings, suggestions for journal articles, corrections to proofs of articles, enrolments, attendances of and cancellations for congresses, and recommendations for others visiting the addressee. The letters offer a glimpse of the vast quantity of books, journals, brochures and other publications on aspects of social reform that were circulated in this way. Some publishers

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and libraries, such as Guillaumin and Hachette in Paris, made sure they fed the reform network with catalogues and announcements of book titles and journals they published or had in stock.29 Wolowski, a Polish émigré in Paris, is prominent on our list of social reformers. In 1848 he convinced Guillaumin to publish his Études d’économie politique et statistique.30 This work is typical of the way in which the written word of social reformers functioned. The book is a collection of several studies into divergent aspects of social reform, covering pauperism in Flanders, the agricultural and industrial exposition in Brussels, the commerce of cereals, the customs union, free trade and statistics. Nevertheless, this seemingly disjointed content is not unusual in publications on social reform written by authors of Wolowski’s age. While the six studies in the book are brought together under the heading ‘political economy’ and while they are in one way or another related to Belgium, the work actually tries to feed its readers with snippets of information that Wolowski deemed crucial for the proper understanding of pauperism and social reform. Yet, this book is typical in another way, as it contains an extensive dedication to Quetelet whom Wolowski had met at the congress of economists held in Brussels in September 1847. Shortly before this congress Quetelet had appointed Wolowski as corresponding member of the Belgian central commission for statistics. Completed in December 1847, Wolowski’s volume is a mark of honour to the ‘liberal and progressive spirit’ of Belgium. By paying tribute to Quetelet, Wolowski made a political statement, but also reinforced the transnational bond of like-minded reformers. Many journals, yearbooks and proceedings in the field of social reform functioned in the same way. An outstanding example of a compilation work geared towards collecting evidence and forging a sense of community among penitentiary reformers is Varrentrapp’s Jahrbücher der Gefängnißkunde, which he edited together with Julius and Noellner in the period 1842–49.31 Many of the letters to Mittermaier provide evidence as to how the Jahrbücher became a pivotal source for all penologists. More generally, we have noted that the publications emanating from the transnational community of social reformers, whether they focused on penitentiary care, poor relief, child labour or other aspects, had specific common traits enhancing their function as traits-d’unions between members of the network. Special dedications, like Wolowski’s to Quetelet, were quite common. Sometimes, commentaries on certain issues were even published as open letters to experts in the field. Moreover, authors used to send their friends and acquaintances a copy of their work, often with a short note on the title page. Numerous copies that ended up in libraries around the world demonstrate this. Content-wise, authors were eager to

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strengthen their arguments by referring to foreign projects and laws, supported by statistical evidence when possible. These characteristics became part and parcel of the recognizable shared reform discourse discussed in the first section. There is yet another important channel of communication typically belonging to the nineteenth-century culture of sociability. Most of the social reformers were members of a learned society or professional association; through these they were either active as local corresponding members, reporting on social reform, or used the societies as springboards for international contacts. Membership of professional and learned societies and associations commanded respect at international congresses, whereas in their home countries members were often asked to join governmental commissions and inquiries. Some of these associations already had a respectable history, such as the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques; others reflected the new interest in welfare and social sciences, such as the French Société d’Economie Politique, established in 1842, the Société d’Economie Charitable (1847) and the Société d’Economie Sociale (founded by Le Play in 1856), the British National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (1857), the Howard Association (1866) and the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain (1876). Chadwick and Samuel Brown, for instance, mounted the platforms of the Statistical Society of Manchester (1833) and the Statistical Society of London (1834) to promote their interests in sanitary reform, workers’ rights, uniform weights and measures, and life insurances. Engel, however, was among the founders of the influential Verein für Sozialpolitik (1873). Moynier was co-founder of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded (the Red Cross). Chadwick, once again, was elected a corresponding member of the Institutes of France and Belgium, and of the Societies of Medicine and Hygiene of France, Belgium and Italy. Varrentrapp, David, Mittermaier, Auguste Visschers and De la Sagra were honorary members of Suringar’s Dutch prison reform society. In 1860 Ackersdijck was invited by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques to attend its meetings and to inform members about the latest political and economic developments in his home country. In his role as a member of the Central Statistical Commission of Belgium, Visschers visited the World Exhibition of 1851. Afterwards, he circulated, with the commission’s president, Quetelet, a proposal to convene an international statistical congress. The fact that they could speak in the name of a recognized and respected body added weight to the proposal, and drew a lot of experts to the Brussels congress of 1853. Hence membership of national bodies and adherence to an international network could reinforce each other. Not only did the national societies imbue their members with status

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and respect, but they could also be important mediators for directing state subsidies towards the organization of international events.

Does Exchange Matter? Framing Social Reform across National Borders One alleged weakness of the recent wave of historical ‘transfer’ studies is the lack of attention paid to the impact of the various forms of exchange on the choice of certain policies over other policies, and on the implementation of these policies.32 This is nothing more than one of those classic problems of political science, if not of all applied sciences – that is, how to translate an idea into practice, with the additional difficulty that the translation is meant to occur across borders. The challenge therefore is, as Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol have stated, ‘to understand more deeply both the ideas and socio-institutional locations of the bearers of new knowledge about society who figured so importantly in the origins of the early modern social policies’.33 In their volume the emphasis lies on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most contributions apply a ‘classical’ comparative method, tracing the generation and use of social knowledge in different countries, rather than between countries, as more recent transnational and ‘transfer’ approaches would do. By focusing on the transnational circulation of proposals related to child labour, in particular as fostered by the eminent expert and ‘do-er’ Ducpétiaux, we aim, first, to map the transnational dimension of the knowledge claims surrounding these issues, and, secondly, to assess the chances of success in different contexts. In order to achieve these aims some further theoretical and methodological notes are needed. Political sociologist John Campbell suggests a three-step approach to connect ideas to practices.34 First, identify the actors – from single intellectuals to epistemic communities – who advance policy ideas that are likely to make a difference in policy making. Secondly, examine the ‘fit’ between ideas and the institutions that are meant to absorb them. And thirdly, explore how discourse shapes the ways in which ideas are translated into practice. Campbell makes it somewhat difficult for the historian to adopt these research strategies in full because he insists on specifying the causal mechanisms that link ideas to policymaking outcomes. Historians are generally wary of too much emphasis on causality, since this implies a tendency towards generalization and prediction, which is usually not their business. Nevertheless, as organizational starting points for historical research into the question of whether policy ideas matter, Campbell’s suggestions are certainly helpful.

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Another, more focused, attempt to relate policy ideas to outcomes comes from Canadian political scientist Daniel Béland. He, in following John W. Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory and Peter A. Hall’s concept of policy paradigm (the pragmatic world view of actors involved in the policy process), stresses the crucial role of the construction and selection of problems on the policy agenda and argues that new ideas (policy alternatives) ‘are grounded in constraining policy paradigms, and that political actors seek to frame alternatives in a coherent manner in order to sell them to the public’.35 Again, this approach grounded in present-day political science helps us to get to grips with our basic problem, although we would like to stress that, in the nineteenth-century, contemporary concepts such as ‘agenda setting’ and ‘policy paradigms’ are difficult to align with what was going on in politics and government. Following Pierre Rosanvallon’s insistence on the changing nature of le politique (what is being considered to belong to the domain of politics changes over time), we could argue that we are still in a world of politics that precedes agenda setting and policy making as we know it from the literature mentioned above. This does not mean, of course, that there were no agendas or policies, just that we need to adapt our understanding of these terms slightly in order not to drift away from nineteenth-century political culture. Having said that, and bearing in mind that both Campbell and Béland clearly refer to present-day policy making, their emphasis on the need to adjust or rework – to ‘frame’, as they call it – ideas on social policy for them to have an impact on reforms, or at least to become one of the alternatives on the policy agenda, is also of crucial importance for our research. This boils down to the question of how new ideas of social reform, exchanged in transnational reform networks, impact on national social reform policies.36 Do these ideas actually matter? And if so, are they realized in similar ways in different countries? To what extent are they adapted to national or local contexts? Are specific ways of ‘framing’ the reforms discernible? Some preliminary answers to these questions can be found by looking at specific reform ideas. Ducpétiaux, born on the threshold of the nineteenth century, is amongst the most prominent transnational experts of important aspects of social reform, such as reorganization of the prison system, improvement of working conditions, primary and secondary education and better housing. Academically educated as a lawyer, he spent much of his time as a journalist and writer dealing with controversial issues in public life and politics. Right after Belgium’s 1830 secession from the Netherlands, Ducpétiaux combined his sometimes rather radical stance regarding issues of social reform with administrative responsibility for the Belgian prison and welfare system, having been appointed

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inspector-general in these fields. The rare combination of having administrative governance responsibilities, a zealous interest in the politics of social reform, an open mind to the possibilities of innovative scientific research, and being a true believer in social networking and a productive writer, makes Ducpétiaux a showcase representative of the transnational expert community in nineteenth-century social reform. Despite numerous obligations as inspector-general in two important areas of government, Ducpétiaux was present at three social reform congresses abroad, the penitentiary congress in Frankfurt (1846) and the welfare congresses in Frankfurt (1857) and London (1862), and registered for, but did not attend, the statistical congresses in Paris (1855), Vienna (1857) and Berlin (1863). Moreover, he put a lot of energy into (co-)­organizing international social reform congresses in his hometown.37 These events broadened the network of friends, colleagues, and like-minded social reformers. By correspondence he stayed in touch with prominent transnational experts such as Mittermaier, Suringar and Varrentrapp.38 He was also a prolific writer. Through his impressive output he managed to tap into many branches of the social reformers’ network. Between 1827, starting with his academic thesis on the death penalty, and 1868, the year of his death, he wrote, edited and translated 134 books, reports and brochures, apart from his journalistic pieces for the Courier des Pays-Bas, and for la Revue Générale, which he founded in 1856.39 Simultaneously active in the policy realms of penitentiary reform, welfare and statistics, Ducpétiaux had a special interest in the overarching theme of labour, be it work as an occupation for prisoners while in detention, as a re-socialization device for released prisoners, as a means to enhance societal welfare and relieve poverty of the masses, or as a general subject of concern because of the alienation and exploitation it caused, especially among young workers in Belgium. In his seminal work De la condition physique et morale des jeunes ouvriers et des moyens de l’améliorer, published in 1843, Ducpétiaux starts out with an account of current working conditions in the major European countries, using information – both narrative and statistical – from his friends and kindred spirits, such as Chadwick, Louis de Villermé and Charles Dupin.40 The Factory Act promulgated in Britain in 1833, which curtailed working hours for children, had provided food for thought and action in other industrializing countries. In France, following Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi’s early criticism in his Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, published in 1819, the call for state intervention in working hours and child labour grew louder towards the end of the 1830s. With public support from influential reformers such as Joseph Marie de Gérando, De Villermé and Dupin, the French Parliament promulgated a law on child

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labour in March 1841, which was heavily indebted to earlier British and Prussian legislation.41 Ducpétiaux, in turn, elaborated on all those models. Focusing particularly on children working in the expanding Belgian industrial factories, Ducpétiaux suggested a plethora of measures to foster good physical and moral conditions for the young, such as: a strict prohibition against children under the age of ten entering factories, mines and other working places; a restriction of six working hours per week for children aged between ten and fifteen, and of twelve working hours for those aged between fifteen and twenty-one; and mandatory schooling up to age fifteen for both boys and girls. But he also promoted joint bodies of government officials, factory owners and workers, and suggested new governmental institutions, such as an inspection service for work and social guidance in the larger industries.42 Ducpétiaux was not just a transnational activist keen on maintaining good contacts with friends abroad, but he was also locally and nationally integrated in institutions dealing with social care and social policy. In Brussels, where he lived, he founded a subsistence agency, acted as a local visitor to the poor and was a member of the communal council. On a national level he was inspector-general of the prison system and of welfare institutions, and a member of various advisory bodies. Edmond Rubbens, Ducpétiaux’s biographer, states that since the start of his bureaucratic career he had been involved in fifty-nine measures in the area of public welfare. These measures related to work opportunities, price reductions, general measures in favour of the working classes and farmers, and amelioration of the intellectual, moral and sanitary conditions of workers.43 He was asked to be a member of the commission charged with preparing a bill on child labour in Belgium. In De la Condition the discourse of bourgeois reform emerges on every page. There is anxiety and fear for the working classes, but also an urge to act, to do something about it, inspired partly by religion and partly by economic interest. One is struck by the ample use of statistics and the legalistic, administrative language. As a member of the central commission of statistics (and honorary member of the Statistical Society of London) Ducpétiaux was well equipped to give innovative statistical evidence on child labour in France, Britain, the German states and the United States of America in order to lend weight to the politics of reform. Not only was statistical evidence conducive to reciprocal comparison on international, national and local levels, it also fostered the respectability and trustworthiness of the emerging epistemic community on social reform, and added to its scientific esteem. The administrative, regulatory language of ‘do-er’ Ducpétiaux is yet another sign of the willingness to act, to get things done

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and to give clear, ready-made solutions to societal problems that could be deployed almost instantly. In 1843 (the publication of his book was timely) the Belgian government appointed Ducpétiaux to the commission preparing new legislation on child labour and factory inspection.44 Most of the dramatic reports about child labour in shops, mines and factories were confirmed, although the number of child labourers was less alarming than feared. The physical, moral and intellectual conditions of children working in small industries and in shops at home were sometimes even worse than those of factory workers. The commission proposed measures in line with Ducpétiaux’s De la Condition, notably limitations on working days, no child labour under age ten, no labour at night for under-eighteens, an organized inspection of factories and no underground labour for minors and females.45 At the time, however, the project did not pass parliament because of the strong opposition from the chambers of commerce. The lack of immediate success in Belgium at that time must have been a serious setback for Ducpétiaux, but in his eyes the local was intertwined with the transnational. De la Condition was more than a pamphlet. In one of the last sections of the book, dealing with how he hoped to realize his reform proposals, Ducpétiaux actually called upon nations to assist rather than obstruct each other, and to organize an international congress to settle disputes.46 Moreover, in a final appendix to the book, he proposed an international association to promote scientific progress and the realization of moral and social reform, which eventually resulted in the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, established in 1862.47 It is rather far fetched to consider the plan to establish an international association of social sciences and progress, in connection with the zealous pleas for international coordination on the restriction of working hours, to be evidence of a preliminary step towards the International Labour Organization.48 Nevertheless, there is clear evidence of Ducpétiaux’s ability to connect the local to the transnational by framing the condition of young Belgian workers in a transnational context. First, he emphasized the similarity of poor working conditions in various European countries, using abundant data from various countries. Secondly, he underlined that the pressing national problem could only be solved by taking coordinated measures: if and when all the European nations concerned restricted working hours and child labour, entrepreneurs would then no longer be able to block such measures by invoking the threat of uneven international competition. Although Ducpétiaux thus ingeniously framed the problems of young workers in Belgium in a transnational setting, he did not live to see the problem solved. In Belgium, as in most other European

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industrializing countries, effective legislation concerning child labour was only realized from the 1870s onwards.49 This brings us back to the theoretical considerations at the beginning of this section. ‘Modern politics’, including full democracy, political parties and welfare state arrangements, were still far off. Belgium was considered to be the most progressive state on the European continent, but the role of the state was nevertheless highly limited compared to twentieth-century standards. ‘Agenda setting’ and ‘policy making’ are therefore terms that we can only very tentatively use. Reform was often long in the making, unless triggered by sudden upheaval such as the revolutionary wave of 1848. Reform proposals sometimes came from unexpected quarters. As inspector of prisons and welfare institutions Ducpétiaux was perhaps not the obvious person to launch a reform project about the employment of children in industry and mining, but since the 1830s he had been active in preparing an ‘agenda’ for social reform. He shared his concerns with a number of like-minded bourgeois reformers, in Belgium and abroad, with whom he gradually built an ‘epistemic community in the making’.50 Few, if any, of its members were strictly speaking ‘policy makers’. The offices where the social policies in question were to be made did not yet exist. A ban on child labour was more than just a policy; it was a matter of allowing the state to intervene in private enterprise. Hence, if Ducpétiaux and his network of reformers were setting an agenda, it was about a major reorientation of the state. They were not just making policy, they were constructing a polity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it took some time before there was a ‘fit’ between reform ideas and institutions. What Ducpétiaux and others could hope for was that their way of framing the social question would gradually become accepted, and would lead to new legislation. A common element in this process of framing was that knowledge claims seemed to gain strength when they were transnationally embedded. Despite the different pace and pattern of industrialization in European countries the conception of social reform was transnationally converging. Putting ideas into practice was thus facilitated, although it would not be until the 1870s that measures against child labour became stricter.

Conclusion We set out in the footsteps of Saunier’s typology of transnational circulatory regimes, in particular by elaborating on the issue of social reform during the first circulatory regime. Our analysis went through three stages. First, we defined nineteenth-century social reform in a European

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perspective. In various European countries – in different stages of industrial development – experts on apparently diverse subjects such as prison reform, welfare arrangements, statistics, social housing and poor relief found each other in a transnational arena, where it appeared that these subjects were if not fully interchangeable then at least complementary. The accumulation of responses to the social question reflected the ‘encyclopedic’ thrust of the mid-nineteenth-century reform movement. But despite the apparent diversity and despite the specific needs of local authorities and national governments throughout (north-west) Europe, bourgeois social reform was an amazingly homogeneous domain characterized by a strong sense of moral responsibility and patronage among the reformers, and by gentlemanly attempts to engender transnational connections. Secondly, in order to shed light on these transnational connections, we focused on the means of communication available to the reformers. They made use of both old and new media to carve out a position for themselves as networkers. They wrote letters, thousands of them, not so much to reveal their innermost emotions or to develop grand theories, but to introduce themselves or others, to exchange quick notes, to comment on recent publications, and to announce participation in or absence from assemblies and congresses. Many of their publications resembled ‘open letters’ or were actually published as such. Again, few ventured into abstract theory and dogma; most tackled current problems and drafted proposals that were logistically and legally feasible. In their books and articles references to foreign examples and statistical underpinning were accepted markers of expertise. The new channels of communication, such as congresses and exhibitions, functioned as catalysts of connections established through publications, study visits and correspondence. These often spectacular international meetings rapidly gained momentum as hubs of scientific and political transfer. With the increasing transnationalization of social reform, the question cannot be evaded as to whether the connections and transfers across borders had any impact on the proliferation of social legislation in Europe. Strictly speaking, this question takes us somewhat out of the conceptual framework of circulatory regimes. Saunier’s regimes are about the diffusion, transfer, exchange and circulation of knowledge, much less about the use of this knowledge. Nevertheless, the question cannot be totally avoided, since whether knowledge is usable or not, and if so by whom and when, must eventually have effects on the nature of the circulatory regime. We concentrated on the issue of child labour, which played an important role in the thinking of Ducpétiaux, a champion of transnationalism around the middle of the nineteenth century. Following sociologist

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Campbell we explored whether Ducpétiaux was able to embed his ideas within the institutions of his country (Belgium) and to what extent they were transmittable to other contexts. It is too soon to draw conclusions from this example, but it is clear that there was a considerable time gap between the genesis of the ideas and their realization in the form of social legislation. In the meantime, however, the ideas of Ducpétiaux and others were slowly penetrating the transnational discourse on the employment of children, which made it more likely for politicians, administrators and activists to allow state intervention in this matter. In terms of implementation, one of the characteristics of the first circulatory regime seemed to be the lack of power of transnational actors to gain direct access to the political arena. This was not only due to weaknesses of the transnationalists themselves, who were not able to gather sufficient momentum, but also to the radical transformation that the state had to go through to meet its new obligations towards society.

Notes 1. P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Les régimes circulatoires du domaine social 1800–1940: projets et ingénierie de la convergence et de la différence’, Genèses 71 (2008): 14–21. 2. According to the generally accepted definition from Krasner, an international regime is a set of ‘implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations’, quoted in C. Brown, Understanding International Relations, (2nd edn, Basingstoke 2001), 177. Like many concepts developed by political scientists that have gained a certain popularity among ‘transnational historians’ (e.g. epistemic community, transfer, policy learning) a ‘regime’ can only have a ‘sensitizing’ effect when applied to the nineteenth century, but cannot be taken too literally, since it is generally associated with strong institutional actors, complex regulatory powers, and well-developed international systems. Cf., for example, B. Eberlein and E. Grande, ‘Beyond Delegation: Transnational Regulatory Regimes and the EU Regulatory State’, Journal of European Public Policy 12(1) (Feb. 2005). 3. See, for a recent overview, D.J. Wolffram, ‘Social Politics and the Welfare State: An International and a Local Perspective’, Historisk Tidskrift 17(4) (2007). 4. For example D. Fraser, The Evolution of the British Welfare State: A History of Social Policy since the Industrial Revolution (3rd edn, Basingstoke 2003); A. Gueslin, L’invention de l’économie sociale: idées, pratiques et imaginaires coopératifs et mutualistes dans la France du XIXe siècle (2nd edn, Paris 1998); B. Harris, The Origins of the British Welfare State: Society, State and Social Welfare in England and Wales, 1800–1945 (Basingstoke 2004); G.A. Ritter, Soziale Frage und Sozialpolitik in Deutschland seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (Opladen 1998). 5. M. van der Linden (ed.), Social Security Mutualism: The Comparative History of Mutual Benefit Societies (Bern 1996).

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6. The quotation has been taken from the English edition: F. Engels, ‘Manifesto of the Com munist Party’ (1888), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt (accessed 3 Jan. 2011). 7. Wolffram, ‘Social Politics and the Welfare State’, 685. 8. R. vom Bruch (ed.), ‘Weder Kommunismus noch Kapitalismus’. Bürgerliche Sozialreform in Deutschland vom Vormärz bis zur Ära Adenauer (Munich 1985), 7. 9. Ibid., 9–11. 10. L’Union des Associations Internationales (ed.), Les Congrès Internationaux. Tome 1: de 1681 à 1899, liste complète, 2 vols, vol. 1 (Brussels 1960). 11. C. Leonards and N. Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform, 1840–1880’, International Review for Social History 55(2) (2010). 12. P. Becker and J.J.H. Dekker, ‘Doers: The Emergence of an Acting Elite’, Peadagogica Historica 38(2–3) (2002). 13. M.M. von Baumhauer, ‘Het liefdadigheidscongres en de tentoonstelling van huishoudelijke voorwerpen te Brussel in September 1856’, De Economist 5(1) (1856): 108. 14. Leonards and Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform’, 226. 15. The paper had been delivered by W.H. Suringar, a Dutch visitor to the Peace Congress and founder of the Dutch Prison Society, who had recently visited Mettray together with von Baumhauer, author of the paper. 16. C. Leonards, ‘Ter bestrijding van armoede, misdaad, oorlog en immoraliteit; Europese congrescultuur in de negentiende en vroege twintigste eeuw vanuit filantropisch perspectief’ in Filantropie in Nederland; Voorbeelden uit de periode 1770–2020, eds V. Kingma and M.H.D. van Leeuwen (Amsterdam 2007), 57. Also, see letter from Ducpétiaux to Mittermaier dated 19 Dec.1855 in L.H. Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’ ­(1830–1872). Karl Josef Anton Mittermaiers Briefwechsel mit europäischen Strafvollzugsexperten, 2 vols (Frankfurt am Main 2005), no. 441, 1102. 17. See letter from Varrentrapp to Mittermaier dated 20 Feb. 1846, in Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’, no. 207, 700. See also letter from Varrentrapp to Mittermaier dated 25 May 1846, no. 211, 706. 18. See letter from Ducpétiaux to Mittermaier dated 19 Apr. 1852 in Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’, no. 440, 1099. Also, letter dated 27 Mar. 1856, no. 442, 1103. 19. N. Randeraad, States and Statistics in the Nineteenth Century: Europe by Numbers (Manchester 2010), 5, 13 and 15. 20. D.J. Wolffram, ‘Deftige hervormers. Internationale congressen van statistici en hygiënisten in de negentiende eeuw’ in Identiteitspolitiek. Media en de constructie van gemeenschapsgevoel, eds M. Broersma and J.W. Koopmans (Hilversum 2010). 21. J.B.A.M. Jobard, Les nouvelles inventions aux expositions universelles (Brussels and Leipzig 1857), 135–36 [our translation]. 22. A. Rasmussen, ‘Les congrès internationaux liés aux expositions universelles de Paris (1867–1900)’, Mil Neuf Cent. Cahiers Georges Sorel. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 7(24) (1989). 23. Suringar is said to have visited fifty foreign prisons. See E. Laurillard, Levensschets van W.H. Suringar, vol. 16, Levensberichten van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde te Leiden (Leiden 1873). 24. N. Randeraad, ‘De statististisch reizen van Jan Ackersdijck’, De Negentiende Eeuw 32(1) (2008). 25. Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’. 26. Leonards and Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform’, 226. 27. Collection of W.H. Suringar’s letters, Amsterdam University Library, ‘Bijzondere Collecties’.

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28. L. Wellens-De Donder, Inventaire de la correspondance d’Adolphe Quetelet déposée à l’Académie royale de Belgique (Brussels 1966). 29. C. Haynes, The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA and London 2010). 30. L. Wolowski, Études d’économie politique et statistique (Paris 1848). 31. Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’, 678. 32. N. Randeraad, ‘The International Statistical Congress (1853–1876): Knowledge Transfers and Their Limits’, European History Quarterly 41(1) (2011): 50–65. For a thorough analysis of prison reform in Prussia, using actor-network theory and pointing to the importance of foreign expertise, see Thomas Nutz, ‘Global Networks and Local Prison Reforms: Monarchs, Bureaucrats and Penological Experts in Early NineteenthCentury Prussia’, German History 23(4) (2005): 431–59. 33. D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol (eds), States, Social Knowledge, and the Origins of Modern Social Policies (Princeton 1996), 7. 34. J.L. Campbell, ‘Ideas, Politics, and Public Policy’, Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002). 35. D. Béland, ‘Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective’, Social Policy & Administration 39(1) (2005): 1. 36. For an early analysis of the transfer of social reform ideas, see J. Reulecke, ‘Englische Sozialpolitik um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts im Urteil deutscher Sozialreformer’ in Die Entstehung des Wohlfahrtsstaates in Großbritannien und Deutschland 1850–1950, eds W.J. Mommsen and W. Mock (Stuttgart 1982). Another more recent example, highlighting the role of international organizations in the scientization of the Swiss social insurance system in the twentieth century, is M. Lengwiler, ‘Konjunkturen und Krisen in der Verwissenschaftlichung der Sozialpolitik im 20. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 50 (2010). Both authors point to adaptation and modification during the transfer process. 37. Ducpétiaux organized the 1847 penitentiary congress and the 1856 welfare congress, co-organized the 1852 hygiene congress, and took the first step towards the 1862 congress of the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, all held in Brussels. In a later phase of his life he organized three Catholic congresses in Belgium (1863, 1864 and 1867). 38. Riemer, Das Netzwerk der ‘Gefängnisfreunde’, part 2, 1071–1111; Collection of W.H. Suringar’s letters, Amsterdam University Library, ‘Bijzondere Collecties’; B. Vanhulle, ‘Dreaming about the Prison: Édouard Ducpétiaux and Prison Reform in Belgium (1830– 1848)’, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés 14(2) (2010): 114–18. 39. T. Juste, Notice sur Édouard Ducpétiaux, membre de l’Académie, Extrait de l’Annuaire de l’Academie royale de Belgique, 37ième année (Brussels 1871), 14, 55–64. 40. E. Ducpétiaux, De la condition physique et morale des jeunes ouvriers et des moyens de l’améliorer, 2 vols (Brussels 1843). 41. C. Heywood, Childhood in Nineteenth-Century France: Work, Health, and Education among the ‘classes populaires’ (Cambridge 1988), 229–30. 42. Ducpétiaux, De la condition physique, 2: 313–19; Juste, Notice sur Édouard Ducpétiaux, 32–33. 43. E. Rubbens, Édouard Ducpétiaux 1804–1868, 2nd vol. Études morales, sociales et juridiques (Louvain 1934), 40–46. 44. Rubbens, Édouard Ducpétiaux, 98. 45. Ibid., 100. 46. Ducpétiaux, De la condition physique, 2: 311. 47. Ibid., 2: 420–23. Following careful preparations in cooperation with the British Association and lobbying at the London Welfare Congress in 1862 by Wolowski and

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Ducpétiaux, the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales organized its first congress in Brussels in 1862. See ‘Annales de l’Association pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, première session, Congrès de Bruxelles’ (Brussels 1863). 48. J.W. Follows, Antecedents of the International Labour Organization (Oxford 1951), 46–48. 49. G. Deneckere, 1900: België op het breukvlak van twee eeuwen (Tielt 2006), 130. See, for other countries, H. Cunningham, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500, eds J. Morrill and D. Cannadine (London and New York 1995), 144–45; P.M.M. Klep, ‘Governmentality, Statistics and State Power: Dutch Labour and Agricultural Inquiries (1840–1914)’ in The Statistical Mind in Modern Society: The Netherlands 1850–1940, eds J.G.S.J. van Maarseveen, P.M.M. Klep, and I.H. Stamhuis (Amsterdam 2008), 264–71. 50. Leonards and Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform’, 236.

Chapter 6

The Politics of Expertise The Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, Democratic Peace Movements and International Law Networks in Europe, 1850–1875

( Christian Müller

The Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (or International Social Science Association [ISSA]) was founded in 1862; by the time of its third meeting – in Amsterdam at its annual congress in 1864 – it had already established itself among the congress movements in Europe. The ISSA aimed at nothing less than setting up a ‘United States of Europe’ by consolidating European law in every aspect. However, many contemporary commentators perceived the Amsterdam congress rather pessimistically. The London Daily News noted, ‘[It] has certainly been the means of giving ventilation to a great many theories – some of them excellent, many of them mere platitudes, most of them impracticable . . . It has been a splendid affair; let us hope not altogether a splendid failure’.1 This critical assessment was due to comparisons with the British Social Science Association (SSA). Established in 1857, the SSA was seen as an apt instrument for the implementation of social reform in mid-Victorian ­politics.2 Furthermore, the formation of the SSA was part of a ‘trend towards extraparliamentary organisation’ that would counter the stasis of parliamentary life in Britain in the mid-1850s. In promoting political reform measures, the SSA was more concerned with improving social and legal conditions than with social science itself.3 The ISSA fell short of any of the immediate practical uses for which its English sister association was praised. The efforts of the ISSA were compared to a sparkling yet short-lived display of fireworks by commentators who believed the association’s goals to be overly ambitious.4 While the British middle classes used the SSA as a tool to establish an extra-parliamentary basis for the Liberal Party, the Notes for this chapter begin on page 146.

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­ an-European context for the practical impact of the ISSA was much more p complex than the purpose of the SSA, described by John Stuart Mill as a mere ‘means of gaining adhesions to important practical suggestions for immediate adoption’.5 The character of the ISSA was encyclopaedic. The association organized different international congress networks on diverse topics under one roof and deliberately set itself apart from government-influenced specialist congresses of the 1850s. At first sight this encyclopaedic arrangement of a first expert international runs counter to the model that Madeleine Herren proposed for the rise of internationalism after the 1860s, for recent research on internationalism has identified the differentiation of themes and interest groups, and an urge towards legislation and the governance of international goals for national purposes via highly professionalized ‘backstage’ action.6 This chapter focuses on this apparent contradiction by showing that the social science networks were encyclopaedic gentleman specialists’ answers to diverse notions of a transnational social question before the wave of professional differentiation in internationalism. Thus it is important to analyse the ISSA within a broader political and popular scientific context during the first three decades after the European revolutions of 1848. The chapter considers these movements as ‘transnational spaces’ and ‘laboratories of ideas’, and enquires into their structures and transformations, their opportunities and limits, and the links between their personal and organizational networks.7 The ISSA as a pan-European agent has been benignly neglected by scholars. Its use of ‘social sciences’ or ‘sciences of the social’ as a label has made it difficult for researchers to categorize the ISSA within modern research traditions. Research on electoral systems in particular has used the association as an obscure point of origin of pan-European legacies of proportional representation.8 To some extent this blind spot mirrors national perceptions of social policy and the assumption that in the 1860s liberalism turned towards the state.9 Lawrence Goldman has taken a closer comparative look, arguing that the strength of social science movements in British politics made up for the later apparent lack of academic sociology in Britain. Goldman assumes that the failure of the ISSA as a political movement contributed to an academic and professional outlook to the social question on the continent and ultimately the rise of social science as a discipline. While he rightly states that the marginalization of ‘social sciences’ as a continental, genuinely political movement at the end of the 1860s was partly due to energetic liberal and republican voices that had a case to prove in politics, Goldman pays no genuine attention to the facts that the ISSA was founded

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as an international, not national, association, and that social expertise was advocated as a scientific guide to politics on the continent, and continued to be under different labels.10 Equally striking is the fact that the ISSA is largely omitted from research on peace movements and the development of international law.11 Nor is the association mentioned in recent scholarship on internationalism, although many of the ISSA members took an active position in constituting and framing new forms of political, social and legal internationalism as collective scientific actions.12 Only Martti Koskenniemi has pleaded for a re-evaluation of bourgeois international movements in the formation of public international law. Incorporating efforts to secure peace into a political history of international law, Koskenniemi recalls the international dimension of legal expert networks in the 1870s and places the ISSA in this tradition. However, he fails to explain further the diverse structures of networks of politicians and experts beyond the ambivalent ‘friendships’ between notable legal scholars.13 The ISSA was neither just ‘an amalgam of constitutionalism, republicanism, anti-clericalism, and, above all, free trade’ nor merely an association propagating ‘a veritable shopping-list of liberal reform’.14 Its amalgamated shopping list turned out to be a programmatic strategy for how to transform ideas into politics and influence politics by expertise. This ‘politics of expertise’ was a common phenomenon all over Europe after 1850.15 Yet the ISSA was one of the essential transnational links between, on one hand, the philanthropic and peace congress networks in the late 1840s and the 1850s, and, on the other, the peace movements and networks of legal experts that took off in the early 1870s. It formed an umbrella over diverse non-governmental and semi-governmental congress movements that combined the transnational exchange of ideas with common interests in social and political reform topics declared to be ‘social sciences’. The inclusive approach towards legislating peace in Europe offered an alternative to the diverging political, ideological and denominational movements that emerged after the mid-1860s.

The Encyclopaedic Moment: Congress Movements in Postrevolutionary Europe The concept of a ‘United States of Europe’ emanated from restoration Europe in the 1820s.16 The idea of an enduring peace among the European states made its appearance at the international peace congresses after 1847. Connecting individual liberties, constitutional reform, free trade and peace, the congress resolutions set up an ideal European order at the

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Brussels congress in September 1848. A congress of nations should vote for legally binding international codes and arbitration. In Paris in 1849, Victor Hugo rhetorically substituted trading markets and parliaments for battlefields, declaring, ‘The shells will be substituted by general and universal suffrage . . . and by the court of arbitration of a strong sovereign senate, which will be for Europe what Parliament is for England, the National Assembly for Germany, and the legislative assembly for France’.17 The early peace movement was no separate movement alongside other bourgeois reform associations. On the contrary, peace was one aim among other reforming issues in a common and inclusive international movement.18 The intermingled networks such as the temperance, penal reform and social welfare movements argued for a wholesale reform of political, social, economic and international relations. Advocates of social welfare notably claimed that the key was to ameliorate the lot of the working classes.19 In promoting peace among and within peoples and nations, the international movements tried to render human progress and the harmonization of social and political conditions real by applying universal principles to national legislation.20 From the mid-1850s, European liberals longed for organizational models to implement their ideas of political reform in daily politics. Free trade and positive international law inspired a pan-European movement that incorporated political and social reform as well as peace. The 1856 Declaration of Paris and the 1860 Cobden-Chevalier Treaty, on free trade, underlined free commercial competition that would foster peace along the way.21 Richard Cobden and Lord Brougham, figureheads of the SSA, and Michel Chevalier, Louis Antoine Garnier-Pagès and Ernest Desmarest called for an Anglo-French civilizing mission that would induce political and social progress and make the European world safe for peace and liberty. Touring Britain after the SSA congresses in 1860 and 1861, GarnierPagès and Desmarest promoted the idea of a continental counterpart to the British SSA.22 Together with the Russian legal scholar Katchenowsky they also set up a sixth department within the SSA, for trade, international law and peace.23 ‘Paix et commerce’ was a commonplace among liberals, but in organizational terms peace, commerce and liberty were not decisive at the time in establishing a pan-European association.24 Although free trade lay behind plans for a corresponding European congress, also supported by the ‘Belgian Cobden’, Michel Corr-Vander Maeren, social welfare was the driving force behind the ISSA as it took final shape.25 The International Welfare Congresses between 1855/56 and 1862 had already served as spaces in which members of networks on free trade, penal reform, peace, statistics and social sciences could meet face to face.26

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Taking ‘social science’ as a rallying flag, the founders of the ISSA went two steps further. First, ‘international law’ was linked to foreigners’ rights in trade, marriage and inheritance. Secondly, they believed that a future confederation of the ‘United States of Europe’ should establish rules for a civil society in which citizens would play an active role.27 Peace and free trade, social reform and welfare were seen as means to distribute civil and political liberty among the people but were framed as ‘social science’.28 When the European congress flagship was finally launched in 1861/62, it combined many features of the post-1848 movements’ call for sustained human progress. As an association of bourgeois notables intertwined with continental liberalism and republicanism, the ISSA followed three trends prevalent in European politics. First, human progress and civilization were linked to methods of legal and social comparison that was termed moral or social sciences. Secondly, ascendant democracy was to be hedged by an institutionalized network of notables that discussed universal rules independent of numerical majorities. Thirdly, absolute freedom of discussion and the absence of votes on disputed points were to prevail because a European public sphere would judge its published proposals. ‘Social sciences’ as an umbrella term was to unite all enquiries concerned with human social relations, progress and reform – ‘social scientific associations . . . are now becoming a general phenomenon’.29 In the early 1860s, the term was widely debated because the statistical movement claimed to be the only representative of the ‘pure bright light of scientific method’, in opposition to public promoters of social sciences.30 This pure light of expertise in politics could be directed either by governmental deputies trying to legitimize government actions or by independent gentleman experts collecting data to argue for reform. The SSA and the ISSA decided in favour of the latter option. Social science movements also took up the trend towards comparative legal research and its implementation in politics. In 1859, the Sicilian legal scholar Terenzio Mamiani called for a system of legal rules in which the individual would figure more prominently.31 Carl Josef Anton Mittermaier and Emerico Amari sketched universal principles in which an enlightened and educated citizen was sovereign.32 Adapting Giambattista Vico’s ideas to the nineteenth century, Amari postulated not a uniformity of regulations but conforming legal and political principles that would guide specific regulations without destroying national traditions.33 The ISSA adopted these ideas for its five international departments. The ISSA members did not promote a coherent liberal ideology. Yet the pan-European perspective strengthened the individual in transnational relations to foster a model of the ideal European citizen. Social coercion by

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a ‘majority of the masses’ would suppress the abilities of gifted ­individuals whose contribution to the progress of mankind was vital.34 The ISSA longed to guide the many ‘by the counsels and influence of a more highly  . . . instructed one or few’.35 Its essential principals were free discussion and respectful argument, in order to convince, not silence, each other.36 In this respect, peace was seen not only as the absence of war between states but also as an attitude in personal relations, where discussions were possible without the tyranny of voting majorities. The ISSA congresses adopted Mill’s concept of free discussion without majority votes37 and relied on published questions instead of written papers.38 The principles of an ideal community had to be put on display and scrutinized by public opinion in order that the gravity of uncontested social truths might improve societies.

Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales: Congress Structures and Issues Transnational congresses were staged as fairs of progress during the summer season. The organizers promoted their touristic character as early ‘Baedekers for the international land’ in order to attract more participants.39 The male members often portrayed themselves as ‘prophets of progress’.40 Only the crowned allegory of the congress was depicted as a female figure, who categorized the material objects of rapid industrial and scientific change (Figure 6.1). Congresses relied on an enlightenment concept of cultural nationalism, arguing that the bonds of human civilization transcended territorial, religious and national boundaries. Internationally minded individuals would come together with national mutual recognition and respect. From its beginning the ISSA incorporated representatives of as many different national and political associations as possible and attracted governments and monarchs as figureheads. Although the figures in Figure 6.2 give an accurate account of ISSA membership data, they reflect the structures of the ISSA only to a limited extent.41 They suggest a dominance of Belgian, French and Dutch speakers and topics, but the members actively participating in the debates can be narrowed down to around five dozen, several of whom can be traced as active internationalists who attended many similar congresses. The connections suggest a vivid exchange among British and continental gentleman experts. Yet, only few participants on the congresses were scientific ‘experts’ in a professionalized sense. ‘Second-order observations’ of the public largely accounted for their scientific expertise.42

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Figure 6.1. Allegory of the Congress ordering the progress of the social sciences at the 1864 meeting of the ISSA in Amsterdam 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Belgium

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Figure 6.2. Membership figures of the ISSA – effective members (i.e., paying the full annual contribution for membership and subscription to the Annales) only, with an annual contribution of 20 Belgian florins (derived from Annales ISSA, vols 1–4)

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While the underlying networks included less-represented nations, Figure 6.2 also mirrors the initial focus on French and Belgian legal ­cultures. The ISSA urged that the gap between Romanic and Germanic legal cultures be filled: ‘The future of this movement and the success of its idea . . . depend on the . . . Germanic element. If we do not succeed in attracting the attention of the Germanic people, the Association Internationale will . . . not achieve the very European importance for which we so desperately long in the common interest of civilization’.43 The reconciling pan-European influence of German-Swiss networks in 1865 was intended to be perpetuated at the peripatetic congresses held in Turin in 1866 and in Heidelberg in 1868.44 These ambitions went hand in hand with the desire to turn internationalism into a veritable means of achieving international peace. Comparative legal science, free discussion and a tightly knit network would encourage a European public sphere and national governments to adopt the legislative concepts that were necessary for the ISSA to ‘take a huge step in the course of human progress . . . in consolidating the European international law . . . Let us create an international law in which the individual is sovereign’. The French republican Ernest Desmarest even argued that ‘we are here to accomplish that the law of nations is rendered into the civil law of Europe’.45 It was the intention of the ISSA that the law of nations became a civil law procedure to enforce peace throughout Europe. Yet, this concept of civil law procedure was limited to Christian European states, for ‘a civilizing mission’ of the European states in a Christian and Western sense was seldom questioned.46 Legislating peace in Europe was to be accompanied by political and social reform in the Christian West to present an example for the rest of the world, including Russia. International peace was thus to be accompanied by an internal political truce and social peace.

Encyclopaedic Internationalism in Transition Structural problems and growing tensions between three different political groups led to a rapid decline of the ISSA in 1866. The disintegration of the ISSA also affected its underlying networks. The first major rupture occurred before and during the 1863 Ghent congress and was accompanied by the impact of the Belgian school and churchyard quarrels at  the European level.47 While emanating from the welfare movement in 1861/62 the ISSA had attracted members from all religious and political spectra among the middle classes. Yet by 1864 the transnational congress movement had differentiated itself thematically, personally and, to some extent, organizationally. From liberal and republican perspectives,

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religious quarrels were to be avoided to secure internal peace within societies. Among continental republicans and anti-Catholic liberals, criticism of Catholicism grew steadily. The public scandal over Edgardo Mortara in Bologna in 1858, the Garibaldi controversy in Europe after 1861 and the sharp divides between secular and religious internationals – emanating from the Malines congresses of the Belgian Catholics in 1863 and 1864 – contributed to an ever-increasing anti-Catholicism within the ISSA.48 The strong laic sentiments of French Comteism and Belgian anti-clerical freemasonic ideas were countered by politicized religious feelings not only from Catholics but also from French Calvinists like Jean-Jules Clamagéran and from the Dutch Calvinist Afgescheidenen (Secessionists). As the lines of controversy in Belgian and French domestic politics hardened during and after 1864, the ideal of civil enlightenment via free speech and the attractiveness of the ISSA as a transnational space for free discussion changed. The membership figures show a drop in British members and a steady decline in the number of members from other, Catholic countries. Disinterested observers criticized that ‘the freedom of speech has become anything but an idle name’.49 In particular, the growing tensions between Belgian freemason liberals and Catholic ‘ultramontanes’ found its expression in ‘invectives as sharp as vinegar’ and finally led to a ‘wordy war’ whose divisions were prefigured by national conflicts over education and culture in the main member states of the ISSA – Belgium, France and the Netherlands.50 Discussions on structural reform within the ISSA mirrored these divides. Liberals, left liberals and republicans quarrelled over the goal of the ISSA – should the movement argue for a legitimate popular representation of the European peoples during the crises in 1865 and early 1866? While liberals adhered to the concept of a commission of enquiry and the force of public opinion, the republican faction wanted to transform the association into a revolutionary assembly and eventually into a proper parliament as a decisive legislative institution of a European confederation.51 Such a parliament would ‘decide not only on questions of internal sovereignty, but on all international questions’.52 The ISSA received its final blow between summer 1866 and spring 1867, although it survived until the spring of 1868.53 Republicans envisaged ‘a European war, [which] would become a civil war’.54 Almost all members wanted the ISSA to take action for peace to counter the rising tensions between France and the North German Confederation over the Luxembourg succession. Left liberals and republicans, in particular, urged the standing committee to get actively involved in European politics. In contrast, moderate liberals and legal experts argued that the ISSA could provide alternative scientific legal solutions for crises and wars to come.

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International law codes could be either drafted by experts and ‘private congresses’ or discussed by popular movements.55 The ISSA tried to incorporate both alternatives, but by failing to commit fully to any one option in May and June 1867, it also failed to satisfy any of the internal political factions within the association.56 Finally the urge to act as a social movement proved a political, although not conceptual, overstretch for the ISSA. When the ISSA died away between summer 1867 and spring 1868, modern peace movements and international law networks rose like phoenixes from its very ashes.57

The Republican Legacy: Open Congresses and Political Issues During the summer of 1867 the factions within the ISSA pulled network strings in order to realign themselves.58 Two possible roads lay ahead: to call for mass congresses or to engage in expert politics. Notable liberals followed the latter path to find their way into the circle around the Revue de Droit International.59 Left liberals and republicans chose the road leading to congress activism.60 Both the Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté (LIPL), set up by Jules Barni, and the Ligue Internationale de la Paix (LIP), founded by Frederick Passy, took their leading personnel from the ISSA networks, as an examination of LIPL branches and the founding committee of the LIP shows (see Table 6.1). The new peace movements were set up largely by rival factions within the ISSA.61 The committee of the LIP consisted of prominent French and German activists, of whom Michel Chevalier and Georg Varrentrapp had already been corresponding members of the British SSA and active members of the ISSA.62 Together with Frederick Passy, Chevalier and Varrentrapp formed the core of the LIP. Two-thirds of the Brussels LIPL committee had been ISSA members and realigned with the Indépendance Belge. Almost the whole republican faction of the ISSA realigned with the Paris LIPL committee. As some prominent figures had been involved Table 6.1. Members of the peace movement sections and their affiliation to the ISSA. Figures taken from Annales du Congrès de Genève (Geneva, 1868), 5f., 44; Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 234, 22 August 1867; Daily News (London), 4 June 1867.

Founding committee (total) Founding committee (ISSA members)

LIPL (Paris) 70 10

LIPL (Brussels) 25 16

LIP 9 3 (initiators)

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in the Trial of the Thirteen in 1864, they also symbolized the republican opposition against Napoleon III. The race to hold the first congress was won by the LIPL, relying on committees in England, France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. Although it proclaimed the establishment of liberty, law and peace in Europe, the LIPL soon turned towards ‘free democracy’ and republican revolutions as prerequisites for an enduring peace.63 The slogan ‘peace through liberty’ highlighted the republican zeal to create a new international law and the political constitutions of Europe by a revolution first.64 ‘The  essential condition for enduring peace between the nations is . . . ­liberty, and in international relations, the establishment of a confederation of free democracies constituting the United States of Europe.’65 When the LIPL held that first congress, in Geneva in September 1867, it was received as a symbol to counter tensions between France and Prussia. Garibaldi’s speech raised liberal expectations as to the future course of the movement.66 However, the LIPL instantly drifted towards the left and, at best, set back public opinion by acid secularist polemic towards the established churches and by the idea of a revolutionary war to end all wars.67 It seemed paradoxical to set up a peace movement that advocated a war first, even if that war would end the rule of monarchs and priests in Europe. Anti-clericalism and republican warfare were core themes of the LIPL until 1871. Garibaldi’s speech against princes and the papacy and the close connections between the LIPL and the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) in Lausanne in 1868 gave grounds to suggest that the LIPL was a bundle of lunatic anarchists rather than a proper international organization caring about peace.68 Although in its rhetoric and programme the LIPL attached itself to slogans similar to those of the ISSA – international peace and justice, political reform, working class betterment – its radical project for a ‘United States of Europe’ was by and large criticized. Although the LIPL networks in France and Belgium initially had some overlap with the radical wing of the ISSA, these members soon opted out of the new movement. When the LIPL was finally established as a permanent association, only the former local Berne correspondent of the ISSA, Charles Menn, the Italian Charles Riboli and the Belgian Gustave di Molinari were elected as vice-presidents from among the former ISSA members.69 The permanent LIPL committee in Switzerland soon separated the organization from its original national committees and turned the congresses into playgrounds for exile politicians.70 European radicals had learned from the deliberative congresses that they had to set up a lasting organization, proclaim themselves the true representatives of the peoples of Europe and take the lead in a supposed revolutionary momentum.

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There would be no peace if the pending republican revolution of European constitutions was not successful and if the questions of ‘bread and faith’, as the main causes of warfare, could not be solved.71 Political and economic reforms were prerequisites, but peace came to be regarded as not the immediate goal, albeit still the ultimate one.72 The working cooperatives were adopted from ISSA tradition but were interpreted by the IWMA at their Geneva congress in 1866 as a force that could transform the antagonism of classes, not as a means of securing social peace. The IWMA made a similar argument against religion as clerical influence – in the Marxist tradition, the rule of clerics and churches hampered public morals.73 To some extent, the laic republican ideas of the ISSA faction found their way into the LIPL programme, but they were radicalized and marginalized in socialist politics. The LIP also wanted to set up an international legal system to end warfare, and took up the liberal idea that nations and their peoples would, in valuing their own independence, mutually respect each other. The LIP tried to promote a moderate ‘charter of the human race’, but until 1869 only a few supporters joined the league. Only after the general elections in France in 1869 did the LIP receive prominent attention, when the immediate war scare over the Luxembourg crisis had ebbed away and peace and liberty had become central objects in the opposition’s electoral campaigns. The LIP consisted of the ‘more modern men of the opposition of all shades’ and bore ‘no revolutionary flag, whether democratic, socialist, or religious’.74 Taking up the ISSA belief in impartial deliberation, the LIP fostered neither political creed nor religious predisposition and counted the Reformed minister Paschoud of Paris (a former ISSA member), the Catholic Père Hyacinthe and the Chief Rabbi of Paris and Geneva as members of its standing committee.75 Piecemeal reform and benevolent religious interaction figured on the LIP agenda, and its credo was to harmonize rather than to split and revolutionize society. Founders Passy, Chevalier and Varrentrapp would avoid any party political character that might seek to induce the French government ‘to change the whole system of making peace or war to freely elected representatives of the people’.76 When Chevalier argued against warfare in Europe, he envisaged a common European public sphere that interacted, freely deliberated and finally convinced the peoples. Thus, the core idea of the ISSA found its way into the LIP: that legal harmonization would bring about peace through the necessary tool of free public deliberation.77 The LIP intended to secure the left-liberal political heritage of the ISSA. The LIPL aspired to be a mass movement, but the elite character of the LIP is evident in the list of membership subscriptions that was available at the Director’s Office of the Cercle International at the Paris World Exhibition

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in 1867.78 Supported by the queens of Britain and Prussia, and authorized by the French government under the restricted association laws, the LIP aspired to establish a stronger network among left liberals in Western Europe, but never fully succeeded. Its German members were marginalized at home over questions of nation-state and party formation in Frankfurt am Main and Munich, and English radicals supported the Reform League instead, which had already taken sides with the LIPL. By 1869/70, the LIP had lost its international character, emerging as only one among several institutionalized French networks of opposition to the Olivier government. In French domestic politics, however, the protagonists of the LIP and the LIPL occupied common ground, arguing that the legislative assembly should control the war budget of Napoleon III.

The Liberal Legacy: Institutionalized Networks and Collective Scientific Action The broader social movements that emerged after the Luxembourg crisis shared common aims with the network of experts assembled around the Revue de Droit International. They all considered the recent course of international politics vicious, and sought to transform the law of nations into a system in which law truly ruled internationally.79 In this respect, diplomacy and singular bilateral treaties would not do. But similarly, the experts argued that a broad and public congress movement would achieve little other than vulgarizing their ideas. Although the ISSA had at least ventilated some new ideas, peace movements such as the LIPL had weakened the case for peace and international law.80 The important international network of legal experts from within the ISSA did not take the road towards political activism and open congresses. At the centre of this personal network was the Belgian lawyer Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns.81 Peace was a long-term goal that could only be achieved by hedging international relations between states with a set of positive international norms and arbitration procedures – yet not within an international code. In political terms, this network shared the views of the LIP, yet the legal experts of the ISSA decided on a different strategy – that of scientific expertise to influence politics.82 In setting up a legal journal, Rolin-Jaequemyns used his ISSA network connections in autumn 1867 and through 1868, and convinced both  T.M.C.  Asser in Amsterdam and John Westlake in London to be co-editors.83 The other collaborators for the Revue de Droit International and later in the Institut de Droit International were mostly acquaintances from the SSA and ISSA congresses between 1860 and 1865. Among the

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most prominent were Gustave Moynier, Dimitri Katchenowsky, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, Edouard Laboulaye and Émile de Laveleye. However, this collection of legal experts was by no means representative of legal theorists in the tradition of either Grotius or ‘European Public Law’; most of them were practising lawyers and politicians still wary about the effect of mass politics. They held that it came down to the educated few to set up ambitious reform projects and influence governments. Legislation should be framed not by public mass movements but by expert committees. In his first manifesto, on introducing the Revue to a broader public in late 1868, Rolin-Jaequemyns adhered to the ISSA idea of finding common principles for human progress by the comparative study of laws.84 The dividing lines between peoples – political representation, degrees of political liberty, religious divisions – were deemed arbitrarily constructed, and Rolin-Jaequemyns argued for a closer analysis of different legal systems. Comparing legal cultures would foster the spirit of the nation, respect for other nations and the search for universal justice. Thus ‘l’ésprit d’internationalité’ could form the basis of true international law.85 The alienation of the Germans and the French at all levels of society in 1870/71 formed Rolin-Jaequemyns’s conviction that an expert network was needed to solve the pressing questions of international law and peace. Until the late 1860s, both in the ISSA and at other international open congresses, mutual respect and personal friendships were dominant topics. Yet the expert networks suffered a severe blow from the alienating effect of the war on personal relations,86 and Swiss Gustave Moynier urged Belgian Rolin-Jaequemyns to bridge the gap between French and German legal experts.87 The Franco-Prussian War also bolstered the belief that popular congress movements produced prejudice and hostility, and that they were neither a priori peace-loving nor respectful of other nations and peoples. Legal experts argued that only very small and restricted groups of scholars of international law could effectively influence governments. This ‘scientific collective action’ would need the support of public opinion and of an international public sphere. Rolin-Jaequemyns argued that the different approaches towards international congresses had already created a public opinion that favoured international expert commissions. Progress was made on prison reform and statistical questions, as well as on monetary, telegraphic and postal conventions, and, after the 1869 Alabama crisis and the Franco-Prussian War, general interest in the idea of international arbitration continued to grow. Calls for ‘international parliaments’ and ‘international congresses’ to ‘prepare a code of nations to re-strengthen general peace’ were heard again in the early 1870s from within liberal camps.88

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One way towards such a code of nations had been to build a positive international law with a procedural and institutional framework that would settle both private and public legal issues. While the LIPL had turned the liberal concept of equal national and individual interests into a revolutionary appeal, the experts collaborating in the Revue de Droit International stepped back from these political claims.89 International legal experts would no longer challenge the ultimate sovereignty of nationstates over their subjects. The future progress of the human world could only be guaranteed by a peaceful harmony and by acknowledgement of the rights of every collective member (the nation as embodied in the state) of the great human family. Thus international public law and international private law found their home in an academy that tried to implement both sides of the international legal coin of dispute resolutions in government treaties.90

From a Politics of Expertise to an Active Role of Experts in Politics The ISSA and the European social science movement proved to be essential links that connected the peace and welfare congress networks of the late 1840s and the 1850s with the highly politicized peace and law networks of the late 1860s. The Luxembourg crisis of 1867 fostered two alternative means of reconciling public opinion with decision-making processes in politics. One was to mobilize the public as an agent by holding extraparliamentary congresses and large assemblies; the LIPL and LIP adopted this option. More moderate liberals, themselves often promoted into governmental positions after 1866/67, decided to follow the second option, to go private and institutionalize their expert networks. They sought to gain influence on governments by means of the ‘expert’ label rather than by popular politics, because they thought that large congress movements had succeeded only in distributing knowledge about social and political issues and not in influencing governments. They therefore turned away from Mill’s ideas of free discussion and the advent of a social truth through public discussion and instead propagated the necessity of institutionalized expert networks to advocate their political and social claims. They believed that important decisions in politics should be influenced by high-profile elites to counter mass democracy and amateur politics alike. The networks of the Institut de Droit International and their aim to legislate enduring peace in Europe directly emanated from the ISSA; so too did the other peace movements that were established in 1867. However, peace was a prominent catchphrase only in times of crisis and war, when

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it served to highlight the movements’ importance. Neither the ISSA nor its successor movements were concerned with peace alone, but rather incorporated it into a larger concept of political and social change. The ISSA was part of a general movement that thirsted for new certainties and systematic approaches in an encyclopaedic manner. This specific form of modern internationalism took off in the 1850s and achieved sustained growth in the 1860s. The common positions on the differentiation of transnational interest groups and the nature of relations between nations and internationalism before the 1880s must be reconsidered. The contemporary polemics of peace activists such as Alfred Fried were directed against an ardent radical, leftist and anti-national rhetoric in favour of a ‘United States of Europe’ that came from the LIPL from 1867. But when in 1908 Fried wanted to reconcile internationalism and peace movements with nationalism, he forgot that the early transnational congresses and their underlying networks had already promoted a fertile combination of nationalism and internationalism. Encyclopaedic movements like the ISSA were nourished by a post-revolutionary urge to find a path in between democratic mass politics and government support on both national and international levels. The major crises in Europe between 1866 and 1871 provided the catalyst for two distinct processes that transformed both national and international politics in the following decades, especially between the 1880s  and  the First World War.91 One process can be described as a growing differentiation in internationalism: the narrowing down of broader congresses like the ISSA to single-issue movements. In this process the ISSA as ‘five congresses in one’92 was replaced by several specialist associations and congresses. The second process of institutionalization gave rise to a politics of expertise. Expert networks voluntarily chose the closed shop of private academies for implementing their ideas in legislation. It was not so much academicization as the label of expertise that was increasingly demanded by governments. The social science movements advocated scientific expertise as the guide for politics, but offered politics dressed as science in order to render social sciences as a politics of expertise.

Notes This chapter stems from research for a current book project The Politics  of  Expertise: The Institutionalization of Transnational Legal and Social  Networks in Europe, 1840–1914. I am hugely indebted to the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge, for

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electing me Mellon Prize Post-Doctoral Fellow, to the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’, Münster, and particularly to Eugenio Biagini, Christopher Clark, Astrid Swenson (Cambridge), Lawrence Goldman (Oxford) and Christophe Verbruggen (Ghent) who have substantially commented on drafts of this chapter. 1. Daily News (London), 5 Oct. 1864; Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage 235, 5 Oct. 1864. 2. Morning Chronicle (London), 16 Apr. 1861; Newcastle Courant, 16 Oct. 1863. Cf. L. Goldman, Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association 1857–1886 (Cambridge 2002), 1–20. 3. Goldman, Science, 52, 61, 293–319; quote taken from ibid., 56. See also W.A. Guy, ‘On the Original and Acquired Meaning of the Term “Statistics”’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London 28(4) (Dec. 1865): 478–93 at 492f. 4. Daily News (London), 5 Oct. 1864; Le Temps (Paris), 7 Oct. 1864. 5. John Stuart Mill to Thomas Hare, 6 Aug. 1859, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. J. Robson, 33 vols (Toronto 1961–91), vol. 15: The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–1873, ed. F.E. Mineka and D.N. Lindley (Toronto 1972), 632–33. 6. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Außenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914 (Munich 2000); M. Herren, Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung (Darmstadt 2009), 1–19; C.N. Murphy, International Organizations and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850 (Cambridge 1994), 47f. 7. See J. Paulmann, ‘Grenzüberschreitungen und Grenzräume. Überlegungen zur Geschichte transnationaler Beziehungen von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis in die Zeitgeschichte’ in Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen, eds E. Conze, U.  Lappenküper and G. Müller (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna 2004), 169–96; P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Les Régimes circulatoires du domaine social 1800–1940: projets et ­ingénierie de la convergence et de la différence’, Genèses 71(2) (2008): 4–25; G. Vanthemsche, ‘Laboratoires d’idées et progrès social’ in Laboratoires et réseaux de diffusion des idées en Belgique, ed. G. Kurgan-van Hentenryk (Brussels 1990), 55–75. 8. A.M. Carstairs, A Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe (London 1980), 3–6; A. Blais, A. Dobrzynska and I. Indridason, ‘To Adopt or Not to Adopt Proportional Representation: The Politics of Institutional Choice’, British Journal of Political Science 35 (2005): 182–90. 9. P. Wagner, ‘The Uses of the Social Sciences’ in The Modern Social Sciences, eds T.M.  Porter  and D. Ross (Cambridge 2003), 537–52 at 541. Cf. Saunier, ‘Régimes Circulatoires’, 6. 10. Goldman, Science, 326. 11. See D. Riesenberger, Geschichte der Friedensbewegung in Deutschland von den Anfängen bis 1933 (Göttingen 1985), 30f.; A. Durand, ‘Gustave Moynier et les sociétés de la Paix’, Revue CICR 821 (Oct. 1996): 575–94; M. Clinton, ‘“Revanche ou Relèvement”: The French Peace Movement Confronts Alsace and Lorraine, 1871–1918’, Canadian Journal of History (Dec. 2005), 431–48. 12. M. Geyer and J. Paulmann (eds), The Mechanics of Internationalism (Oxford 2001); Herren, Internationale Organisationen. Maybe this neglect is due to the separation of fields in internationalism that was set up by F.S.L. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 1815–1914 (Leiden 1963). 13. M. Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge 2001), 11–42; M. Koskenniemi, ‘Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns and

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the Establishment of the Institut de Droit International (1873)’, Revue belge de droit ­international 37(1) (2004): 5–11. 14. Goldman, Science, 19, 326; Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer, 15. 15. Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 263 and 271, 19 and 28 Sept. 1864. Cf. Goldman, Science, 86–88, 324f. See also Daily News, 28 Sept. 1860; Glasgow Herald, 29 Sept. and 21 Nov. 1860; Le Siècle (Paris), 15 Nov. 1860. 16. H. de Saint-Simon, ‘Über die Neuordnung der europäischen Gesellschaft’ and ‘Über die Neuordnung der europäischen Völkergemeinschaft’ in Der Frühsozialismus, ed. T. Ramm (2nd edn, Stuttgart 1968), 25–32 and 33–82, here 30–35, 50–52; A. Comte, ‘Plan of the Scientific Work Necessary for the Reorganization of Society’ in A. Comte, Early Political Writings, ed. H.S. Jones (Cambridge 1998), 47–144. 17. Victor Hugo, Opening Address to the Paris Peace Congress, 21 Aug. 1849, in Congrès des Amis de la Paix Universelle réuni à Paris en 1849, ed. J. Garnier (Paris 1850), 3–5 at 4. See also Durand, ‘Gustave Moynier’, 576. 18. Research so far has stressed the failure of the early peace movements until the 1880s, arguing that because of their alliance with other reform movements they could not succeed in peace politics. See Riesenberger, Friedensbewegung; Clinton, ‘Revanche ou Relèvement’; R. Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace Movement and German Society, 1892–1914 (Princeton 1975); S.E. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815–1914 (New York 1991); S. Lorrain, Des pacifistes français et allemands à l’entente franco-allemande, 1870–1925 (Paris 1999). 19. F.-O. Ward, Discours sur le Congrès International de Bienfaisance Bruxelles (Brussels and Leipzig 1857), 3f., 6; W.G. Lumly, ‘Report on the Proceedings of the International Congrès de Bienfaisance’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London 19(4) (Dec. 1856): 385–89; Annales du Congrès International de Bienfaisance London, 2 vols (Brussels 1862), 1: 1– 8, 33f. 20. E. Pelletan, Le Monde Marche. Lettres à Lamartine (Paris 1857), 114f. 21. Goldman, Science, 324f.; B. Röben, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Francis Lieber und das moderne Völkerrecht, 1861–1881 (Baden-Baden 2002), 215f. 22. Daily News (London), 28 Sept. 1860 and 4 July 1861; Birmingham Daily Post, 19 Aug. 1861 and 13 Sept. 1862; Glasgow Herald, 27 and 29 Sept. 1860; Liverpool Mercury, 14 Nov. 1861. 23. Glasgow Herald, 21 Nov. 1860; Daily News (London), 4 July 1861; Birmingham Daily Post, 19 Aug. 1861; Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (henceforth Transactions NAPSS), 1861 (London 1862), xlvi, 18–20. 24. Le Temps (Paris), 27 Sept. 1862. 25. Transactions NAPSS, 1878, 155f.; E. Sève, Galérie de l’Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (Brussels 1864), chap. 8; ‘Un Voyage en douane’, Indépendence Belge (Brussels) 47, 16 Feb. 1864. For a different interpretation see Goldman, Science, 326. 26. Annales du Congrès International de Bienfaisance London, vol. 1, 3f.; Birmingham Daily Post, 26 Apr. 1862. 27. L.A. Garnier-Pagès, in E. Sève, Relations internationales.Vade mecum . . . de L’Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, 2 vols (Paris, Brussels and Leipzig 1864–65), 1: 7f.; Annales de l’Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (henceforth Annales ISSA) (Brussels 1863), 1: 7; Annales ISSA, 3: 107. 28. E. Pelletan, Qu’allons nous faire? Conférence de Zurich (Paris 1859), 7. 29. Indépendence Belge 123, 3 May 1864. See also Daily News (London), 8 Oct. 1863. 30. Guy, ‘On the Original and Acquired Meaning’, 492. 31. T. Mamiani, D’un nuovo Diritto Europeo (Turin 1859), 345f.

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32. E. Amari, Critica di una scienza delle legislazioni comparate (1857, Palermo 1969); K.J.A. Mittermaier, ‘Die Wissenschaft der vergleichenden Gesetzgebung’, Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatur (1858): 31–39; see also P.S. Mancini, Della Nazionalità come Fondamento del Dritto delle genti, ed. E. Jayme (Turin 2000), 25, 49f. 33. Cf. Amari, Critica, 1: 105; 2: 158–61, 170f., 207–9; G. Vico, La Scienza Nuova (Milan 1977), 179. 34. John Stuart Mill, ‘On Liberty’ in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. 18: Essays on Politics and Society, Vol. I, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto and Buffalo 1977), 224–26, ­250–51, 257–59, 268–69; John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, ed. J.M. Robson (London 1989), 189; J. Simon, La Liberté, (2nd edn, Paris 1859), 2: 220–84, 392–438; E. Pelletan, Die Menschenrechte, (3rd edn, Bremen 1870), 68, 112–13, 131. 35. Mill, ‘On Liberty’, 268f. 36. Ibid., 257–60. 37. Ibid., 219f., 224, 250–57, 268; Annales ISSA, 1: 27–34, 49, 63f.; Birmingham Daily News, 13 Sept. 1862; Daily News (London), 16 June 1862. 38. John Westlake to Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns, London, 2 Nov. 1863, in The Hague, Nationaalarchief, Collectie 238 (Asser), Toegang 2.21.014, no. 60; Maurice Block, ‘Congrès International des Sciences Sociales, Troisième Session, 1864’, Journal des Économistes 44 (1864): 66–87 at 67f. 39. Quote taken from A.H. Fried, Das internationale Leben der Gegenwart (Leipzig 1908), 1. See Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 261, 18 Sept. 1862 and 260, 16 Sept. 1864; Journal de Genève, 15 Aug. 1865; Intelligenzblatt für die Stadt Bern, 27 Aug. 1865. See Le Temps (Paris), 30 Sept. 1864; Sève, Relations Internationales, vol. 2; Bulletin Illustré du Troisième Congrès des Sciences Sociales 1864 (Amsterdam 1864) in The Hague, Nationaalarchief, Collectie 238 (Asser), Toegang 2.21.014, no. 177; Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales. Congrès de Berne, Bulletin du Comité des Voyages (undated) in Universiteitsbibliotheek Ghent (henceforth UB Ghent), BIB.ACC.006770. 40. E. Pelletan, Les Fêtes de l’Intelligence (Paris 1863), 3, 43; C[lau]d[e] B[usken] Huet, ‘Vanity Fair’, De Gids 28 (1864), 216–22 at 216–18. 41. The figures for the 1864 Amsterdam congress are less representative because this event was staged parallel to the British SSA congress in York. 42. On ‘second-order observation’, see N. Luhmann, Ecological Communication, trans. J. Bednarz (Chicago 1989), 11–21. 43. Annales ISSA, 4: 222. See also Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns to Joseph-Marcel Hornung, Minderhout 22 Sept. 1870 in Bibliothèque Universitaire de Genève (BGE), Geneva, MS fr. 5303, fols. 356–57. 44. Annales ISSA, vol. 3, Appendix, 9–17; and Annales ISSA, vol. 4, Appendix, 16–17; Le Temps (Paris), 7 Oct. 1864. 45. Annales ISSA, 2: 164, and Annales ISSA, 3: 105. 46. On colonial policies and civilizing mission see Annales ISSA, 3: 845–66; Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage 228, 27 Sept. 1864 and 234, 4 Oct. 1864. 47. Le Temps (Paris), 27 Aug., 19 and 24 Sept. 1863. 48. See the discussions on compulsory school education and the role of religion in Annales ISSA, 1: 245–325; the case of the baptized Jew Edgardo Mortara is discussed at length on 294–97. See J.F. Pollard, Money and the Rise of Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican 1850–1950 (Cambridge 2005), 36. 49. Daily News (London), 5 Oct. 1864. 50. T.M.C. Asser, ‘Congres-indrukken’, De Gids 28 (1864): 319–41, 334f.; Pelletan, Menschenrechte, 1–2; Journal de Genève 203, 27 Aug. 1865.

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51. Annales ISSA, 3: 107. 52. L.A. Garnier-Pagès, in Sève, Relations internationales, 1: 8; Annales ISSA, 1: 63f.; Annales ISSA, 4: 12 and ibid., Appendix, 28–33. 53. See minutes of the ISSA 1867/68: UB Ghent, BIB.VLBL.HFI.A.085.12. 54. C. Lemonnier, La Vérité sur le Congrès de Genève (Berne and Geneva 1867), 3. 55. Francis Lieber to Johann Caspar Bluntschli, 16 Apr. 1866 in The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, ed. T.S. Perry (Boston 1882), 362f.; cf. Röben, Bluntschli, 78f., 125–29. 56. Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 115, 25 Apr. 1867. See documents from the 1867 and 1868 sessions in: UB Ghent BIB.VLBL.HFI.A.085.12. 57. Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 136, 16 May 1867 and 155, 4 June 1867. 58. Phare de la Loire, 5 May 1867; Annales du Congrès de Genève (Geneva 1868), 1. 59. Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer, 12f., 17f. 60. Indépendance Belge (Brussels) 240, 28 Aug. 1867. 61. Indépendence Belge 234, 22 Aug. 1867; Le Temps (Paris), 1 June 1867. 62. Transactions SSA, 1859–1866: Extracts taken from the lists of foreign corresponding members. 63. ‘June Manifesto’ of the LIPL, 11 June 1867, in C. Lemonnier, La Vérité sur le Congrès de Genève (Geneva 1867), 5; Annales du Congrès de Genève (Geneva 1868), 6–7; S. Hazareesingh, Intellectual Founders of the Republic (Oxford 2001), 247f. 64. Lemonnier, Vérité, 7f., 34f.; Annales Congrès Genève, VIIIf. 65. Programme for the Geneva congress in Lemonnier, Vérité, 10; J. Barni, La Morale dans la Démocratie (2nd edn, Paris 1885), 237–44. 66. L. Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (New Haven and London 2007), 349. 67. For the English branch of the LIPL, see Daily News (London), 10 Jan. 1868. 68. J.-J. Clamagéron to A. Jay, Paris, 23 Sept. 1867, in J.-J. Clamagéron, Correspondance ­1849–1902 (Paris 1906), 291–94 at 291f.; Annales Congrès Genève, 100–115, 136–41; Lemonnier, Vérité, 2, 17–19, 31f. For the ambivalent British responses, see Daily News  (London), 12 June and 1 Oct. 1868, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London), 22 Oct. 1869; Birmingham Daily Press, 2 Dec. 1869 and Glasgow Herald, 3 Dec. 1869. 69. Lemonnier, Vérité, 15f.; Annales Congrès Genève, 307–11. 70. Lemonnier, Vérité, 28; Annales Congrès Genève, 277f. 71. Lemonnier, Vérité, 29–33; Annales Congrès Genève, IX. 72. ‘A reform of politics and society is needed without which all efforts for establishing an enduring peace would eternally lose themselves in vain aspirations’ (Lemonnier, Vérité, 9f). 73. See Minutes of the IWMA congress, Geneva, 3–8 Sept. 1866, printed in J. Freymond (ed.), La Première Internationale, 2 vols (Geneva 1962), 1: 33, 52f. 74. Daily News (London), 12 June 1868 and 6 July 1869. 75. Daily News (London), 4 June 1867 and 6 July 1869; Manchester Times, 8 June 1867. 76. Daily News (London), 12 June 1868; Lemonnier, Vérité, 6f. 77. Daily News (London), 6 July 1869. 78. Daily News (London), 4 June 1867. 79. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, ‘De la nécessité d’organiser une institution scientifique permanente pour favoriser l’étude et les progrès du droit international’, Revue de Droit Internationale et de la Législation comparée [RDI] 5 (1873): 463–91 at 463–65. 80. Ibid., 466. 81. F. von Holtzendorff, ‘Le Principe des Nationalités et la Littérature italienne du droit des gens’, RDI 2 (1870): 92–106; Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns to P.S. Mancini, Minderhout, 12 Oct. 1867, Rome, Museo Centrale del Risorgimento Roma 858, 17(4).

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82. In a review article, Albéric Rolin actively supported Passy and the LIP as the true activists for peace. See his ‘Adolf Lasson, Das Culturideal und der Krieg (Berlin 1868)’, RDI 1 (1869): 463–66. 83. Letters and Prospectus, The Hague, Nationaalarchief, Collectie 238 (Asser), Toegang 2.21.014, no. 131. 84. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, ‘De l’étude de la législation comparée et du droit international’, RDI 1 (1869): 1–17, 227–43. 85. Röben, Bluntschli, 153–56; Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer, 13f. 86. Clinton, ‘Revanche ou Relèvement’; Röben, Bluntschli, 78. 87. Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns to Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Ghent, 17 Nov. 1872 and 5 Feb. 1873, Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, FA Bluntschli, Blu 13.713a, fols. 29f., 31–33. The latter document is printed in part in J.C. Bluntschli, Denkwürdiges aus meinem Leben, vol. 3 (Nördlingen 1884), 327. 88. J. Lorimer, ‘Proposition d’un Congrès international’, RDI 3 (1871): 1–11. 89. LIPL Geneva Congrès, 7–9 Sept. 1873, Les États-Unis d’Europe, 18 Sept. 1873; RDI 5 (1873): 632–34. 90. ‘Conférence Juridique Internationale de Gand. Fondation de L’Institut de Droit International’, RDI 5 (1873): 529–30; ‘Communications relatives à l’Institut de Droit International’, ibid., 667–712; A. Rolin, Les Origines de l’Institut de Droit International, 1873–1923 (Brussels 1923). 91. See L. Raphael, ‘Die Verwissenschaftlichung des Sozialen als methodische und konzeptionelle Herausforderung für eine Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22(2) (1996): 165–93. 92. Le Temps (Paris), 26 Sept. 1862.

Chapter 7

The Road from Damascus Transnational Jewish Philanthropic Organizations and the Jewish Mass Migration from Eastern Europe, 1840–1914

( Tobias Brinkmann

Ethno-religious diaspora populations can look back on a long tradition of formally and informally organized cooperation between distant subcommunities in distinct political and cultural contexts. The historiography of the Jewish and other diasporas, however, remains strongly committed to the nation-state model. The emancipation of Jews in different states during  the first half of the nineteenth century certainly constituted a ­crucial turning point in modern Jewish history. And yet German, British, French and other emancipated Jews did not leave their older loyalties and obligations fully behind as they became fully fledged citizens of different states. The question of how Jewish communities positioned themselves within and between rising nation-states, the Jewish diaspora and the newly emerging transnational sphere during the nineteenth century has not been sufficiently explored, and stands at the centre of this chapter.1 A matter of growing concern for Jews in Central and Western Europe and in the United States in the period after 1860 was the Jewish mass migration from Eastern Europe. The enormous scale of this migration overwhelmed traditional support structures on the local level. In response, Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic successfully established a transnational assistance system, sharing the burden of helping migrants in need. Did the support of foreign Jews and the close cooperation with Jewish communities in other states conflict with the national loyalties of Jews, who in most European countries had only gained full citizenship shortly before and after 1850? The discussion that follows will examine how, in a period of rapid global integration, established Jews in Germany, other parts of Western Europe, and the United States ­negotiated Notes for this chapter begin on page 170.

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their loyalties as recently emancipated citizens and their responsibilities towards other Jews. I will argue that transnational philanthropic organizations such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle (1860), the AngloJewish Association (1871), the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (1901) and the American Jewish Committee (1906) were important forerunners of contemporary non-governmental organizations, relying on a sustained approach to overcoming poverty and improving education standards. They combined a strong commitment to the Jewish tradition of caring for Jews (and ­non-Jews) in need with a universal humanitarian agenda.

Background Between the 1860s and the beginning of the First World War close to three million Jews left Eastern Europe for the United States; smaller groups settled in Britain and France as well as in Germany, Palestine, South Africa and Argentina. The large majority of the migrants crossed through Central Europe on their way from the western border of the Russian and AustroHungarian empires to the port cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and to a lesser extent to Rotterdam, Antwerp and Le Havre. Until the early 1920s, when restrictive United States legislation reduced immigration from Eastern Europe to a trickle, Germany in particular and the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Britain and Canada were important transit countries for Jewish migrants en route to the United States. Thus soon after 1860 the relatively small Jewish communities in Central and Western Europe and in the United States were confronted with rising numbers of Jewish migrants who required support. Between the 1860s and the 1880s, Jewish migration from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires and Romania, especially to America, gradually increased; after 1890 and again after 1900 the numbers reached record levels. In several years in the early 1900s the number of East European Jews emigrating to the United States exceeded a hundred thousand. Even before 1890, hundreds, even thousands, of migrants were repeatedly stranded at border crossings along the Russian border with Germany and the AustroHungarian Empire and along the transit routes, overwhelming local Jewish communities.2 Reactions among Jews in the West were mixed, ranging from genuine compassion to open disapproval. The leitmotiv guiding their response was initially to prevent the migration or to redirect it to distant destinations. But even before the migration began to increase strongly after 1880, philanthropy sought to transform the immigrants according to the ideals and visions of Western Jews, not least in order to refute calls for

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immigration restrictions or the lifting of Jewish emancipation. In Imperial Germany most Jews, the majority of whom had only been fully emancipated between 1869 and 1871, faced a difficult dilemma. The apparent suffering of Jews in Eastern Europe and the needs of migrants could not be ignored. The obligation to support the poor was an important Jewish tradition and helps to explain why so many Jews contributed generously during fundraising drives. But as modern Jews who identified as Jews primarily in the synagogue and who lived overwhelmingly in large cities and displayed a surprisingly high social mobility, they had little in common with the migrants. The latter were poor, steeped in traditional Judaism and, after the early 1880s, identified in growing numbers with socialism and (proto-)Zionism. Most German, British and American Jews were not excited by the spectre of being joined by large numbers of traditional Jews from Eastern Europe who would be unlikely to integrate well. Western Jews saw the new arrivals as a threat to their own only recently achieved status. And indeed, early on opponents of Jewish emancipation instrumentalized the migration issue by inventing and spreading distorted images of ‘Ostjuden’. Anti-Semitic (and anti-Slavic) agitation had a measurable impact on the already restrictive policy towards foreign migrants in several German states, ­notably in Prussia. Soon after 1880, the Prussian authorities began to deport unwanted foreigners; between 1885 and 1888 alone more than  thirty thousand Jews and Poles were expelled, mostly across the Russian border. Such harsh ‘administrative solutions’ only exacerbated the dilemma for German Jews described above. What constituted an appropriate Jewish response to public attacks on foreign Jewish migrants and to the Prussian expulsion policy? And should Jews intervene – as Jews, or as Germans, or not at all?3 In Britain and in the United States negative images of ‘Ostjuden’ were also gaining currency among Jews (many of whom had themselves immigrated from Central and Eastern Europe before the 1870s) and in the wider public, especially as the immigration rates increased after 1880. Here too, these images constituted a central element of anti-Semitic agitation, and influenced debates about immigration restrictions. Yet in the United States and Britain, and even in France, Jews as a group were less exposed than in Imperial Germany. The second half of the nineteenth century, after all, witnessed a massive increase in long-distance movement around the globe.4 Although anti-Semitism was on the rise in Western Europe and the United States after 1880 and was often connected with Jewish immigration, other immigrant groups – the (Catholic) Irish in Britain; Chinese, Catholics and internal black migrants in the United States; Italians in France – were perceived in public discourse as more threatening than East European Jews.

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Especially in the United States and Britain, the status of Jews was more secure than in Germany. Jews from Eastern Europe could and did immigrate to these countries. In Imperial Germany, Jewish and other immigrants from Eastern Europe were not welcome. The Prussian authorities in particular continued to expel unwanted foreigners from their territory. By the turn of the century new immigrants were already outnumbering previously settled Jews in both the United States and Britain. The scale of the immigration helps to explain why many established Jews in Western Europe and the United States did not exactly welcome their co-religionists from the East with open arms.5 By supporting Jewish transmigrants and immigrants from Eastern Europe, established Western Jews pursued two goals. First, under no circumstances were destitute Jews to become a burden to the state or to nonJewish philanthropic institutions. Otherwise the reputation and status of the Jewish community in the respective country would be threatened. And secondly, support measures were aimed at reducing the visibility of Jewish migrants. At destinations in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, Jewish community leaders developed a range of schemes to shape the new immigrants according to their own self-image and to disperse them into the interior to prevent visible concentrations in major cities like New York.6 The following discussion will analyse the transition from a local to a transnational support network for Jewish migrants in transit. Three interrelated factors influenced this process: the expanding sphere of the nation-state; the rise of a transnational public (Jewish) sphere; and technological innovation that made possible the faster exchange of information (and support), and the ability to reach even remote destinations relatively quickly and easily. In other words, as Jews became fully emancipated citizens of nation-states, they established, redefined and frequently intensified their relations with other Jews. Especially for the leading managers of philanthropic networks, the relationship between the national and the transnational spheres, between national and Jewish belonging, was not a priori a relationship of conflict but rather dialectical.

The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the 1868/69 Migration Crisis During the late 1860s Jews from the Russian Empire crossed the Prussian border in rising numbers. Across Central and Western Europe small Jewish communities had for centuries cared for indigent strangers. Yet after the middle of the nineteenth century the economic and social situation in

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regions in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires and Romania that had a high Jewish population worsened considerably. In the Russian Empire and Romania, which became independent in 1878, Jews were not emancipated and they faced rising discrimination and repeated violent attacks. Starvation and epidemics exacerbated an already precarious situation, triggering waves of internal migration. A series of military conflicts in south-eastern Europe between 1877 and 1914 claimed Jewish (and other) civilian casualties and caused an increasingly protracted refugee problem that could not be solved without outside support. At the same time the Jewish and general populations increased throughout Eastern Europe, and uneven economic transformation displaced Jews in large numbers from their traditional occupations. Just as the conditions in the East deteriorated and migration rates began to rise, the status of Jews in the West improved. By 1871 Jews had received full citizenship rights in most Central and West European states. In the United States, Jewish males had enjoyed full citizenship rights since the American Revolution. In the German states and in the United States in particular, Jews displayed high social mobility. By around 1870 many Western Jews were already bourgeois city dwellers. They had established themselves as small entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals; and a few had accumulated spectacular wealth. In contrast, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who arrived after about 1880 in Western cities found employment as industrial workers, smallscale merchants or as trainees. Thus the encounter between established Jews and ‘Ostjuden’ was not just marked by a deepening cultural divide but was also increasingly shaped by class-consciousness.7 The first serious migration crisis occurred shortly before the full emancipation of Jews in Prussia was granted in July 1869. In the previous year, a cholera epidemic had ravaged through several Russian gouvernements along the Baltic coast. The disease coincided with a hunger crisis in the Suwalki and Kowno regions. Soon destitute migrants were crossing the Russian border with East Prussia in large numbers.8 Before the 1880s, the presence of foreign citizens in Prussia did not automatically constitute a problem. Quite a few Russian Jews had settled in the cities of Memel, Königsberg and Tilsit.9 Nevertheless, Jewish community leaders in Berlin and further west were alarmed when the first reports about large groups of poor migrants reached them. The communities near the border clearly required immediate support. Thanks to the dense coverage of these events by the leading German Jewish weekly, the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, the reactions, decision-making processes and eventual response can be reconstructed. In fact, its editor, Rabbi Ludwig Philippson, emerged as the main coordinator of the support effort. Through the newspaper he connected communities in distant regions and provided a platform for exchanging

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and updating information. Philippson collected and published different opinions, reports of local aid committees and general information on the situation in the western part of the Russian Empire. How could a weekly publication and its editor assume such a prominent role? Until 1860 no institution existed beyond local Jewish communities that could respond to or deal with such a crisis. A symbolic turning point had been the Damascus affair, almost thirty years earlier. In 1840 the local authorities in Damascus arrested and tortured several Jews, blaming them for the supposed ritual murder of a Catholic priest. As the news spread, Jewish communities across Europe and even in New York organized protest meetings. Two respected Jewish leaders, London businessman and philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore and Paris lawyer Adolphe Crémieux, travelled to the Ottoman Empire to intervene personally with Mehmet Ali, the Khedive of Egypt, who was the ruler of Syria. The mission was a success: the accusations were formally withdrawn. Aron Rodrigue has pointed out that during their visit Montefiore and Crémieux pressed on Jewish communities in Alexandria, Cairo and Istanbul the need to modernize. During his short stay in Cairo, Crémieux even set up a (shortlived) school for boys and girls. On their return journey the two leaders were celebrated as they passed through various Jewish communities in Europe. The Damascus affair and its outcome sparked the transnational consciousness of Jews throughout the Western diaspora and marked the symbolic birth of a public Jewish sphere that transcended national and imperial borders. But the visit also illustrates the beginnings of attempts by Western Jews to refashion their Eastern co-religionists as enlightened men and women deserving of full emancipation.10 Several weekly Jewish newspapers emerged across Central and Western Europe and in the United States around 1840, and by the early 1860s also in Eastern Europe – not coincidentally a period when newspapers became a mass medium due to technological innovation in printing and distribution, declining prices and improving literacy. The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums (Leipzig, 1837), the Archives Israélites (Paris, 1840), the Jewish Chronicle (London, 1841), The Occident (Philadelphia, 1843), and the Israelite (Cincinnati, 1854) reached far beyond German-, French- and English-speaking readers. They were soon joined by dozens of regional Jewish papers. The European papers had subscribers across Europe and in the United States; the Jewish Chronicle covered events and had readers in outposts of the British Empire such as Sydney and Cape Town. Not surprisingly, the editors promoted the cause of Jewish emancipation. But they also stressed the responsibility of recently emancipated Western Jews for the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire whose situation was much less satisfactory. Not least through the newspapers, Jews

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in the West rediscovered ‘other’, sometimes ‘exotic’, Jews in remote locations such as Yemen, China and south Asia. More importantly, the papers acted as the eyes, ears and mouthpiece of the Jewish diaspora, alerting Jews around the world if a Jewish community or individual Jews faced discrimination or persecution, or were affected by a disaster.11 The Jewish press helped to redefine the links of diaspora. Thus, just as Western Jews were becoming citizens of nation-states, a transnational Jewish consciousness took shape that, it is important to stress, reflected the viewpoint of the relatively small Western Jewish communities. Nevertheless, neither the Jewish press alone nor a highly respected leader like Montefiore could manage a complex humanitarian crisis. The agency of editors was defined by the attention span of their respective readerships. The traditional influence of leading Jewish personalities was declining as decision making in the sphere of states increasingly depended on expanding and diversifying state bureaucracies. The personal intervention of Montefiore and Crémieux with Mehmet Ali in 1840 belonged to a passing era. For centuries Jewish leaders had pleaded with sovereigns on behalf of distressed co-religionists, a tradition that is known as shtadlanut (intercession). Well into the twentieth century Jews continued to lobby for other Jews on a diplomatic level, with limited success as Carole Fink has shown recently.12 However, Fink and other authors who have covered Jewish diplomatic history do not sufficiently acknowledge (or recognize) the soft power of Jewish humanitarian initiatives that were channelled into professional organizations during the second half of the nineteenth century. Unlike newspaper editors or traditional leaders, an organization could act as the helping hand of the diaspora. It could take charge in a crisis, coordinate the response and work towards a solution over a longer time period. Moreover, a Jewish humanitarian organization could establish an accord with and regular access to governments and other institutions beyond a specific crisis or event. Organization-building often depended on influential personalities, and during the second half of the nineteenth century individuals such as Montefiore and German Jewish leaders retained much influence. But organizations derived part of their strength from their ability to outlive important personalities and continue the mission, even under dramatically different circumstances. Organizations became influential actors as they defined a specific agenda, developed an apparatus with trained specialists and constructed networks for raising funds and disbursing support. The emergence of weekly and daily newspapers that collected, exchanged, translated and distributed information ever further was a prerequisite for the founding and the work of humanitarian organizations, not just in the Jewish sphere. The mass media alerted the

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public days and, thanks to the spread of the telegraph, sometimes even hours after a specific disaster had occurred. Newspaper editors not only initiated fundraising campaigns but also promoted the good deeds of certain individuals, holding them up as humanitarian role models; examples were Florence Nightingale, Henri Dunant, in the Jewish sphere especially the great philanthropist Moses Montefiore and later many others. Access to a widening public sphere was indispensable for the founders and leaders of humanitarian organizations, like Dunant and Crémieux. In 1860 Charles Netter and several other prominent French Jews established the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the first Jewish philanthropic organization to address the social and legal condition of Jews beyond the local and regional level. In 1863 the founders successfully persuaded Crémieux to serve as leader of the rapidly expanding organization. In its second year the Alliance counted almost one thousand members; by 1870 the number had increased to more than thirteen thousand, and by 1880 Alliance committees had formed across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The Alliance was an expression of the complex responsibility and ‘solidarity’ that emancipated Western Jews felt for discriminated Jews in the East. But it was also a Jewish response to the process of global integration, described above. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, as the name indicates, was not conceived primarily as a French Jewish organization but rather as a transnational Jewish organization, established by French Jews to help other Jews and to represent Jewish interests. The organization loosely aligned its aid projects with French foreign interests, especially in the Levant where it set up a network of schools for local Jews (who were taught in French). The Alliance and its work are still treated almost exclusively in the context of modern French history.13 Admittedly, the Alliance was managed by a small group of Parisian Jews. But the large majority of its contributing members lived not in France but abroad, especially in the German states, until well beyond 1900. One reason for this distribution of membership was the small size of the Jewish community in France, in particular after the loss of Alsace in 1871, compared to the strongly growing Jewish population in Germany. But size did not translate into influence by default. After the founding of the German nation-state in 1871, German Jewish communities had to adapt to the new national framework and could not set up new organizations in the short term. Thus support for an existing Jewish humanitarian organization was an obvious choice for Jews across Central and Western Europe who wanted to help other Jews beyond the local level. Like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), founded in 1863 only three years after the Alliance, the Paris organization was a

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privately organized interest group that acted in the transnational sphere, combining specific interests with universal goals in order to support people in need. Like the ICRC, the Alliance established local committees in different countries and lobbied various governments on behalf of Jews in need. Its leadership highlights a new concept of Jewish transnational representation and expertise. Managers and organizers, often lawyers and businessmen, gradually replaced traditional leaders such as rabbis. The leaders of the Alliance were volunteers who had been democratically elected by the local committees. Other transnational Jewish philanthropic organizations, such as the German Jewish Hilfsverein and the American Jewish Committee, later adapted this model for their internal organization. Rather than employing outside specialists such as physicians or teachers, transnational Jewish philanthropic organizations focused on spreading education and training within the respective organization and on managing complex situations. In 1867, the Alliance set up a teachertraining college in Paris to guarantee a common curriculum in elementary schools across the Ottoman Empire. Outstanding graduates of the elementary schools were admitted, who on their return joined existing schools or helped to set up new schools.14 The Alliance and its sister organizations collected information, built fund-raising networks, coordinated support and usually relied on local Jewish philanthropy networks to perform certain tasks, such as providing support for Jewish migrants at a certain port or running a Jewish school. This approach evolved gradually during the second half of the nineteenth century. The main tasks of the central office were to define the agenda, secure financial support and provide the tools for solving a crisis. Aid workers who were deployed from the central office were, to borrow William Whyte’s term, increasingly ‘organization men’.15 The personnel at the central office had internalized the value system of the organization and acted accordingly. They collected information, negotiated with local governments and Jewish communities, helped to raise money and coordinated support on the ground. After the turn of the century, the German Jewish Hilfsverein and American Jewish organizations relied to a growing extent on female managers, proof of the rising influence of Jewish women’s organizations such as the American National Council of Jewish Women on the local, national and transnational level.16 Philippson and Cincinnati rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the editor of the influential weekly the Israelite (1854), belonged to an intermediary generation. Both were moderate Reform rabbis who were in favour of modernizing Judaism and who recognized the importance of coordinating Jewish interests beyond the local level to solve a problem. But neither founded a philanthropic organization. During the 1868/69 migration crisis in East

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Prussia, Philippson used his editorship of the leading German Jewish weekly to call for support. Networking across territorial, national and even continental borders to solve a problem concerning Jews in need was by no means a new experience for Jewish community leaders, but the public character of a rather controversial inner-Jewish discussion about possible solutions clearly constituted a turning point. Within weeks of the first reports, Jews across Central Europe formed local aid committees and raised funds for the afflicted communities in East Prussia and for the migrants who had already moved to communities outside of East Prussia. Philippson coordinated the collection and distribution of aid, publishing status reports on the activities of various committees and the unfolding crisis in East Prussia. At the same time, in his role as editor, he moderated in the pages of the Allgemeine Zeitung a discussion by several rabbis and community leaders about the most promising solution. In early autumn 1869 Philippson invited leaders of the Alliance and Prussian Jews in charge of the aid operation to a meeting in Berlin. The conference attendees criticized the Russian government in strong terms for discriminating against its Jewish subjects and for their neglect. The recipients of aid, however, were described as incapable of productive work and corrupted by intensive study of the Talmud – an illustration of the widening gap between modern Western and supposedly traditional Eastern Jews. The participants could not agree on a common strategy, apart from calling for more donations.17 The migration crisis fell into the final phase of Jewish emancipation in Prussia. Implicitly all Jews participating in the debate knew that as Prussian citizens they had to solve this problem, by sending the uninvited guests either back to Russia or on to America. None of the men who joined the public debate even considered proposing the possibility of finding a home for some of the migrants in Prussia, let alone asking the state for support. Through the Alliance, Philippson contacted Jewish community leaders in New York who informed him in turn that they could accept only younger men who were capable of performing physical work and not – this was the implicit message – beggars. Thus only a few hundred migrants were sent on to the United States. The remainder – a considerably larger group – were provided with some assistance and persuaded to return home.18

Transitions In 1881/82, several thousand desperate Jews were stranded on the border between Russia and the Austrian province of Galicia. Research in local Russian and Ukrainian archives has proved that most of these migrants

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were not fleeing a wave of pogroms across southern Russia. Rather, sensational reports in the general and Jewish press as well as a rumour campaign drove hundreds from their homes and towards the border without a realistic plan, let alone sufficient means. Western Jews (and the general public) perceived the migrants as pogrom refugees; the migrants were convinced they would be welcomed at the border and brought to the United States. This instance was only one of many similar misunderstandings between the concrete, if not always realistic, expectations of migrants and the perception and vision of Western Jews.19 The response of Jewish leaders in Vienna, Paris and Berlin was similar to that of 1868/69. The Alliance handled the central coordination. Again dozens of small fundraising committees were organized across Germany. The coordination work and the transnational network functioned better than in 1868/69, partly because two new organizations in Britain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were involved. The Anglo-Jewish Association (1871) and the Israelitische Allianz (1873) had developed from metropolitan Alliance committees in London and Vienna respectively before becoming independent organizations. British and Austrian Jews felt that in addition to their transnational responsibilities they had a special obligation to manage the support of their ‘own’ disadvantaged Jewish populations – across the vast British and Austro-Hungarian empires. Both organizations continued to work closely with the Alliance.20 In 1881/82, German Jewish leaders organized an impromptu central committee in Berlin that managed the work of the fundraising groups and the committees on the border. Again a conference took place in Berlin to discuss strategy, and again only ‘productive’ migrants were to be sent on to the United States; all others would have to be repatriated. European Jews promised their American counterparts financial compensation if they would have to care for destitute migrants. In August 1882, the crisis suddenly escalated when the Austrian government threatened to deport about twenty thousand desperate Russian Jews from the Galician border town of Brody. Immediately the Alliance, its sister organizations and leading Jewish representatives convened another conference, in Vienna, to redirect aid and personnel to Brody and to appease the Vienna government. A few months later most migrants had been cared for and deportations avoided.21 At first glance the situational network strategy had again proved successful. Representatives of Jewish aid organizations, led by the Alliance, had coordinated Jewish support, talked to the authorities, sent funds to the trouble spots and secured the onward journey of the stranded migrants. However, the significant growth of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe after 1880, especially in the early 1890s, raised the question of whether, in the long run, situational coordination of support in times of

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crisis was an appropriate strategy. The Jewish migration from Eastern Europe was only one facet of a strongly growing movement of labour migrants around the globe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Global mass migration raised the spectre of regulations and migration restrictions. As mentioned above, during the mid-1880s Prussia deported unwanted foreigners from its territory, among them many Jews. At the same time, responding to the arrival of growing numbers of ‘undesirable’ migrants, the United States began to overhaul its immigration policy, restricting access for Chinese migrants and persons who were ‘likely to become a public charge’. By the mid-1880s, U.S. immigration inspectors had begun sending back ‘undesirable’ migrants. In response, the Prussian government handled the transmigration more restrictively, preventing migrants who were likely to be rejected on the shores of the United States from crossing its territory.22 In 1868/69 and again in 1881/82 attention and the aid effort concentrated on migrants who were stranded and had no realistic plan for what they would do in ‘America’. The large majority of Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe – this is overlooked by many scholars – neither asked for nor required support. They did not flee pogroms and did not trust rumours. They had realistic expectations and access to concrete information – through migrant networks. Yet increasing controls along the German transit routes and in the United States affected all migrants. As more and more migrants were rejected because they supposedly did not meet U.S. access criteria, Jewish aid organizations and Jewish communities had to rethink their strategy. Until the 1880s Jewish migration from Eastern Europe was regarded first and foremost as an inner-Jewish issue that impeded the integration of established Jews in the countries of transit and destination and threatened their status. In 1868/69 and 1881/82, and again in 1891, when the situation escalated along the border of the Russian Empire with the AustroHungarian empires and with Prussia, support could be directed to specific locations. During the 1890s Jewish leaders realized that much more was at stake than organizing support for migrants in need: the social and economic situation of Jews in Russia and Romania was rapidly deteriorating and Jewish migration rates would be high in the foreseeable future, just as immigration to the United States became more difficult. In other destination countries, notably in Britain, calls to restrict the immigration of East European Jews were mounting.23 After 1880 a new strategy gradually took shape. Ensuring that Jewish migrants did not become public charges or were cared for by Christian organizations and reducing their visibility were still important concerns. But the huge dimensions of the migration and the rapidly worsening

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conditions for Jewish life across Eastern Europe demanded new solutions. Direct material support of migrants receded somewhat into the background. The goal now was to keep borders open, to guarantee a high degree of transparency and supervision over the controls performed by state officials and to establish internationally accepted legal standards for the protection of minorities and of migrants in transit and, if necessary, after arrival. This agenda transcended Jewish interests in a narrow sense. Thus, around 1900, the Alliance was gradually sidelined by new German and American Jewish organizations. Germany was the most important transit country for Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe; the United States was the main destination. On the diplomatic level German and American Jewish leaders had already played prominent roles after 1870, but they struggled to create philanthropic organizations on the national level. The German nation state, created only in 1871, had forced community leaders to accommodate to a new framework. As we have seen, they relied on an impromptu strategy for several decades, accepting the leadership of the Alliance. In the United States, the size of the country, strong and continuous immigration and thus constantly changing communal structures made organization building difficult, even on the local level. The large New York and Berlin Jewish communities were never as powerful in relationship with other Jewish communities as their counterparts in London and Paris, partly because established communities in cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia or Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig competed for influence. The federal make-up of the United States and Imperial Germany also hampered the building of strong organizations. Yet regardless of such divisions, taken together, the German and American Jewish communities were considerably larger and wealthier than their French and British counterparts. The high social mobility and the economic success of German and American Jews also explain why the transnational Jewish public expected these two communities to shoulder more responsibility for distressed Jews.

Professionalism and New Strategies The founding of the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (Aid Association of the German Jews) in May 1901 was an explicit response to the Jewish mass migration and the expansion of state control measures. The Hilfsverein was based on the model of the Alliance. The loose network of aid committees across Central Europe, which were activated in times of crisis, was now replaced by an organization that could act and react faster and with greater flexibility.

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Superficially, like its sister organizations, the Hilfsverein appears very much as a national association. It expanded quickly, recruiting three thousand active donors in its first year. A decade later, in 1912, the organization counted twenty-seven thousand members. Most members lived within Germany, in part because Jews in other countries already belonged to organizations like the Alliance. In its first annual report, the Hilfsverein leaders claimed it was ‘high time’ for German Jews to found their own philanthropic association. The Hilfsverein would spread German ‘nationale Kultur’ among Jews in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Yet such statements have to be put into context: the Hilfsverein could only act on behalf of foreign Jews when it claimed to represent German interests purely in the cultural sphere – just as the Alliance and the Anglo-Jewish Association held up the values of French and British ‘civilization’ respectively. Only a few paragraphs after stressing the importance of ‘national [German] culture’ the founders explicitly condemned national ‘chauvinism’, stressing they would work hand in hand with the Alliance and the Anglo-Jewish Association. This explains why the Hilfsverein cooperated with the Alliance committees across Germany. In 1906 the German Alliance members organized a central German ‘conference community’ to coordinate their activities on the national level and to work ‘more efficiently’ with the Paris central office and other Jewish aid organizations, not least with the Hilfsverein.24 The Hilfsverein annual reports illustrate a high degree of professionalism. Like its older counterparts, the Hilfsverein was a secular organization, led by business volunteers and lawyers. In its Berlin office, the Hilfsverein employed a small staff of administrative clerks for daily work and the management of various aid projects. The detailed annual reports of its work, with the provision of precise data, numerous photographs and concise overviews of various projects, aimed at impressing on donors that their funds had been wisely invested. The reports clearly reflect a shift from traditional philanthropy for the poor to professional social work and what was then known as scientific charity. Instead of simply alleviating suffering or disbursing aid, the goal was to research and deal with the causes of poverty. This approach guided philanthropic organizations on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1880s. But Jewish aid organizations in Britain, the United States and Germany had been trailblazers in professionalizing social work in cities such as London, Chicago and Hamburg since the 1850s.25 Like the Alliance, the Hilfsverein designed a number of projects for Jews in Palestine, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Galicia, and even in Russia. The organization concentrated on education by setting up kindergartens and manual training schools. The children were taught partly in German, rather than French as in the Alliance schools. After

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paternalistic development work in south-eastern and Eastern Europe as well as in Palestine, ‘emigration’ represented the second major objective.26 The organization’s leaders did not have much time to develop a long-term policy to address the migration issue comprehensively. The serious situation in Russia and a dramatic rise in migration in 1903/4 demanded quick action. On Easter Sunday 1903 more than forty Jews were killed during a pogrom in Kishinev, and hundreds were wounded. This event constituted a watershed because of the brutality and the scale of the violence, which triggered protests across Europe and North America, far beyond Jewish communities.27 Two months later the Hilfsverein convened an international conference in Berlin. Jewish organizations from Europe and the United States dispatched representatives. The participants coordinated support for the victims in the areas worst affected by the pogroms. The final resolution emphasized that Jewish aid organizations ‘would not only not support emigration but work against it with all means’.28 Yet the leaders of Jewish aid societies knew migration would hardly decline. And they were in no position to stop the movement. But why emphasize something that the organizations in practice did not do – ‘work against’ migration? The United States Immigration Bureau had unequivocally banned material support of all immigrants, to prevent the ‘dumping’ of paupers, convicts and other undesirable persons on its shores. Had Jewish organizations openly promoted the funding of the migration of the Jewish masses from Russia – even of pogrom victims – the consequences could have been devastating in a period when the opponents of immigration were gaining more influence on Capitol Hill. In 1910 the Hilfsverein described the scenario of the United States closing its doors to Jewish immigrants as ‘such a terrible a catastrophe, that it will overshadow the persecutions and pogroms [in Russia and Romania]’. Jewish (and other) migrants were repeatedly rejected at Ellis Island if they could not provide reasonable proof that they were moving to the United States of their own account.29 In 1904, at least one hundred thousand Jews emigrated to the United States alone; most travelled via Germany.30 The Hilfsverein annual report for 1903 described the events at Kishinev at length, hardly an indication  of a lack of empathy or of active work against emigration but rather  an  expression of the hopelessness of Jewish life in Russia. The organization promised its donors that it would ‘bring order into the chaotic Jewish emigration’.31 But given the dimensions of the migration, the Hilfsverein was in no position to manage or control the movement. The organization pursued different aims: to protect as many migrants as possible, through detailed information campaigns across Eastern Europe; to bring more transparency into the private transmigration system; and

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most importantly, to provide transmigrants with legal protection. Since most subjects of the Russian Empire had left illegally, because they could not afford the cost of obtaining a passport (or the bribes required), they did not enjoy diplomatic protection. Since the 1880s, in some cases even earlier, local Jewish aid committees had established a permanent presence at several neuralgic points along the major migration routes, at Ellis Island, at Berlin railway stations, at the ports and along the Prussian border with the Russian and AustroHungarian empires. Through local Jewish leaders these committees networked with the Alliance and, after 1901, the Hilfsverein. The Catholic St Raphael Society was also present at major ports in North America and Europe but its network was never as sophisticated as that of the transnational Jewish organizations. The German authorities explicitly welcomed members of Jewish aid organizations and officially recognized them as partners because they usually covered the costs for Jewish migrants and solved individual problems.32 Paul Nathan, a co-founder and, from 1903, chief executive of the Hilfsverein, was largely responsible for designing a more activist and professional approach. The Hilfsverein mainly employed administrative professionals, who were supported by many volunteers, especially on the local level. The new professionalism was primarily a matter of a more sophisticated organization and management of dozens of Hilfsverein projects across Eastern Europe and the Levant. The main office in Berlin collected, analysed and published data about Jews in need. A newsletter that was distributed among Jewish communities in Eastern Europe recorded updates on travel routes, ticket prices, abuse of migrants, the availability of kosher food on certain ships, the economic situation in the destination countries and migration legislation. The Hilfsverein also began to establish regular communication channels with government officials in the Russian Empire and in the destination countries. In St Petersburg, Nathan repeatedly met high-ranking Russian government officials, including on at least two occasions the respective prime ministers. In 1904 he launched a successful press campaign against the powerful German steamship lines in order to bring more transparency into the handling of the transit journey across Germany. In 1908, the Hilfsverein dispatched Paul Laskar, the head of its Hamburg bureau, to the United States. Laskar visited Ellis Island, and in Washington he had lengthy meetings with the U.S. Immigration Commissioner and with trade minister Oscar Strauss. His Bremen counterpart meanwhile travelled to Buenos Aires where he was received by the head of the Argentine immigration office.33 Nathan’s successful press campaign betrays the outlines of a new, more assertive strategy. In 1904 the Hilfsverein convened a large international

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conference of Jewish aid organizations in Frankfurt am Main. The discussions led to the establishment of a permanent clearing house for issues connected with the Jewish mass migration from Eastern Europe, the Hilfsverein’s ‘Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration’. In its first annual report, the Central Bureau outlined its mission. Jews in the Russian Empire and Romania were described as de facto stateless because they could not resort to any form of state ‘protection’. Therefore, the transnational ‘Jewish collectivity’ represented by the Jewish aid associations had ‘to do what usually is the task of the state’.34 This remarkable assessment demonstrates the transformation of transnational Jewish philanthropy on behalf of Jewish migrants from, and Jewish residents of, Eastern Europe. Direct material support, productivization and the efficient handling of transmigration were still relevant. But soon after the turn of the century transnational Jewish associations, in particular the Hilfsverein, regarded themselves as guardians of de facto stateless Jewish migrants and indirectly of the threatened Jewish populations of the East. A specifically Jewish problem was transforming into a question of guaranteeing basic civic rights and protecting persecuted minorities. The Great War reduced the influence and reach of European organizations such as the Hilfsverein. The war interrupted transatlantic migration from Eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of East European Jews were displaced during the war and in particular in its immediate aftermath. In 1918 and the following years several leading destination countries for East Europeans, not least the United States, enacted rigid migration restrictions, stranding large numbers of European and Asian migrants in permanent transit. Jewish organizations in Europe were hit hard by economic crisis, decreasing donations and war-related restrictions, just when they were overwhelmed with calls to support distressed Jews. The nationalistic atmosphere during and after the war, and the rise of antiSemitic agitation and violence, imposed additional constraints in Central and Eastern Europe. Already during the war American Jewish organizations, notably the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (1909) and the Joint Distribution Committee (1914), an offshoot of the American Jewish Committee (1906), extended their activities into Europe and East Asia. In Manchuria and Japan, HIAS could rescue hundreds of Jewish refugees from Russia. Before 1917 a HIAS representative coordinated relief operations from a base in the neutral Netherlands. American neutrality before 1917 and limited political involvement after 1920 provided these organizations with easier access to many countries than their European counterparts. Moreover, due in no small part to the pre-1914 immigration and the strength of the U.S. economy, American Jewish organizations had much better access to funds than those in Europe. Thus after the war, American

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Jewish philanthropic organizations, like their non-Jewish counterparts, expanded their influence in Europe.35

Conclusion Apart from economic and business historians, many historians devote insufficient attention to non-governmental institutions and social formations beyond the boundaries defined by nation-states. The evolution of transnational Jewish philanthropy during the second half of the nineteenth century illustrates how the expansion of the nation-state closely correlated with the transformation of a transnational Jewish sphere. As Jews became citizens of new nation-states like Germany, they did not sever their ties to other Jews, whether these were fully fledged citizens of other nation-states like France or indeed de facto stateless subjects of the Russian Empire and Romania. Instead, Jews in Western and Central Europe and in the United States redefined their relationship to each other and with Jews in Eastern Europe and the Middle East by establishing transnational philanthropic associations. Transnationally networked Jewish philanthropic organizations established close contacts with various governments, which formally recognized these organizations as legitimate partners, because they solved ‘problems’ that otherwise would have become a burden for the state. Jews involved with these organizations frequently faced accusations from anti-Semites that they lacked loyalty to their respective home states. Yet transnational Jewish philanthropy provided the possibility for Jewish citizens of nation-states to retain the links of diaspora and exercise soft power on behalf of disadvantaged Jews for an ostensibly good and worthy cause that did not conflict with national loyalties. The engagement for Jews in need was closely coupled with a broader humanitarian cause, an approach that resembles that of other humanitarian organizations to this day. However, the agenda of Jewish philanthropic organizations was often paternalistic and guided by a distorted perception of supposedly uncivilized Jews.36 Was the founding of transnational Jewish philanthropic associations during the second half of the nineteenth century a specifically Jewish response to a Jewish problem, or was it closely related to the rise of other transnational organizations in the same period? Analysis in the last decade of Jewish philanthropy on the local level has provided proof of close cooperation between Jewish and other private or public organizations.37 This chapter has demonstrated the impact of the emerging public sphere on the establishment of humanitarian organizations.

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More  research is required to show how links between transnational Jewish philanthropic organizations and other organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross developed before and after 1914. Jewish women’s organizations, for instance, were prominently represented among the leadership of the international and national women’s movements. The National Council of Jewish Women also played a prominent role in the fight against ‘white slavery’, along with many other humanitarian organizations.38

Notes 1. An important exception is J. Frankel, The Damascus Affair: ‘Ritual Murder’, Politics, and the Jews in 1840 (Cambridge 1990); see also S.A. Stein, Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (Bloomington 2004); R. Kobrin, Jewish Bialystock and Its Diaspora (Bloomington 2010); A. Green, Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero (Cambridge, MA 2010). 2. M. Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety: The Story of Jewish Migration since 1800 (Philadelphia 1948), 3–97. 3. J. Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (New York and Oxford 1987), 42–49. 4. A.R. Zolberg, ‘The Great Wall against China: Responses to the First Immigration Crisis, 1885–1925’ in Migration, Migration History, History, eds L. Lucassen and J. Lucassen (Berne 1997), 291–315; A. McKeown, ‘Global Migration, 1846–1940’, Journal of World History 15 (2004): 155–90. 5. E. Panitz, ‘In Defense of the Jewish Immigrant (1891–1924)’, American Jewish Historical Quarterly 55 (1965): 57–97; R. Lissak, Pluralism & Progressives: Hull House and the New Immigrants, 1890–1919 (Chicago 1989); T. Endelman, The Jews of Britain 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley 2002), 127–80; P. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France (Berkeley 1998), 115–35; L. Lucassen, The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Immigrants in Western Europe since 1850 (Urbana 2005). 6. U. Herscher, Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America 1880–1910 (Detroit 1981). 7. J. Toury, Soziale und politische Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, 1848–1871 (Düsseldorf 1977), 30; see the essays in P. Birnbaum and I. Katznelson, eds, Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (Princeton 1995); S. Lässig, Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum: Kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen 2004); on New York and London, see I. Howe, Immigrant Jews of New York, 1881 to Present (New York 1976) and D. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture 1840–1914 (New Haven, CT 1994). 8. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums (Leipzig) (henceforth AZ), 20 July 1869, 577. 9. R. Leiserowitz, Sabbatleuchter und Kriegerverein: Juden in der ostpreußisch-litauischen Grenzregion 1812–1942 (Osnabrück 2010), 171–89. 10. Frankel, Damascus Affair; A. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington 1990), 3–4; A. Green, ‘Rethinking Sir Moses Montefiore: Religion, Nationhood, and

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International Philanthropy in the Nineteenth Century’, American Historical Review 110 (2005): 631–58. 11. A. Mendelsohn, ‘Tongue Ties: The Emergence of the Anglophone Jewish Diaspora in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, American Jewish History 93 (2007): 177–209; D. Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991 (Cambridge 1994), 1–60. 12. I. Bartal, ‘Moses Montefiore: Nationalist before his Time, or Belated Shtadlan?’, Studies in Zionism 11 (1990): 111–25; C. Fink, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938 (Cambridge 2004). 13. M. Graetz, The Jews in Nineteenth-Century France: From the French Revolution to the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Stanford 1996); Hyman, Jews of France, 115–35; L.M. Leff, Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France (Stanford 2006), 159–67; an important exception (because of its simultaneous focus on the French and Ottoman contexts) is Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews, 21–22. 14. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews, 73. 15. W. Whyte, The Organization Man (New York 1956). 16. F. Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting: The National Council of Jewish Women 1893–1993 (Tuscaloosa 1993); M. Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany (New York and Oxford 1991), 195–99. 17. AZ, 1 June 1869, 425–27; 12 and 19 Oct. 1869, 820. 18. AZ, 19 Oct. 1869, 841; Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 28–36. 19. J.D. Klier, ‘Emigration Mania in Late-Imperial Russia: Legend and Reality’ in Patterns of Emigration, 1850–1914, eds A. Newman and S.W. Massil (London 1996), 21–30; J.D. Klier and S. Lambroza (eds), Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge 1992). 20. First Report of the Anglo-Jewish Association, in Connection with the Alliance Israélite Universelle for the Year 1872–1873 (London 1873); B. Siegel, Österreichisches Judentum zwischen Ost und West: Die Israelitische Allianz zu Wien, 1873–1938 (Frankfurt am Main 2010). 21. Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 37–56; D. Penslar, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (Berkeley 2001), 198–200. 22. T. Brinkmann, ‘Why Paul Nathan Attacked Albert Ballin: The Transatlantic Mass Migration and the Privatization of Prussia’s Eastern Border Inspection, 1886–1914’, Central European History 43 (2010): 47–83. 23. Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, 30–38; T. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 156–65. 24. 1. Geschäftsbericht (1901–1902) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1903), 6, 10–11. Geschäftsbericht (1912) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1913); Bericht der Alliance Israélite Universelle über das Jahr 1905 (Paris and Berlin 1906), 8. 25. M. Bulmer, K. Bales and K. Kish-Sklar (eds), The Social Survey in Historical Perspective 1880–1940 (Cambridge 1991); K.D. McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige: Charity & Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago, 1849–1929 (Chicago 1982); for Germany: R. Liedtke, Jewish Welfare in Hamburg and Manchester, c.1850–1914 (Oxford 1998). 26. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews; on the Hilfsverein’s activities in the Levant and south-eastern Europe see, for example, 9. Geschäftsbericht (1910) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1911), 27–117. 27. AZ, 8 May 1903, 217–18. 28. AZ, 3 July 1903, 325. 29. 9. Geschäftsbericht (1910) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden, 140. 30. A. Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, vol. 1 (Berlin 1930), 126. 31. 3. Geschäftsbericht (1904) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1905), 30. 32. Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 48, 61; AZ, 13 Apr. 1906.

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33. 7. Geschäftsbericht (1908) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1909), 102–3; Brinkmann, ‘Why Paul Nathan Attacked Albert Ballin’, 47–83. 34. 4. Geschäftsbericht (1905) des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden (Berlin 1906), 79. 35. Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 141–71; on East Asia, see Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Ninth Annual Report 1917 (New York 1918), 6–8. 36. In several cases immigrants in different countries organized transnational networks to support their home communities in Eastern Europe: Kobrin, Jewish Bialystock, 131–75. 37. Liedtke, Jewish Welfare. 38. Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting, 136–38.

Chapter 8

From Peace Advocacy to International Relations Research The Transformation of Transatlantic Philanthropic Networks, 1900–1930

( Katharina Rietzler

Perspectives on twentieth-century foundation philanthropy, especially in the United States, have been marked by the perception that the importance of these large organizations is due to the extraordinary scale of their endowments. Philanthropic foundations such as the Rockefeller or the Ford Foundation had ‘money to burn’ and used their financial muscle to shape societies around the globe.1 This focus on finances, however, leads to the neglect of smaller organizations and obscures an aspect of foundation philanthropy that is arguably just as important as the amount of money spent. David C. Hammack, a historian of philanthropy, pointed out more than a decade ago that a major impact of philanthropic foundations does not result from their grants, but from ‘connecting with and helping to organize key groups of leaders’.2 In other words, foundation philanthropy is capable of tapping into or even constructing networks that may exert political influence. Hence, the study of philanthropic funding patterns is a useful tool for understanding how such networks evolve. This chapter discusses the transatlantic dimension of liberal internationalism in the early twentieth century by analysing the interactions between an American foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a number of overlapping transnational networks. In particular, it examines how the Carnegie Endowment managed to ‘plug’ itself into existing networks in Europe, first into various currents of the European peace movement and then the foreign affairs institute movement, using already existing connections to its advantage while forging its own network of collaborators and grant recipients. From Notes for this chapter begin on page 188.

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a broader perspective, the early history of the Carnegie Endowment illuminates how non-governmental organizations manage change by changing their networks. Ultimately, this philanthropic organization used its connections to flesh out its own evolving identity as a transnational protagonist in early twentieth-century internationalism. By analysing the endowment’s development from the decade before its creation in 1910, when it emerged on the back of several peace-promoting initiatives, to the end of the 1920s, when it had extricated itself from the currents of associational pacifism, the chapter also traces the changes and continuities that affected internationalist movements in Europe and the United States before and after the Great War. The philanthropic foundations that emerged in the United States in the early twentieth century have been subsumed under the label of ‘scientific philanthropy’. In contrast to traditional charity, they aimed to achieve deep societal transformations by exerting a substantial impact on the creation of knowledge underpinning the formulation of public policy.3 While some historians of American foundations focus on the United States as the main site of philanthropic activity, others have turned their attention to the role of American philanthropy abroad.4 Some studies have also discussed the overseas programmes of American foundations in the context of debates on globalization.5 More recently, the transnational entanglements that defined the activities of these organizations at home and abroad have come under the spotlight.6 Indeed, it seems fruitful to define twentieth-century American philanthropic foundations as transnational non-governmental organizations, as the institutionalization of transnational interactions and activities was one of their main functions.7 One example of such an institutionalization is philanthropic fellowship programmes for individual scholars, which contributed significantly to international academic mobility.8 Scholars have lavished attention on the larger American foundations, notably those set up by the Rockefeller family, which dominated the U.S. philanthropic sector before 1945. However, it was the Carnegie Endowment, a somewhat modest operation, which became the pioneer of transnational foundation philanthropy by framing its mission in explicitly global terms. It was also the first to set up a branch office abroad.9 As a coveted source of funding, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace became a driving force behind liberal internationalism on both sides of the Atlantic. Founded in 1910 by Scottish-American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie with a gift of $10 million, the endowment had fewer resources than other foundations. By contrast, the Rockefeller Foundation, created in 1913, had $138 million at its disposal.10 However, by establishing a perma-

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nent American philanthropic presence in Europe, the Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, which was inaugurated in Paris in March 1912, the endowment pioneered a new form of transatlantic exchange, even if its purported aim – peace – was far from original among philanthropic organizations. The ­humanism expressed in the Rockefeller Foundation’s mission statement For the Well-Being of Mankind throughout the World was even loftier in its universalism. With its various interests in medicine, public health, the natural and social sciences and the humanities, Rockefeller philanthropy also came to pursue a global agenda from the 1910s.11 The Carnegie Endowment was, in some ways, the Rockefeller Foundation’s smaller but more gregarious sister organization. It was more thoroughly embedded in the matrix of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century transnational activism, and the well-­connectedness of its founder and chief officers gave the endowment a slight head start when it came to extending its philanthropy across national borders. The impulse behind the endowment’s global ambitions can be linked to the biography of Andrew Carnegie. He became a true ‘transatlantic liberal’ during the last two decades of the nineteenth century and spent much time in Britain, where he cultivated friendships with leading Liberal politicians.12 Carnegie created the endowment to streamline his personal giving to a number of peace societies on both sides of the Atlantic, which amounted to about $50,000 annually.13 However, as will be discussed in the following section, the endowment’s outlook was also shaped by previously existing transnational networks, notably the small international nongovernmental organization ‘Conciliation internationale’, an elite social club, and the Institut de Droit International (IDI), an association of international lawyers. Several American leaders of the endowment were members of these networks, including Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University and stalwart of the Republican Party, Elihu Root, a U.S. senator and former secretary of state, and James Brown Scott, legal scholar and solicitor to the U.S. State Department. These men also enjoyed a close relationship with the U.S. foreign policy elite, and sought to further American interests abroad. Thus, a number of objectives were pursued by the endowment and have to be disentangled: the personal interests of its founder who desired to channel funds to peace groups; the objectives of several transnational networks who defined themselves by their social status or their professional expertise; and the aims of a small elite anxious to increase American influence in the world. It is justifiable to subsume all of these aims and objectives under the catchphrase ‘internationalism’. Indeed, many of the associations mentioned in the introduction to this volume, notably movements for peace, worker solidarity, free trade and the development and entrenchment of

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international law, can be defined as internationalist.14 Some forms of internationalism also characterize state behaviour. It should not be overlooked that the United States supported internationalist reforms of world politics before the First World War, notably the acceptance of international law among European states.15 In the aftermath of the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899, internationalism as a political strategy acquired the support of new constituencies and, until the First World War, followers of a variety of causes ranging from international arbitration to world organization cooperated loosely within the common confines of a transatlantic movement. It was in the context of this broad movement for a reform of international politics that the Carnegie Endowment was established.

Internationalism in the Atlantic World Richard Cobden, the British liberal and champion of free trade, first used the term ‘internationalism’ in the 1860s, in his writings on the ­federation of states. Marx also employed it in connection with the free traders but chiefly to describe material relations between states, in the form of trade, travel or technical agreements. Socialists only started to attribute an ­ideological component to internationalism from the 1890s, meaning the border-­ transcending consciousness of the proletariat.16 Liberal internationalism, the middle-class counterpart to socialist internationalism, became an increasingly powerful political movement in the Atlantic world from the 1880s.17 Under the leadership of middle-class activists, it transformed European and American peace advocacy and diluted its early nineteenthcentury religious origins. Informed by liberal economics and emerging social science paradigms, liberal internationalists formulated a secular, humanistic and citizen-led response to the increased economic, political and cultural links among sovereign nation-states.18 Publicists such as the Austrian Alfred Fried, the American Paul Reinsch, and Norman Angell, a popular British writer, interpreted the growing interdependence among nations as being a result of technological innovations, and drew from it the imperative to campaign for international cooperation and the promotion of peace.19 The creation of the Interparliamentary Union and the staging of the first Universal Peace Congress in 1889 represented milestones in the move towards increased international organization, while the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899 gave the liberal internationalist movement global political importance due to the official participation of states. For the first time, government delegations met in peacetime to discuss creating a system for the non-military resolution of international disputes. Although

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the hopes of many peace advocates were frustrated, notably with regards to arms limitation, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which was created in The Hague, was a remarkable achievement and marked a high point for the international arbitration movement.20 When in session, the court operated out of the so-called Peace Palace, a personal gift of Andrew Carnegie to the international community. The 1899 conference also endowed peace advocacy with respectability and attracted a novel clientele. Some official delegates to the conference were profoundly impressed by the level of international cooperation they witnessed there and became campaigners for internationalist causes. The formation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration also underlined the importance of legal expertise in the conduct of international relations, and, especially in the United States, international lawyers started to dominate established peace societies. U.S. foreign policy incorporated promotion of the court, and it was at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt that the United States and Mexico gave the court its first case.21 American international lawyers became part of a wider, transatlantic movement of legalistic internationalism and started to cultivate contacts with like-minded Europeans. One important arena for the forging of such links was the IDI, founded in 1873 and thus the world’s oldest and most respectable international law society. James Brown Scott, the secretarygeneral of the Carnegie Endowment from its founding in 1910, became an associate of the IDI in 1908, a full member in 1910 and even its president between 1925 and 1929.22 Having received a grant from the Carnegie Endowment in December 1911, the IDI shortly after agreed to act as an advisory body to the endowment’s International Law Division, headed by Scott, thus lending its own scientific authority to the fledgling philanthropic organization.23 The American support for arbitration and, even more popular among lawyers, the judicial resolution of international disputes, also had a domestic dimension. American legalist-internationalists were attracted to peace advocacy because it enabled them to pose as reformers while advancing their own professional concerns. As judicial supremacy at home was targeted by progressive critics, international lawyers were able to promote respect for judicial authority and the law as a solution to the problem of international disorder. Peace activism represented a safe cause to those who disdained progressivism’s more radical demands for social reform but nevertheless wanted to profess sensitivity to the progressive desire for order and good governance.24 Those who managed to assume the leadership of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 certainly belonged to the conservative end of progressivism, and this became apparent as they proceeded to connect the endowment with the existing currents

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of transatlantic internationalism.25 One such connection reached out to the transnational professional community of international lawyers organized in the IDI; another built on the efforts of the French aristocrat and delegate to the First Hague Peace Conference, Paul Henri d’Estournelles de Constant. He had played a significant part in bringing the plight of the Permanent Court of Arbitration to Theodore Roosevelt’s attention, and it was also thanks to this prominent French internationalist that the concept of the elite peace society was transferred from France to the United States. D’Estournelles de Constant had been elected to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1895 after a career in the French Foreign Service. As a diplomat, he had worked hard at overcoming the Third Republic’s international isolation. As a parliamentarian, he prepared the ground for the AngloFrench Entente Cordiale of 1904 but also worked for Franco-German reconciliation. On an unofficial level, for example through his work for the Comité France-Amérique, d’Estournelles de Constant promoted cordial relations between France and her sister republic, the United States. His privileged background – he was the nephew of Benjamin Constant – and his hands-on experience in the diplomatic service made him an unlikely recruit to the peace movement, but the 1899 Hague conference converted him to the cause and he swiftly rose to prominence in French internationalist circles. The peace organization he trusted most was the politically cautious, legalist-internationalist Association pour la paix par le droit (APD). However, this group, consisting mostly of legal scholars, was too narrow in membership to reach the level that d’Estournelles de Constant deemed most important: that of the political and cultural elite. As a peace advocate, he cut a solitary figure in the eminent circles he frequented and he sought a way of boosting the movement’s prestige.26 Similar to the leaders of the Carnegie Endowment, d’Estournelles de Constant was hardly sympathetic to social reform but supported good governance to keep international socialism at bay. In 1905, he founded his own internationalist society, ‘Conciliation internationale’, aimed at bringing together ‘eminent men of different nationalities’ who shared the spirit of international bonding but were nevertheless good patriots. D’Estournelles de Constant calculated that the masses would follow their example, creating an internationalist public conscience. Then, he reasoned, governments would have to react and thus Conciliation internationale would ‘eventually succeed in changing international politics’.27 In practice, Conciliation internationale amounted to little more than a very exclusive social club. Its most successful activity remained its sumptuous dinners.28 Married to an American, d’Estournelles de Constant was a ­frequent visitor to the United States and succeeded in winning the support of Americans of suitable social standing for his organization. Here a

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f­ riendship with Nicholas Murray Butler proved to be a key asset. Butler shared d’Estournelles de Constant’s interest in reaching the educated elite and pledged his support for Conciliation internationale during a visit to Paris in 1905.29 This enabled d’Estournelles de Constant to enlist, among others, Elihu Root and Andrew Carnegie to Conciliation internationale. The motto of the organization, pro patria per orbis concordiam, would become, in slightly altered form, that of the Carnegie Endowment. Under Butler’s stewardship, the American branch was organized into the American Association for International Conciliation (AAIC) in 1907, facilitated by Carnegie’s financial support.30 From 1911, Carnegie Endowment grants to the AAIC also financed the French group, and Butler took part in the running of Conciliation internationale.31 As a transatlantic initiative, Conciliation internationale was notable for two accomplishments: first, it managed to transplant its organizational model to the United States in a way that made the American branch more successful than the original French version; secondly, it pioneered the practice of transatlantic fundraising. Ultimately, Conciliation internationale was just one of many internationalist initiatives that blossomed in Europe and North America between 1899 and 1910. Nevertheless, its border-transcending quality meant that it was able to shape the perspective of the Carnegie Endowment’s leaders as they approached the task that had been handed to them by Andrew Carnegie, that of financing European peace advocacy.

Network in Operation: The Dotation Carnegie and European Peace Advocacy Many AAIC members came to play important roles in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Root was the endowment’s president and Butler headed its propaganda arm. After the organization was established in the United States, its trustees decided to embark on a novel idea: setting up a European branch office. By creating the Dotation Carnegie in 1912 and by staffing it with Europeans, the endowment aimed to address two requirements. On the one hand, the endowment’s leaders expected that a European office would make it easier to obtain reliable information about the numerous peace groups likely to apply to them for support.32 On the other hand, the Carnegie trustees wanted to avoid the appearance ‘of going into Europe as American missionaries’, and feared accusations in the European press of embarking on an ‘anti-national campaign’.33 It was clear to the trustees, especially the elder statesmen among them, that a heavy-handed approach would not do for the kind of unofficial activity the endowment was about to embark on.

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Butler and d’Estournelles de Constant seem to have discussed at length the question of how the endowment would be able to avoid allegations of trying to preach to the old nations of Europe.34 D’Estournelles de Constant warned his close friend against open interference in European affairs, possibly because he himself had already felt the brunt of anti-internationalist attacks by right-wing commentators in the French press.35 Maybe d’Estournelles de Constant’s words of caution were also motivated by his own desire to cement his position as a trusted Carnegie adviser in Europe and to act as a gatekeeper controlling access to Carnegie funds. Butler did rely on d’Estournelles de Constant’s judgment when it came to European affairs. Both men fleshed out the plans for the new European office together in the course of several meetings in August 1911. Invoking the republican heritage of France and the United States, they chose Paris as the seat of the endowment’s branch office, at the expense of smaller cities that had traditionally been associated with the peace movement.36 Unsurprisingly, d’Estournelles de Constant became the president of the Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale. He also secured key positions within the Dotation’s executive organ for leading APD members, thus managing to strengthen the position of the more conservative, elite-oriented brand of peace advocacy that he supported.37 Veteran European pacifists who held less legalistic positions than the APD were only thinly represented on an Advisory Council.38 The narrow composition and outlook of the Dotation must have disappointed some peace advocates as many had hoped that the Carnegie Endowment would benefit a broad range of peace-related activities. When European peace activists first heard about Carnegie’s plans in 1910, they were jubilant. One of them even called the endowment ‘a Christmas present to the international peace movement’.39 As soon as news of the gift reached Europe, the Carnegie Endowment was ‘overwhelmed with applications for money’.40 But the endowment’s leaders shied away from directly supporting peace societies in Europe. Both Root and Butler were privately contemptuous of ‘the more vocal’ pacifists and wished to keep them at arm’s length.41 Then there was the fear of interfering in domestic politics in European countries, which made the endowment’s leaders wary of supporting national peace societies. Thus they decided to delegate this task to an ‘avowedly international agency’ that was accepted as a legitimate collaborator by European groups, the International Peace Bureau in Berne.42 The International Peace Bureau was an umbrella organization for European peace societies. Its work, notably holding the Universal Peace Congresses, was widely recognized. In 1910 the International Peace Bureau had become the tenth recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that prompted a congratulatory telegram from Andrew Carnegie.43

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The  bureau’s president, the Belgian Henri La Fontaine, managed to ­convince the Carnegie trustees in spring 1911 that he would be capable of ­fulfilling the endowment’s mission in Europe, to coordinate the activities of the numerous European peace societies by selectively channelling Carnegie  funds to them.44 La Fontaine’s proposal appealed to the trustees because they had entered a similar arrangement in the United States. There, the American Peace Society distributed grants on behalf of the Carnegie Endowment, a process that had cost the society a considerable amount of autonomy as the endowment intervened in grant-making decisions.45 However, by deciding to delegate much of its grant-giving activity in Europe to the International Peace Bureau, the American trustees unwittingly became involved in a battle between the radical and moderate forces (the latter dominating the Dotation) within the peace movement. The plans of the bureau’s general secretary, Albert Gobat, who intended to push for a more politically active movement, certainly clashed with the ideas of d’Estournelles de Constant and his colleagues at the Dotation.46 In some areas, the bureau was in competition with the Dotation; for example, both planned their own press agency.47 Soon, discussions about a potential move of the bureau from Berne to Brussels troubled the relationship between Butler, who oversaw Dotation activities, and La Fontaine and Gobat.48 The collaboration broke down completely after Butler, spurred on by d’Estournelles de Constant, attempted to intervene in the Berne bureau’s budget decisions and urged the bureau to spend more money on publicity efforts.49 When the International Peace Bureau would not accept this interference and thus turned out to be less pliable than the American Peace Society, the Carnegie trustees cut the bureau’s budget and transferred the task of distributing grants to the Dotation.50 This decision strengthened the position of d’Estournelles de Constant and Conciliation internationale within the European movement. The unsuccessful collaboration with the Berne bureau signalled to the American Carnegie trustees that they could not rely on the previously existing structures established by the bureau in Europe and that they had to build their own organizational network through the Dotation.51 To some extent, they were already in the process of creating parallel structures that sidelined established peace advocates by encouraging the extension of the Conciliation internationale network in other European countries. In Germany, the local branch of Conciliation internationale was called ‘Verband für Internationale Verständigung’(VIV). It had been launched in 1911 by Alfred Fried, a veteran peace advocate and founder of Germany’s first peace society, and the legal scholar Otfried Nippold, an IDI member who became VIV’s president.52 VIV emulated self-described scholarly

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associations such as the IDI and had such a cautious programme that it was hardly recognizable as a peace society. The statutes described the organization’s goals as advancing the understanding of international relations, especially questions of international law, and pledged a ‘completely neutral’ position regarding domestic politics.53 Through Fried, Nippold was able to get in touch with d’Estournelles de Constant and Butler, who offered him an annual grant from the Carnegie Endowment and affiliation with Conciliation internationale.54 Once VIV was securely integrated into the Carnegie-financed transatlantic network, Nippold pushed Fried out of the organization and even forbade him to use VIV’s motto or name.55 When Fried appealed to d’Estournelles de Constant for mediation, the latter refused to censor Nippold, claiming that there was ‘a natural and necessary separation that has existed from the beginning between your unrestrictedly pacifist work and that of the Conciliation’.56 D’Estournelles de Constant’s backing of Nippold proved to be disastrous as the issue was publicized in a vitriolic article by Albert Gobat, the disgruntled general secretary of the Berne bureau. Astutely titled ‘Scattered Forces’, the article took Fried’s side and accused Nippold of monopolizing the concept of international conciliation for financial gain: ‘Certain persons are boldly asserting that it is they who are the originators of the conception of international conciliation, and . . . put themselves forward as the only pacifists capable of really attaining the desired end, and as those most worthy to benefit by the munificence of philanthropists’.57 This was a covert criticism of the Carnegie Endowment’s funding practices. But Gobat also highlighted a real danger, the fragmentation of the peace movement: ‘ill-will, intolerance, and exclusiveness have no place in a spirit of conciliation’.58 His warnings that a divisive approach would result in failure turned out to be right. Even though Conciliation internationale managed to extend its geographical reach, its attempt to promote an alternative to established peace societies reaped meagre rewards. VIV had no influence on policy makers or the wider public in Germany and was perceived as yet another obscure peace society. It disintegrated shortly after the outbreak of the Great War.59 The rather difficult collaboration with European peace advocates left its impression on the American Carnegie trustees. The International Peace Bureau in Berne had refused to behave like an agent of the endowment. Worse, it had used one of its assets, the ability to reach peace advocates in a number of European countries, to criticize the endowment and its collaborators. Although the funding of peace advocacy had been one of the core goals, stipulated by Andrew Carnegie himself, the endowment’s leaders decided to phase out grants to peace societies entirely. This decision went against the warnings of d’Estournelles de Constant, who maintained that

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the endowment should give some support to the entire spectrum of peace advocacy. However, this time Butler refused to listen to his collaborator. According to Butler, the Carnegie trustees had begun to make ‘a sharp distinction between purely pacifist societies and organizations, like the International Conciliation, which have a broader scope and a much more practical and direct purpose’.60 As a whole, Andrew Carnegie’s ‘Christmas present’ to the European peace movement proved to be a mixed blessing. Although it gave some societies financial benefits for a short while, it exacerbated divisions that were already there and weakened the unity of a movement that would face an unprecedented crisis in 1914. Moreover, the existence of a grant-giving body motivated different constituencies within the movement to engage in destructive competition. For the Carnegie Endowment, the balance sheet of its short existence looked somewhat more positive.61 Certainly, relations with some peace advocates were bad. Money had been spent unwisely, and supporting associational peace advocacy in any shape or form seemed like a dead end. But by 1914 the endowment was firmly established as a respected grant-giving institution on both sides of the Atlantic. It had avoided accusations of interfering in the domestic affairs of other nations, setting a benchmark for other globally operating philanthropic foundations. It had a functioning European office in Paris with a loyal staff. It had successfully forged ties with people and organizations with whom it wanted to work. In the changed circumstances of the postwar era, the endowment capitalized on these assets, extricated itself from networks that were no longer useful and plugged itself into new currents and movements. The Great War did not represent a moment of crisis for the endowment – paradoxical for a foundation dedicated to world peace – but a chance for a change of course.

War, Peacemaking and the Rise of the Expert The Carnegie Endowment’s move away from supporting transnational advocacy networks, those of peace activists united by a normative consensus, had already begun before 1914. Its links to networks that emphasized a shared expertise, for instance the professional community of international lawyers, also date back to the pre-war era. After the Great War, the endowment broadened its links to knowledge-based networks and dissociated itself from advocacy. The war aided this process, first of all because it ruptured pacifism’s transnational dimensions. In Europe, most liberal peace advocates severed ties with colleagues from enemy states. The project of ‘patriotic pacifism’ lay in ruins, and new groups who opposed war in

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a more radical, non-nationalist fashion emerged. In the United States, the peace movement split into liberal-left and conservative factions. The liberal-left internationalists aimed to obtain a negotiated settlement between the warring powers, while the conservative internationalists, including the Carnegie Endowment, desired an Allied victory.62 The endowment had swiftly stopped its financial support for troublesome organizations such as the International Peace Bureau at the beginning of the war, claiming that the outbreak of hostilities had made its work in Europe impossible.63 It retained its links to international lawyers, to Conciliation internationale and to legalist-internationalists such as the APD. The Great War represented an excuse to erase undesirables from the endowment’s list of grant recipients while it continued funding those with whom it felt an affinity, a fact that former beneficiaries pointed out to Nicholas Murray Butler, but to no avail.64 The Dotation in Paris ceased most of its activities during the war years and underwent a period of reorganization. It also adhered to the union sacrée embraced by most French pacifists, and expelled the German, Austrian and Hungarian members of its Advisory Council, thus realigning the Carnegie Endowment’s European network of advisers along enemy lines.65 Once the United States became a belligerent in 1917, the Carnegie Endowment threw its full weight behind the war effort. In 1919, the year Andrew Carnegie died, the endowment openly washed its hands of the peace movement: ‘Its attitude in the war has drawn a sharp line between the endowment and a very considerable group of citizens, commonly called pacifists . . . In some other cases their attitude was such as to make the word “pacifism” a synonym for disloyalty’.66 Of course the conduct and outcome of the war also fundamentally changed the role of the United States as an actor on the international scene. Did this induce the endowment to radically rethink its stance? The historian Ludovic Tournès has described the Great War as a turning point for American philanthropy and as a moment when European countries, formerly regarded as models for the United States, became a field for reformist activity.67 This interpretation is accurate in some cases. The Rockefeller Foundation’s anti-­ tuberculosis campaign in wartime France, for example, did lead to the creation of a permanent foundation office in Paris in 1917, a step that the Carnegie Endowment had already taken before the war.68 In the case of the Carnegie Endowment, the war indeed had a longterm impact, but in a different way. Most significantly, the American leaders of the endowment noted the extent to which governments opened themselves to outside expertise during the war and the peacemaking process. From 1917, the endowment’s Division of International Law compiled studies for the State Department that were used to prepare U.S. diplomats

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for the Paris Peace Conference. Some endowment staff, notably James Brown Scott, participated in the conference as advisers to the American delegation, and throughout the 1920s the endowment would retain a certain closeness to the State Department.69 As the political maps of the world were redrawn at Paris, statesmen invoked ‘facts’ about nations and the differences between them as the basis of their deliberations. Thus, as Glenda Sluga has argued, Paris 1919 marked the birth of ‘the new scientific peace’.70 To the astute observer it must have been obvious that scientific knowledge represented real power in postwar international politics. One expression of the newly accepted belief that scientific study could and should make a direct contribution to the making of world order was the emergence of the foreign affairs institute. This institutional model would shape interwar theorizing on international relations. Its most prominent representatives were the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, both of which emerged from the meetings of the Anglo-American experts at the Paris Peace Conference and rose to prominence during the 1920s.71 Similar institutions for the scientific study of international relations also emerged in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Philanthropic grants, especially from the Rockefeller Foundation, stimulated the foreign affairs institute movement and helped to organize these institutes under the auspices of the International Studies Conference in the 1930s.72 In this new climate, the endowment completed its transition from funding peace advocacy to the production and dissemination of knowledge on international relations. Change at the Dotation and the endowment offices in Washington and New York only happened gradually though. In the first few years after the war, the Dotation kept on providing grants to the APD and hosted meetings of Conciliation internationale. But d’Estournelles de Constant also broke new ground. He swiftly recognized that rallying round the League of Nations would be a chance to revive liberal internationalism, and by 1918 he had already offered clerical support to the Association française pour la Société des Nations.73 He even wrote to Eric Drummond, the League’s first secretary general, with suggestions on how the new international organization might publicize its work.74 D’Estournelles de Constant’s involvement in League-related activities distinguished him markedly from American endowment leaders who, until the mid-1920s, retained a cautious distance and refused to support the American League of Nations Association.75 Root and Butler in particular distrusted the initial enthusiasm that accompanied the building of the post-1919 institutional order. Hopes that the League system would bring about worldwide economic and social justice, possibly by means of redistribution, unsettled Butler, who dismissed

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them, with an almost palpable sigh of relief, as ‘such stuff as dreams are made of’.76 When it became apparent that the League was not in a position to do away with traditional diplomacy, sovereign states and the power differentials between them, the American leaders of the endowment relaxed their hostile stance and even came to appreciate that international organizations provided an opportunity for transnational non-governmental organizations such as their own to exert influence on the international scene. Immediately after the war, however, the endowment distanced itself from schemes that implied a fundamental reform of the international system, and directed its resources towards relief and reconstruction projects. Emulating the example of the Rockefeller Foundation, which provided over $19 million to such initiatives, the Carnegie Endowment donated $550,000 for reconstruction work in Europe and the Near East in 1918, a sum that consumed almost half of its annual budget.77 From the early 1920s, the American endowment leaders devoted more and more energy to projects with an academic or scientific bent. In the United States, the endowment division headed by Butler entered the field of university education for the cause of international understanding. It maintained so-called ‘International Relations Clubs’ at American universities, supplying them with reading lists and books, and collaborated with the Institute of International Education (IIE) in New York.78 The endowment also financed a programme entitled ‘Visiting Carnegie Professors of International Relations’, which sent American professors to Europe, Latin America and Asia.79 Meanwhile, the endowment’s Division of International Law successfully established, with the collaboration of the IDI, an international summer academy for the teaching of international law at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which opened its doors to students in 1923. A monumental history of the Great War, written by an international roster of authors and sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment’s Division of Economics and History, was also underway.80 D’Estournelles de Constant’s death in 1924 put a definite end to the Dotation’s old links with pre-war peace advocacy and enabled the endowment’s leaders to integrate their European office with the rest of the organization. Conciliation internationale had quickly disintegrated after its founder’s passing. Now Butler completely overhauled the Dotation’s executive committee. The APD members were replaced by an international board including the Greek jurist and diplomat Nicolas Politis, and Gilbert Murray, a classical scholar and chairman of both the British League of Nations Union and the League’s Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. Earle B. Babcock, dean of New York University’s Graduate School, became the new director of the Dotation.81 One of Babcock’s first achievements was the creation of the ‘Chaire Carnegie’, a series of public

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lectures held at the Dotation itself. Babcock also launched the Dotation’s own journal, L’Esprit International, which was modelled on the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. These steps soon evolved into collaborations with academic institutions both in France and abroad. The Institut des hautes études internationales of the University of Paris’s law faculty developed a whole course in international relations in collaboration with the Dotation.82 Another ‘Carnegie Chair’ was established at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin in 1926. This institution also received ­substantial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.83 In this way, the Carnegie Endowment internationalized its European office and turned it into a centre for education and research in the mould of the post-1919 foreign affairs institutes. Significantly, Lionel Curtis, founder of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, advised Babcock on the reform of the Dotation.84 As before the war, the endowment sought to connect with the vanguard of contemporary internationalism. It made its resources available and benefited in return from the positions the Dotation’s new board members inhabited in the institutional and intellectual landscape of post-1919 international politics broadly conceived, be it as academic experts in international relations, international civil ­servants or the chairman of a League of Nations society. This, endowment ­leaders hoped, would enable them to participate fully in the marketplace of e­ xpertise of the postwar era.

Conclusion Naturally, the Carnegie Endowment did not abruptly switch from collaborating with an advocacy network of peace activists to a knowledgebased network of international lawyers and other international relations specialists. Before 1914 and also after, these divisions were far from clearcut, as advocacy and knowledge production in practice overlapped. Moreover, the endowment’s association with networks of international lawyers spanned the pre- and postwar eras. Nevertheless, one can discern that the endowment increasingly emphasized the scientific credentials of its collaborators and beneficiaries, and dropped those it deemed too partisan or behind the times. In the early years of its existence, the endowment launched its European activities on the back of pre-existing networks, using them to establish and legitimize its own programmes. Its role as a source of funding meant that it was rarely short of keen collaborators, even if some relationships between foundation and grant recipient were short-lived and had a negative impact on the transnational networks that the endowment’s founder had intended to strengthen. In the light of

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these varied outcomes of the endowment’s projects, the idea that philanthropic activity necessarily results in a more interconnected world seems questionable. Returning to an issue raised in the introduction to this volume, namely, that the construction of strong nation-states in nineteenth-century Europe created new problems that were increasingly discussed on a transnational level by experts meeting in new transnational spaces, the Carnegie Endowment can be interpreted as an organization designed to support solutions to international disorder and war. The solutions offered by the endowment changed according to world political circumstances and institutional innovations from those who had a personal or professional interest in international affairs, and also according to what endowment leaders perceived were the solutions most acceptable to governments. Here, the endowment’s own personal links to the U.S. corridors of power mattered, as did the experiences of endowment leaders who had been involved in the creation of the post-1919 settlement. What did not change, however, was the endowment’s desire to be associated with, and legitimized by, those who could speak authoritatively on international affairs. By plugging itself into various networks – and unplugging when the time seemed right to move on – the endowment did remarkably well on that front for the first two decades of its existence.

Notes 1. H. Coon, Money To Burn: What the Great American Philanthropic Foundations Do with Their Money (London 1938). 2. D.C. Hammack, ‘Foundations in the American Polity, 1900–1950’ in Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lagemann (Bloomington 1999), 59. 3. Contributions that emphasize the domestic policy-shaping role of foundations are B.D. Karl and S.N. Katz, ‘The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the Public Sphere, 1890–1930’, Minerva 19(2) (1981): 236–70; J. Sealander, Private Wealth and Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping of American Social Policy from the Progressive Era to the New Deal (Baltimore 1997); note that some historians claim that overseas programmes were mere extensions of projects: E.C. Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public Policy (Middletown, CT 1989), 329. This chapter questions this point of view and emphasizes that philanthropic programmes were shaped concurrently in the United States and abroad. 4. The impact of American philanthropy in other countries has been analysed by historians since the 1960s; see e.g., M. Curti, American Philanthropy Abroad: A History (New Brunswick 1963); detailed ‘bilateral’ case studies of philanthropic programmes started to appear from roughly the 1980s; examples include M.B. Bullock, An American Transplant:

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The Rockefeller Foundation and Peking Union Medical College (Berkeley 1980); M. Cueto(ed.), Missionaries of Science: The Rockefeller Foundation and Latin America (Bloomington 1994); S. Hewa, Colonialism, Tropical Disease and Imperial Medicine: Rockefeller Philanthropy in Sri Lanka (New York 1995). 5. S. Hewa and D.H. Stapleton(eds), Globalization, Philanthropy and Civil Society: Toward a New Political Culture in the Twenty-First Century (New York 2005). 6. This is an approach currently developed by European historians. See e.g., H. Rausch, ‘US-amerikanische “Scientific Philanthropy” in Frankreich, Deutschland und Großbritannien zwischen den Weltkriegen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 33(1) (2007): 73–98. 7. Philanthropic foundations have been identified as a distinct subgroup of ­non-governmental organizations. See S. Toepler, ‘Foundations and their Institutional Context: Cross-Evaluating Evidence from Germany and the United States’, Voluntas 9(2) (1998): 153 n.; foundations do not fit the definition of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), which have formal membership organizations in several countries. J. Boli and G.M. Thomas, ‘INGOs and the Organization of World Culture’ in Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875, eds J. Boli and G.M. Thomas (Stanford 1999), 20. 8. On this phenomenon see e.g., L. Tournès, ‘Le réseau des boursiers Rockefeller et la recomposition des savoirs biomédicaux en France (1920–1970)’, French Historical Studies 29(1) (2006): 77–107; C. Fleck, Transatlantische Bereicherungen: Zur Erfindung der empirischen Sozialforschung (Frankfurt am Main 2007), esp. chap. 2; T.B. Müller, ‘Die gelehrten Krieger und die Rockefeller-Revolution: Intellektuelle zwischen Geheimdienst, Neuer Linken und dem Entwurf einer neuen Ideengeschichte,’ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 33 (2007): 198–227. 9. V.R. Berghahn, ‘Philanthropy and Diplomacy in the “American Century”’, Diplomatic History 23(3) (1999): 397. More recently, Ludovic Tournès has also underlined the Carnegie Endowment’s pioneering role: ‘La Dotation Carnegie pour la paix internationale et l’invention de la diplomatie philanthropique (1880–1914)’ in L’Argent de l’influence: Les foundations américaines et leurs réseaux européens, ed. L. Tournès (Paris 2010), 25–44. 10. Figures from Fleck, Transatlantische Bereicherungen, 56. 11. For an overview of the Rockefeller Foundation’s work, an account by its long-time president is still invaluable: R.B. Fosdick, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York 1952). 12. M. Gerlach, British Liberalism and the United States: Political and Social Thought in the Late Victorian Age (Basingstoke 2001), 186–200; see also D. Nasaw, Andrew Carnegie (New York 2006). 13. Minutes of Meeting of the Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 Mar. 1911, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University (henceforth CEIP), box 12, folder 5. 14. This designation would certainly be possible using a broad definition of internationalism as a general impulse towards international cooperation, as has been proposed by Akira Iriye in his Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore 1997), 3. Martin Geyer and Johannes Paulmann distinguish between the forging of an internationalist consciousness by political and social movements and processes of internationalization in their account of the Mechanics of Internationalism in the long nineteenth century: ‘Introduction’ in The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War, eds M. Geyer and J. Paulmann (Oxford 2001), 3.

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15. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Außenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA1865–1914 (Munich 2000), 371–491. 16. P. Friedemann and L. Hölscher, ‘Internationale, International, Internationalismus’ in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, eds O. Brunner, W. Conze and R. Koselleck (Stuttgart 1982), 392–95. 17. Pacifism and internationalism are rather fluid categories, especially in the period considered in this chapter. The term ‘pacifist’ was only coined in 1900 and was applied to a broad spectrum of attitudes, from the unconditional opposition to war as irrational and immoral to the acceptance of national defence as a necessary evil. It acquired its current meaning, the unequivocal rejection of the use of military force, during the First World War. H. Josephson, ‘Introduction’ in Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders, ed. H. Josephson (Westport, CT 1985), xiv–xvi; as some historians have pointed out, most pacifists were internationalists but not all internationalists were pacifists. R. Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace Movement and German Society, 1892– 1914 (Princeton 1975), 14–15; for definitions of internationalism, see also W.F. Kuehl, ‘Concepts of Internationalism in History’, Peace and Change 11(2) (1986): 1–10. 18. S. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815–1914 (New York 1991); C. DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in American History (Bloomington 1980); on the proliferation of international organizations and meetings see F.S.L. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 1815–1914 (Leiden 1963). 19. B. Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations (Albany, NY 1998), 118–19; Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism, 63. 20. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism, chap. 4; note that the court was merely a machinery for the setting up of arbitration tribunals. Efforts to establish a true Court of Arbitral Justice did not come to fruition at the Second Hague Conference of 1907, despite strong American support. See M. Akehurst, A Modern Introduction to International Law (London 1970), 296. The outbreak of the First World War thwarted plans for a Third Hague Conference. 21. F.A. Boyle, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations, 1898–1922 (Durham, NC 1999), 26–36; C.R. Marchand, The American Peace Movement and Social Reform, 1898–1918 (Princeton, NJ 1972), 45–73. 22. G.A. Finch, ‘James Brown Scott, 1866–1943’, American Journal of International Law 38(2) (1944): 206; on Scott see also J. Hepp, ‘James Brown Scott and the Rise of Public International Law’, Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 7(2) (2008): 149–79; on the origins of the IDI see M. Koskenniemi, ‘Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns and the Establishment of the Institut de Droit International (1873)’, Revue belge de droit international 37(1) (2004): 1–11. 23. ‘Déliberation en séance plénière sur la proposition faite à l’Institut par MM. les Trustees de la Fondation Carnegie dans l’interêt de la paix’, Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 25 (1912): 569. 24. M.A. Lutzker, ‘The Pacifist as Militarist: A Critique of the American Peace Movement, 1898–1914’, Societas 5(2) (1975): 87–104; R.H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York 1967), 260. 25. For a short overview of the creation of the Carnegie Endowment, see D.S. Patterson, ‘Andrew Carnegie’s Quest for World Peace’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114(5) (1970): 371–83. 26. A. Wild, Baron d’Estournelles de Constant (1852–1924): Das Wirken eines Friedensnobelpreisträgers für die deutsch-französische Verständigung und europäische Einigung (Hamburg 1973); for a short biography see ‘Baron Paul Henri d’Estournelles de Constant (1852–1924)’ in I. Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates (Nantucket,

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MA 2001), 69–71; on the APD, see N. Ingram, The Politics of Dissent: Pacifism in France, 1919–1939 (Oxford 1991). 27. Paul Henri d’Estournelles de Constant, ‘International Conciliation’, Independent, 27 July 1905, 207. 28. Wild, D’Estournelles de Constant, 466–69. 29. N.M. Butler, Across the Busy Years, 2 vols (New York 1939), 1:108. 30. Wild, D’Estournelles de Constant, 230–38; S.R. Herman, Eleven against War: Studies in American Internationalist Thought, 1898–1921 (Stanford 1969), 27. 31. D’Estournelles de Constant to Butler, 30 Aug. 1911 and 17 Nov. 1911; Butler to d’Estournelles de Constant, 18 Oct. 1911, both CEIP, vol. 197; Minutes of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 March 1911, CEIP, box 16, folder 3. 32. Minutes of Meeting of the Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 Mar. 1911, CEIP, box 12, folder 5. 33. Minutes of Meeting of the Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 14 Dec. 1911, CEIP, box 12, folder 5. 34. See, for example, d’Estournelles de Constant to Butler, 29 June 1911 and 29 Dec. 1911, CEIP, vol.197. 35. M. Clinton, ‘“Revanche ou Relèvement”: The French Peace Movement Confronts Alsace and Lorraine, 1871–1918’, Canadian Journal of History 40 (2005): 444–45. 36. ‘Procès-verbal des deux réunions tenues à Paris les 1er et 2 Août 1911’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Centre Européen Records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University (henceforth CEIP CE), box 60, folder 2. 37. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1911 (Washington 1911), 50–51. 38. ‘Procès-verbal des deux réunions tenues à Paris les 1er et 2 Août 1911’, CEIP CE, box 60, folder 2. 39. A.H. Fried, ‘Was geschieht mit den fünfzig Millionen Carnegies?’, Neues Wiener Journal, 25 Dec. 1910. 40. Butler to d’Estournelles de Constant, 5 July 1911, CEIP, vol. 197. 41. Minutes of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 Mar. 1911, CEIP, box 16, folder 3. 42. ‘Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Intercourse and Education, Business for the Executive Committee’, 26 Oct. 1911, CEIP, vol. 34. 43. Helmut Mauermann, Das Internationale Friedensbüro, 1892 bis 1950 (Stuttgart 1990), 35. 44. Scott to Fried, 31 May 1911; La Fontaine to Scott, 3 May 1911, both CEIP, vol. 34. Francis Lyons estimates that there were over four hundredpeace societies in Europe in 1900(Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 356). 45. Minutes of Meeting of the Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 14 Dec. 1911, CEIP, box 12, folder 5; Marchand, The American Peace Movement, 129–39. 46. Mauermann, Das Internationale Friedensbüro, 27–30; Sabine Jessner, ‘Albert Gobat’ in Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders, ed. H. Josephson, 331–32. 47. ‘Procès-verbal des deux réunions tenues à Paris les 1er et 2 Août 1911’, CEIP CE, box 60, folder 2; Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism, 77. 48. La Fontaine to Butler, 28 Sept. 1911, CEIP, vol. 178, ‘Business for the Executive Committee’, 26 Oct. 1911, CEIP, vol. 34, 225–26; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1911, 56. 49. Prudhommeaux to Butler, 25 Dec. 1911; Butler to d’Estournelles de Constant, 8 Jan. 1912, both CEIP, vol. 197; see also Mauermann, Das Internationale Friedensbüro, 38–39. 50. Haskell to Prudhommeaux, 4 Oct. 1912, CEIP, vol. 198.

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51. Helmut Mauermann, whose account is based on the archives of the International Peace Bureau, regards the episode as a wasted opportunity, and blames Gobat for spending the grant on costly pet projects. Mauermann, Das Internationale Friedensbüro, 41–42. However, it can also be argued that the collaboration was doomed from the start due to the Carnegie trustees’ negative attitude towards peace advocacy in general. 52. R. Chickering, ‘A Voice of Moderation in Imperial Germany: The “Verband für Internationale Verständigung,” 1911–1914’, Journal of Contemporary History 8 (1973): 151–56. 53. ‘Gründungsaufruf des Verbands für Internationale Verständigung’, n.d., CEIP CE, box 60, folder 2. 54. Butler to d’Estournelles de Constant, 21 May 1912, CEIP, vol. 198. 55. Fried to Butler, 15 July 1912; Fried to d’Estournelles de Constant, 16 July 1912; Nippold to d’Estournelles de Constant, 11 and 16 July 1912, all CEIP CE, box 60, folder 3. 56. D’Estournelles de Constant to Fried, 23 July 1912, CEIP CE, box 60, folder 3. 57. A. Gobat, ‘Scattered Forces’, The Peace Movement 2 (1913): 436. 58. Ibid., 440. 59. Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War, 158–62. 60. D’Estournelles de Constant to Butler, 27 May 1913; Butler to d’Estournelles de Constant, 5 June 1913, both CEIP, vol. 200. 61. For a similar assessment of the endowment’s pre-First World War history, see Tournès, ‘La Dotation Carnegie’, 41, 43–44. 62. Ingram, Politics of Dissent, 30–31; Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism, chap. 8; T.J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton 1992), chap. 4. 63. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1916 (Washington 1916), 42–58. 64. Henri La Fontaine to Butler, 29 Mar. 1916, CEIP, vol. 520. 65. J. Prudhommeaux, Le Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, 1911–1921 (Paris 1921), 70–71. 66. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1919 (Washington 1919), 35. 67. Ludovic Tournès, ‘La fondation Rockefeller et la naissance de l’universalisme philanthropique américain’, Critique Internationale 35 (2007): 183. 68. J. Farley, To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation (1913–1951) (Oxford 2004), 44–47. 69. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1919, 19–20; K. Rietzler, ‘Before the Cultural Cold Wars: American Philanthropy and Cultural Diplomacy in the Interwar Years’, Historical Research 84(223) (2011): 152–55. 70. G. Sluga, The Nation, Psychology, and International Politics, 1870–1919 (Basingstoke 2006), 36. 71. R.D. Schulzinger, The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York 1984); A. Bosco and C. Navari(eds), Chatham House and British Foreign Policy, 1919–1945: The Royal Institute of International Affairs during the Inter-war Period (London 1994). 72. M. Riemens, ‘International Academic Cooperation on International Relations in the Interwar Period: The International Studies Conference’, Review of International Studies 37(2) (2011): 911–28. On American philanthropic support for the International Studies Conference in the 1920s and 1930s, see K. Rietzler, ‘American Foundations and the Scientific Study of International Relations’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University College London 2009), chap. 4. 73. Prudhommeaux, Dotation Carnegie, 73–80.

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74. D’Estournelles de Constant to Drummond, 29 Feb. 1920, Archives of the League of Nations, United Nations Library, Geneva, R1333. I am grateful to Frank Beyersdorf for drawing my attention to this source. 75. W.F. Kuehl and L.K. Dunn, Keeping the Covenant: American Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920–1939 (Kent, OH 1997), 59–60. 76. E. Root and N.M. Butler, ‘Problems Confronting the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’, 1920, CEIP, box 342, folder 1. 77. Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report 1918 (New York 1918), 54–55; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1919, 27. 78. ‘College International Relations Clubs – A Survey’, item 120166, n.d., CEIP, box 306, folder 6; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1921 (Washington 1921), 62; on the IIE, see Liping Bu, Making the World Like Us: Education, Cultural Expansion and the American Century (Westport, CT 2003), 53–80. 79. For individual reports, see CEIP, box 105, folder 1. 80. S. Verosta, ‘L’histoire de l’Académie de droit international de La Haye, établie avec le concours de la Dotation Carnegie pour la paix internationale’ in Académie de droit international de La Haye, Livre jubilaire – Jubilee Book 1923–1973, ed. R.-J. Dupuy (Leiden 1973), 7–56; J. Winter and A. Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge 2005), 110–13. 81. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book 1926 (Washington 1926), viii. 82. ‘Comte-rendu des Séances tenues par MM. les Membres du Comité d’Administration du Centre Européen’, 22 Mar. 1926, CEIP CE, box 116, folder 2. 83. K. Rietzler, ‘Philanthropy, Peace Research and Revisionist Politics: Rockefeller and Carnegie Support for the Study of International Relations in Weimar Germany’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C. Supplement 5 (2008): 61–79. 84. Curtis to Babcock, 9 Nov. 1925, Chatham House Archives, London, Registry Files, 2/ III/8g.

Part III Issues

(

Chapter 9

Transnational Cooperation and Criminal Policy The Prison Reform Movement, 1820s–1950s

( Martina Henze

In 1945 the pioneer English criminologist Leon Radzinowicz noted the existence of a common Western culture in the field of criminal policy.1 Similar discourses and policies regarding the treatment of crime and criminals circulated in many countries, addressing issues such as the emergence of a modern prison system with specialized penal institutions and new forms of sanction besides imprisonment. This common culture had its roots in the last decades of the eighteenth century, when crucial changes in the field of criminal jurisprudence and policy in the Western world had occurred. Prison reform discourse had developed out of a number of factors that included enlightened discussion about modernizing the theory of punishment and penal law, the improvement of administrative and legal systems, the emergence of a sentence of imprisonment as the most common penalty and, finally, the inadequacy of the existing multifunctional institutions’ response to these challenges. This discourse clearly reached beyond state and language frontiers, but its protagonists, who belonged mainly to the enlightened, cosmopolitan European and Anglo-American elite, were limited in number and their discussion lacked organizational structures. Consequently, the upheavals at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a result of the Napoleonic Wars, brought to a halt both concrete reform plans in individual states and the prison reform discourse in general.2 From the 1820s onwards, a qualitatively and quantitatively new phase began with the emergence of a stable and increasingly institutionalized prison reform movement. This chapter seeks to show how, over the extended period up to the mid twentieth century, the prison reform Notes for this chapter begin on page 212.

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movement played a major role both in shaping a common culture in criminal policy and in disseminating that common culture from a few core countries to the European periphery and, finally, to other parts of the world. This longitudinal approach provides an outstanding opportunity to study the development of cooperation beyond national and linguistic boundaries in a specific field of knowledge. Dealing with such a long period requires consideration of terminology and of theoretical and methodical approaches. First of all, the term ‘prison reform movement’ points to a pivotal constant across the decades, namely, the promotion of criminal policy reforms. Thus, ‘movement’3 is here used pragmatically, as an umbrella term that covers different forms of cooperation within a new field of knowledge whose organizational structures went through distinct phases. The term ‘prison’ (or ‘penitentiary’) was used from the very start – and, in fact, up until the 1950s – since the prison as an institution embodied the changing concepts of crime and punishment at the end of the eighteenth century and long after. The term is nonetheless misleading in so far as the reform movement was by no means limited to narrow prison-related topics, but rather increasingly addressed a broad range of penological, criminological and criminal-policy questions, perceiving itself to be a transdisciplinary field that encompassed legal, social, statistical, technical, medical and educational issues.4 The prison reform movement’s general relevance lies in its ultimate aim of combating and preventing crime, which was regarded more broadly as a crucial social problem. While most studies of the theory and practice of penal discourse, criminal jurisprudence and criminal policy have taken the nation as the starting point and frame of reference for their focus on reform,5 this chapter ties in with recent research that has embraced the international context and/or adopted a transnational perspective on these subjects.6 The transnational approach is highly useful for studying the prison reform movement because it affords the opportunity to address a longer chronological sweep and ‘to compare the development of concepts or expertise by more than a direct, often asymmetrical, comparison between nation states’.7 The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History defines transnationalism as ‘people, ideas, products, processes and patterns that operate over, across, through, beyond, above, under, or in-between polities and societies’.8 As will be shown, from its very beginning the prison reform movement transcended state and linguistic boundaries with respect to forms of cooperation, subject matter and protagonists. What is more, unlike other fields that emerged around the same time, the prison reform movement did not establish itself at the national level in the form, for example, of university chairs or training programmes. On the contrary, it took shape

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as a transnational network9 and as an international organization10 that would become the largest and most influential association in the field of criminal policy. This study is structured chronologically according to three distinct phases: from the 1820s to the 1860s, from the 1870s to the 1910s and, finally, from the 1920s to the 1950s. Each of these sections addresses ­overarching principal issues. First, the prison reform movement’s ­structure, ­communication media and increasingly institutionalized forms of ­organization will be considered, which together underlay its ­development into a key player in the field of criminal policy. Secondly, the movement’s geographical scope and limits are analysed, with ­particular regard to its immanent power structure, which reveals dominant regions, states and protagonists.11 While it is not surprising that there was a Western dominance from the outset, this picture can be differentiated by looking at outstanding individuals, their national origin coincidental. Thirdly, the prison reform movement needs to be contextualized. On one hand, other protagonists in the field of criminal policy and their relation to the prison reform movement are studied; on the other hand, the overall political context is taken into account. Did the prison reform movement develop as a result of internal pressures or under the influence of external ­factors such as new modes of communication and means of transportation or the ­attitudes and political events of the ages during which it existed? This chapter also aims to shed light on the mutual influences of a transnational movement and (nation-)states in a period marked by nationalism, ­imperialism, internationalism and an ‘embryonic civil society’.12

Building a Prison Reform Network (1820s–1860s) From the 1820s, earlier discourse was not only revived but also expanded quantitatively and qualitatively to become a transnational prison reform network. Hundreds of articles, treatises, travel reports and reports on new prison societies were published and, as a novelty, newly founded penological trade journals allowed information and arguments to be exchanged more quickly and more directly than before. Another innovation of this period was the handbook that provided an overview of both theoretical and practical reform projects in many countries.13 Moreover, the discipline that was termed by contemporaries Gefängniskunde or science pénitentiaire14 developed its own empirical-comparative methods and standards for collecting, comparing, analysing and interpreting information, and claimed on this basis to be an independent transdisciplinary Kollektivwissenschaft15 on a par with the natural sciences. Overall, Gefängniskunde fitted perfectly

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into the broader picture that was characterized by specialization in existing scientific disciplines and the development of new fields, namely, the social sciences. However, although individual university courses were established, the discipline’s status claim was not endorsed by, for example, the establishment of university chairs or training programmes. Travel, in particular to specific reform prisons, was not only used to collect knowledge that resulted in publications but also became the crucial element and precondition for developing the ‘network of prison friends’.16 The protagonists used the daylong inspections of institutions as an opportunity to make personal acquaintance with the respective prison personnel and administrators. Contacts were managed and further developed through widespread correspondence. One surely quite extraordinary example, and a key figure within the network, was the Heidelberg professor of penal law Karl Joseph Anton Mittermaier, who for more than forty years maintained a large correspondence network that covered many European countries and North America. The ongoing process of networking was bolstered by different types of association: sprouting regional and national prison societies,17 prison staff associations and – another important novelty of the period – ­scientific congresses, that included prison reform on their agendas from the early 1840s onwards. A scientific congress devoted solely to prison reform was regarded as an outstanding opportunity for a seminal decision in favour of comprehensive prison reform and would thereby at the same time demonstrate the field’s expertise, both internally and externally. In both respects, the first international congress to deal exclusively with prison reform, held in 1846 in Frankfurt am Main, was highly effective and marked the highpoint of the prison reform network.18 After 1848 the network experienced a crisis that manifested itself in a temporary decline in publications, personal contacts and congress activities, and did not abate until the 1860s. On the whole, there developed from the 1820s onwards a non-institutionalized, privately organized and yet increasingly dense ­volunteer ­network that actively used and developed all modern forms of ­cooperation and communication. The network was led informally by a core group of well-educated men, mainly prison officials and lawyers. In time, their ­self-perception as experts in the field of prison reform became more ­exclusive, and resulted in the rejection of those who could not or would not follow the network’s methods and standards, as was the case with, for example, philanthropists. As another general characteristic, the network became closely connected to individual states through personal contacts, with its participants often working in prison administration and other official positions and venturing on prison travels as official governmental

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delegates. Still, at the international congresses they did not act on behalf of their nations, but primarily as self-proclaimed experts in the field of prison reform.19 Their private status is illustrated by the fact that final decision making did not take place along national lines, but on the principle of one man, one vote.20 In the 1830s and 1840s the network’s geographical scope became both more dense and broader, spurred on not least by the emerging railway system, which enabled regular travel and quick communication for the first time. The core European countries became more closely knitted together as stable personal contacts developed. Additionally, a number of countries in the European periphery caught up with and joined the network – in these countries standard French, English or German prison literature was much read and/or translated, and active participation was initiated by travel to other countries, the publication of treatises and the founding of specialized trade journals and prison societies.21 Still, a definite gap remained between, on one hand, the expanding core of European countries actively engaged in prison reform, namely the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and a number of German, Swiss and Italian territories, and, on the other hand, the states on the rim of Europe, in the north, east and south, which remained marginalized within the discipline.22 The United States played a special role in this first phase. In the 1830s and 1840s controversy about the two cellular prison systems in the United States completely dominated discussion within the network: the Philadelphia model practised the absolute isolation of prisoners day and night, while in the Auburn prison convicts worked in common facilities during the day, with all communication strictly forbidden. Yet Europe had a quite distorted picture of the prison reforms and penal system in the United States. Partly because of slow communication and challenging travel conditions and partly because the United States believed itself to be at the vanguard of prison reform, ideas tended to flow one way only, into Europe, and trans-Atlantic exchange was far less developed and close-knit as among the core countries or even between the core and the network’s fringe. This imbalance changed, although only slowly, in the second half of the nineteenth century when infrastructure rapidly improved and neither U.S. prison system had proved able to solve the problem of crime and recidivism, which led to growing interest in the European prison reform movement, mostly along the Anglo-American axis.23 Communication and travel conditions were two of the reasons, albeit not the main ones, for non-European countries in the network phase remaining outside the prison reform network. Fundamentally, the reformers saw their work as closely linked to the notion of belonging to the so-called civilized or cultured nations.24 This perception had an

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integrative effect within the Anglo-European network and made it easy for countries such as Denmark to join,25 but at the same time it served to exclude the rest of the world.26 In the 1830s and 1840s the movement’s search for and belief in one distinct prison system corresponded perfectly with the zeitgeist with its  confidence in reforms from above and in universal reform, concepts that had marked the discourse since around 1800. In this regard, the political unrest of the European revolutions of 1848/49, which was followed by a general climate of crisis, restriction and control in many European states, not only hampered concrete reform plans and networking activities but also broke down the former belief in and spirit of reform. This change in the general climate coincided with a crisis within the prison reform network itself. Before 1848 discussion had centred on the cellular prison as a universal solution to the problem of crime. With the prison congresses of the 1840s unanimously adopting resolutions in favour of following the Philadelphia model of cellular imprisonment, day and night, there seemed nothing left to discuss, and the implementation of the intended prison reform was passed into the hands of the administration of individual states. The transnational network had reached a dead end and consequently broke down for about a decade.27 Different from theory and even if cellular imprisonment was implemented, the question of prison reform remained open. Against this background, the network’s activities were resumed from the end of the 1850s, mainly in the form of publications, but also in ensuring prison reform appeared on congress agendas.28 The former universal and uniform approach was discarded and one that was more pragmatic and differentiated than before 1848 was embraced. Again, attitudes towards the enactment of prison reform reflected the general zeitgeist, but now the setting was post-revolutionary Europe.

The International Penitentiary Commission in the Heyday of International Organizations (1870s–1914) By the late 1860s, the recent crisis together with an ongoing generational shift had clearly illustrated the vulnerability of the voluntary network of the first phase. Then again, the first prison congresses, in the late 1840s, still stood as an outstanding example of how to organize direct and fruitful cooperation. Having been but one of several subjects at a number of regional and national congresses, at the first National Conference on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline, in Cincinnati in 1870, prison reform was once more in focus. Although the conference was attended only by Americans, its points of reference were clearly to be found in

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the preceding European context.29 The explicit intention of the leading protagonists was to revive the congresses at an international level, as the participation of as many states as possible boosted their authority and legitimacy. Through intense lobbying, first and foremost by the secretary of the New York Prison Association, Enoch Cobb Wines, a long-lasting tradition of international penitentiary congresses was started with the First International Penitentiary Congress, held in London in 1872.30 The prison congresses clearly marked the beginning of a new phase in more than one respect. From the very start the founders explicitly aimed at establishing a stable and effective international organization. The International Penitentiary Commission (IPC) was therefore founded in 1872, acting both as the movement’s organizational backbone and as its nominal entity. Like other international organizations of the time, the IPC developed a structure ‘moulded over the general framework of parliamentary regimes’31 and comprising the congresses, the International Commission and a bureau consisting of a few commission members led by a secretary. It was the commission that determined both the content and the procedure of the congresses. Following and further developing the congress culture of the preceding decades, the commission chose relevant questions and material in advance, set the agenda and appointed so-called rapporteurs and spokesmen to chair the debates. The congresses covered a broad range of subjects that moved far beyond the institution of the prison. From 1878 onwards, issues were discussed in the three sections: penal legislation, prison administration and crime prevention, to which a fourth section dealing with children and juveniles was added in 1895. Every question gave rise to a resolution that was finally discussed and endorsed by the whole congress. After every congress the commission published all questions, resolutions and materials, including an overview of relevant publications in different countries. The increasingly voluminous congress proceedings offered an overview of the state of the art on an international level and thereby advanced to become the central publication in the field.32 Besides the strictly professional discussions, the congresses also offered their participants the unique opportunity to socialize with a whole range of authorities from different countries, both during the discussions and at the more sociable receptions and banquets held in representational contexts. Furthermore, each congress always included organized excursions to relevant institutions, which can be seen as a continuation of the prison tourism that had been practised previously. Thus, having created both effective working methods and long-lasting structures, the IPC became the seminal medium in the broadened field of prison reform and a platform for contact, cooperation and the exchange of information.

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Another novel development was that the IPC’s founders actively involved the state in order to both found a stable organization and ensure its impact. Consequently, the commission was formed as an entity consisting solely of official government delegates.33 This step created a semiofficial international organization that was strongly connected to state governments.34 Fearing to limit their freedom of action in criminal policy questions, a number of states did not join the commission until after the movement’s regulations in 1885 had expressly formulated and emphasized the purely advisory character of the IPC’s resolutions.35 When the right to staff leading positions within the IPC passed to individual governments, commission membership became exclusive – held overwhelmingly by leading jurists and civil servants – and was determined along national lines. All participating states, regardless of their size or the number of their official delegates, were now on a par, with one vote each. The sparse sources for the commission’s work do not mention any conflicts arising from this practice. Notably, not all commission members represented a nation-state in the political sense: for example, individual German territories such as Baden and Bavaria and, less frequently, countries such as Hungary and Croatia appear independently on the attendance lists. This pattern is repeated in the lists of participants at the congresses, where even more countries were represented, including some colonies. The IPC’s structure institutionalized a clear hierarchy with the size-­ limited, all-male International Commission and the bureau on the one hand, and the congresses, which very quickly developed into major events, on the other. On average five hundred participants attended, including a minority of women; the largest number was accounted for by representatives of reformatory schools, prison societies and other local, regional or national social and welfare institutions and associations. Even if the commission determined both the organization’s content and its modus operandi, every congress participant had the right to vote personally on the final resolutions according to the principle of one man, one vote, as in the 1840s. The congresses can therefore be described as a mixture of strict top-down hierarchy and grassroots democracy. The IPC had a dual character that consisted of a state-supported executive branch and a popular congress branch that reached into the regional and local levels. In other words, the former transnational network lived on, now led by a semiofficial, international organization. Initially established along the Anglo-Saxon axis, the IPC attracted not only the formerly core European public. At the congress level, the number of participating states grew from twenty in 1872 to forty-four in 1910, Anglo-European exclusiveness already broken in 1872 by participants not

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only from the British colonies of India and Australia but also from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Turkey. In the following decades, the congress documents list further Latin American and Asian delegates and, from 1900 onwards, a few African delegates. As for the top level, the number of states who were members of the commission grew from ten in 1885 to twenty in 1910. Nevertheless, this body remained virtually exclusively European; the only exceptions were the USA and Cuba. Among the host countries, which always had a seat on the commission and provided the movement’s mainly representative president, we see both core European and peripheral countries, both major and minor powers – Great Britain, Sweden, Italy, Russia, France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary and the USA, for example. In contrast, from 1885 to 1910 the most influential post, that of secretary, was held by Louis Guillaume, who was Swiss; Guillaume was succeeded by the Dutchman Simon van der Aa.36 Minor European countries thus held the key position within the IPC and thereby exerted a disproportionately strong executive power.37 By becoming an international organization, the IPC once again reflected and contributed to the zeitgeist. Indeed, the period up until the First World War was the heyday of international cooperation, as congresses and organizations dealt with a broad range of scientific, social, technical and other questions.38 The IPC was distinguished as the earliest protagonist in the field of criminal policy. The commission both preceded and directly inspired the other main international organizations, the Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung (IKV)39 and the International Congresses of Criminal Anthropology,40 which were not founded until the 1880s. The relationship between these organizations was characterized by coexistence and overlap in content and personnel. Overall, the IPC continued to be the most important organization in terms of its programme and size and, not least, its status as a semi-official organization.41 Like most other international associations in this phase the IPC prospered and, in spite of growing political tensions, the organization was increasingly institutionalized. More specifically, the wars of national unification in the 1860s and 1870/71 did not have any obvious impact on the first London congress, in 1872, which included official delegates from individual German states, Denmark and France. This situation was ­possibly a result of the fact that the driving force – at least for the 1872 ­congress – was not provided by any of the parties that had recently been at war. Neither were subsequent congresses noticeably marked by politics; the IPC perceived itself as a politically neutral organization with scientific criminal policy aims, like other organizations; and it supported this policy – whether intentionally or not – by appointing its leading figures from the minor powers.

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Coming of Age and Political Pressure (1918–1950s) Following the First World War, the IPC resumed commission meetings in 1922 and international congresses in 1925. While in form and content the congresses generally continued the successful pre-war approach, the organization as a whole underwent significant changes. In 1926 the IPC took up permanent headquarters in Berne, Switzerland and was now headed by an upgraded, full-time secretary general. Furthermore, in 1929 it officially added penal law to its title, becoming the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC).42 In keeping with this new title, the commission also broadened its activities. From the late 1920s several subcommissions were created to draw up reports and surveys on certain topics independently of the congresses. In addition, the IPPC founded a new journal in the field of criminal policy, the Recueils de Documents en Matière Pénale et Pénitentiaire, which appeared in addition to the congress proceedings and was published regularly between 1931 and 1951. In all, the IP(P)C underwent a process of professionalization and was emancipated from the congresses, its former core activity. Formerly the IPC had only had informal connections to other organizations in the field, but another important novelty of the post-First World War period was the I(P)PC’s increased contact with other bodies, including the League of Nations, which, as the first intergovernmental organization according to modern definition, was a new protagonist on the scene. Mainly as a result of initiatives by non-governmental organizations such as the IKV successor the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP), the British Howard League for Penal Reform and the I(P)PC itself, the League of Nations began in the 1920s to deal with topics such as (potentially) criminal children and minors, the rights of prisoners and international criminal law. Clearly, the organizations saw the League of Nations as an opportunity to coordinate their efforts and to increase their own legitimacy and impact. In 1932 it was decided to intensify and institutionalize this cooperation under the auspices of the League of Nations, with the I(P)PC and the other players as technical organizations, led by the AIDP branch the Bureau International pour l’Unification du Droit Pénal. In the following years this initiative fizzled out because other subjects were placed higher on the League of Nations’ agenda. However, from the late 1920s the I(P)PC cooperated with both the League of Nations and a number of other organizations on concrete projects such as enquiries and publications. As for the I(P)PC’s geographical scope, the pre-war trends continued in the interwar period, with the number of participating states growing to forty-eight at the 1935 congress. Exceptionally, and as a result of the

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revolution, Russia withdrew from the committee and the congresses, but newly created states such as Czechoslovakia and Poland gladly joined the I(P)PC. Also, the number of non-European participants grew steadily and as a consequence the European/North American predominance at congress level was reduced to slightly below 60 per cent. Both major and minor countries attended regularly, with both official delegates and private attendees. The International Commission, however, produced diminishing returns on this growth, representing only twenty-nine states in 1935. At the top level the bureau continued to be dominated by the same European states as before. Commission members were still mostly high-ranking jurists and civil servants; the only unprecedented exception was one woman who represented an American welfare association. The pre-war tradition of passing the leading position on to a man from a minor, neutral country was likewise continued, with the appointment of the Swiss Ernst Delaquis as secretary general in 1938, a position he retained until 1949. In the interwar years, unlike before 1914, political tensions affected the I(P)PC considerably. To start with, the boycotts and anti-boycotts that followed the lines of the enmities of the First World War gravely ­disturbed and even terminated in part transnational (scientific) relations. The impact on the I(P)PC was lessened by its power structure. None of the main war parties held a crucial position within the commission;43 on the contrary, the most influential personalities in the bureau came from the Netherlands and Switzerland, which together with other neutral or minor states had begun reviving the IPC just shortly after the war.44 It most certainly also helped that a generational shift had taken place before the war, with Dutchman Simon van der Aa holding the position of secretary from 1910.45 In sum, not only were the consequences of the First World War relatively limited, but the IPC even grew in influence in the interwar period as the only surviving international organization in the field of criminal policy, and the biggest. This situation was bolstered by both its enlarged activities and its institutionalized cooperation with other organizations, not least the League of Nations. As early as 1925, Germans and Austrians sat in the commission alongside members from the Triple Entente. The acknowledgement of Germany as a member of the international criminological community was underlined by the selection at the 1930 gathering of Berlin as host for the 1935 congress. The choice had been between Germany and Fascist Italy, which had likewise offered to act as host. As a consequence of the selection of Berlin, the new IPPC president, who as was the custom came from the next host country, was for the first time a German: Erwin Bumke, the president of the Supreme Court. The choice of host country ­contributed

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to the overshadowing of the 1935 congress by the National Socialist takeover of power in Germany in 1933. In accordance with repressive ­national-socialist criminal policy, Bumke, who had formerly favoured reform, drastically changed his point of view and seized the opportunity to use the congress as a setting for national-socialist propaganda. Not only were Minister of Justice Franz Gürtner and Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels among the speakers, but Bumke himself called on the congress to join in a common ‘Sieg Heil’.46 The content of the congress was also affected as the Bumke-led German delegates, who held a majority, enforced resolutions on controversial questions such as the sterilization and castration of criminals and the rights of the arrested. Their actions almost led to an éclat – the first and only instance in IPPC’s history – with a ‘movement on the part of some of the delegates to withdraw from the IPPC, though no immediate action was forthcoming’.47 The divisions were clearly politically determined and not bound to nations; some British and United States delegates, for example, strongly criticized the congress, while it was defended by other delegates from the same countries.48 It is telling that this conflict took place at the congress itself and, afterwards, in the international press, but not in the Recueil, which functioned both as the IPPC’s association organ and as its trade journal. The organization still regarded itself as a politically neutral centre for documentation and scientific research, and avoided taking a stand on political developments. Having its headquarters in ‘presumably neutral Switzerland’49 and having first a Dutch and then a Swiss secretary general surely aided the IPPC’s manoeuvring in the tense 1930s and even in wartime. After 1935, the commission’s work increasingly revolved around the bureau where Ernst Delaquis, treasurer from 1930 and secretary general from 1938, served as the embodiment of the IPPC’s official line of neutrality. Delaquis, a member of the I(P)PC since 1922 and a former student of Franz von Liszt, founder of the International Union of Penal Law, had close relations with Germany, and from 1929 to 1934 he held a chair of penal law in Hamburg. If, as one of his biographers suggests, Delaquis left Germany due to the National Socialist takeover of power,50 he nevertheless joined the Berlin congress and did not take a public stand against Nazism, either before or after 1945.51 Right up to the outbreak of war, preparations for the next congress apparently continued as usual, as did the work of the subcommissions, which consisted of smaller groups of experts from different countries. Nor did the outbreak of the Second World War put an end to the IPPC’s activities. The war prevented the congress planned for 1940 in Rome, and in the following years the bureau’s contacts with a number of countries, mainly those occupied, were ‘interrupted’.52 Yet the Recueil continued to

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be published. Remarkably, no country officially left the organization and there were even some new commission members. Most of the now thirtystrong member states, which financed the IPPC’s activities in accordance to their size, continued payments during wartime on both sides of the front. The USA was the biggest contributor, followed by Germany, Japan and, with smaller contributions, Italy, Great Britain, France and others.53 In short, despite the ongoing world war, the IPPC continued its activities, but at a lower level. It was therefore only natural that immediately following the war, the IPPC, still headed by Delaquis, quickly began to re-establish its contact network in areas where it had been disturbed by war or by natural causes such as the death of a commission member. At the same time, the organization tried to come to terms with the emerging United Nations (UN). Following in the footsteps of the League of Nations, the UN had begun to ‘consider assuming responsibility for international cooperation in the field of prevention of crime and the treatment of offenders on a worldwide basis’.54 The parties had intensive deliberations on the form of their future cooperation. The IPPC, emphasizing its long tradition and outstanding position within the field, insisted on remaining independent. The appointment of the American sociologist and pioneer criminologist Thorsten Sellin as IPPC secretary general in this context in 1950 was not simply a signal of a fresh start for the organization. The choice of a high profile figure who represented the Western superpower was also a clear repudiation of the traditional policy of political neutrality. At the same time, this step can be interpreted as an attempt to make an independent IPPC more agreeable to the UN. Nevertheless, after the twelfth IPPC congress, in The Hague in 1950,55 the UN finally forced the IPPC to hand over its main function, the congresses, in 1951. As a result, since 1955 the congresses have been held according to approved patterns under the auspices of the UN, with a new name and new numbering.56 The IPPC for its part chose to keep both its notable financial resources and its library, and reestablished itself as the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF). It had, however, finally lost its former status as the major player in the field of criminal policy.57 There are two reasons why the UN replaced the IPPC despite the latter’s status as the largest, most influential and only semi-official organization with sustained tradition and long-standing experience in criminal policy. First, the UN was continuing and extending the League of Nations’ agenda and recognized criminal policy as a key social issue that belonged to the international community’s sphere of competence58 – presumably spurred on by National Socialism’s recent abuse of imprisonment on a significant scale. Secondly, the IPPC’s ‘reputation was tarnished’, because

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it ‘had come under the influence of the Axis powers’ in the 1930s, in the words of the Sellin student Freda Adler.59 Indeed, the IPPC’s secretary general, Simon van der Aa, had belonged to the defenders of the 1935 congress, writing an appeasing article in Goebbels’s newspaper Der Angriff.60 The 1935 nomination of Fascist Italy as the host of the 1940 congress – at the same time, Italian Giovanni Novelli became the IPPC’s president – must also be interpreted as a political decision. Germans and Italians were active in many subcommissions, not least the one dealing with criminal biology,61 and the Recueils dedicated ample space to ‘repressive acts and regulations’,62 contrary to the earlier IPPC reform spirit promulgated by, for example, Germany, Italy and Spain. It must also be recognized, however, that during the 1930s the commission advocated a broad range of subjects that included, for example, the situation and rights of prisoners, and that the warring parties on both sides continued their membership and financial support of the IPPC. Also, Delaquis’s appointment as vice-president of the UN’s subcommission for the prevention of crime, a position he held from 1948 until his death in 1951,63 and other overlaps in personnel between the UN and the IPPC suggest that while the commission’s political entanglement was one factor for the takeover, it was not the main reason. Overall, the third phase saw the coming-of-age and professionalization of the I(P)PC as an international organization, marked by an expansion in size, content and range of activities, as well as by institutionalized cooperation with other organizations in the field, not least the League of Nations. However, initiatives and decisions were increasingly taken by the International Commission and the bureau, while the congress branch lost influence. It is remarkable how the I(P)PC manoeuvred in this interwar period, which was so marked by political tensions, while never taking an official political stand. The organization managed to achieve an outstanding place within all criminal policy organizations in the 1920s and to keep up its activities in the 1930s and even during wartime.

The Prison Reform Movement, (Nation-)States and Politics As a novel field of knowledge, the prison reform movement experienced both significant continuity and profound changes during its lifespan from the 1820s and through the first half of the twentieth century. Using the rapidly improving communications and transportation, it was innovative in adapting and actively generating distinct and sustainable structures, media and forms of cooperation. Against this background, the movement

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underwent a process of institutionalization and professionalization, finally taking shape as a stable, hierarchic and semi-official organization. As such, the I(P)PC remained without doubt the largest and most influential player in the field of criminal policy and acted as a precursor of later intergovernmental organizations. The development from a transnational elite network into a broader international organization also reflects the emergence of an enlarged, educated and politically engaged middle class during the nineteenth century in the Western world. Notably, at the same time there evolved within the movement a new elite of experts, which in the network phase existed only informally but was eventually institutionalized as the commission within the I(P)PC. Transnationality remained an inherent characteristic of the prison reform movement, both during and after the emergence of the nationstate. It was originally rooted in the belief in a universal solution for the phenomenon of crime, but even as this belief faded up to the middle of the nineteenth century, prison reformers remained convinced that cooperation beyond national boundaries was essential in order to collect and exchange information and knowledge in the widening field of criminal policy. During the period of this study the movement proved attractive to countries on the European periphery as well as, from 1870 onwards, to non-European states that sought to participate in the network or the I(P)PC respectively. However, the European/North American dominance at the top level remained unchallenged up until the second half of the twentieth century. In this regard, the extraordinarily powerful position of two minor powers, Switzerland and the Netherlands, must be emphasized. Also, one must mention the changing role of the United States, which started on the fringes, developed into a major inspiration and initiator and, finally, became the determining superpower. By developing from an independent but vulnerable volunteer network into a semi-official international organization, the reform movement became a part of the ‘governmental internationalism’ identified by Madeleine Herren.64 Given the strictly hierarchical structure of the IPC, this positioning meant the interdependence of the highest level of the organization and the state, with power shifting to the latter, indicative of the reformers’ belief in the ability of the state to realize reforms. Notably, before 1914, ‘state’ did not necessarily mean ‘nation-state’, as the equal participation of German territories illustrates. Belief in the institution of the state was, so to speak, transferred to the first intergovernmental organization when the I(P)PC actively sought cooperation with the League of Nations as an instrument to heighten its own impact. Surely there lies a certain historical irony in the fact that it was the UN – as a more powerful successor to the League of Nations, which had initially been welcomed

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by the IPPC – that finally made the most important criminal policy organization sink into obscurity. Thus, in a sense, the movement’s own policy ultimately led to its decline. Finally, the prison reform movement’s development can be attributed to both internal and external factors. Not surprisingly, the movement often mirrored the general political context, being seriously affected by both the attitudes of its age and the diverse wars and upheavals through which it lived. Then again, as the crisis after 1848 and the foundation of the IPC illustrate, the movement also reacted to and developed as the result of internal challenges, not least at the initiative of a few prominent individuals. For the twentieth century, the comparison with other organizations shows that the I(P)PC’s policy of neutrality, embodied by the choice of its leadership, proved highly effective and even secured the organization a leading position in the field of criminal policy. Before 1914, this choice may have been coincidental,65 but locating the commission in Berne and the appointment of a Swiss secretary general in 1938 must surely be interpreted as conscious decisions taken with regard to political conditions. Thus, the example of the prison reform movement illustrates once more how deeply the First World War affected transnational cooperation, which subsequently would be much more obviously influenced and shaped by its political context.

Notes 1. Leon Radzinowicz pointed out ‘striking resemblances as well as fundamental differences . . . between the various systems of criminal policy’, all the while emphasizing the resemblances between seemingly different criminal policy systems: L. Radzinowicz, ‘International Collaboration in Criminal Science’ in Radzinowicz, Modern Approach to Criminal Law (London 1945), 467–97 at 468. 2. See T. Nutz, Strafanstalt als Besserungsmaschine. Reformdiskurs und Gefängniswissenschaft 1775–1848 (Munich 2001), 23–96. 3. E. Fuchs, ‘Wissenschaft, Kongressbewegung und Weltausstellungen: Zu den Anfängen der Wissenschaftsinternationale vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, Comparativ 5–6 (1996): 156–77, talks of congress movements, while the concept of movement is otherwise mostly used in combination with the term ‘social’, social movements being defined as a modern form of ‘collective, organized, sustained, and non-institutional challenge to authorities, powerholders, or cultural beliefs and practices’: J. Goodwin and J.M. Jasper, The Social Movement Reader: Cases and Concepts, 2nd edn (Malden, Oxford and Chichester 2009), 4. Comprehensive research on social movements has emphasized their transnational scope as well as their conceptual overlap with other organizational forms such as non-governmental organizations and networks. See ibid., 26; J.J. Chriss, ‘Networks’ in Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, ed. G. Ritzer, Blackwell Reference

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Online, 13 July 2009 http://www.sociologyencyclopedia.com.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/ subscriber/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g978140512433120_ss1-14; D. Barrett and C. Kurzman, ‘Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics’, Theory and Society 33(5) (2004): 487–527. 4. This chapter will not concentrate on the content of the movement as this aspect has been analysed before. See Nutz, Strafanstalt, 117–207; M. Henze, Strafvollzugsreformen im 19. Jahrhundert. Gefängniskundlicher Diskurs und staatliche Praxis in Bayern und Hessen-Darmstadt (Darmstadt and Marburg 2003), 37–131; L.H. Riemer, Karl Josef Anton Mittermaiers Briefwechsel mit europäischen Strafvollzugsexperten, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main 2005); M. Henze, ‘Netzwerk, Kongressbewegung, Stiftung: Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der internationalen Gefängniskunde 1827 bis 1951’ in Verbrecher im Visier der Experten. Kriminalpolitik zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, eds S. Freitag and D. Schauz (Stuttgart 2007), 55–77. 5. One recent example is E. Schaanning, Menneskelaboratoriet. Botsfengsels historie (Oslo 2007). 6. P. Becker and R. Wetzell (eds), Criminals and their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective (Cambridge 2006); S. Kesper-Biermann and P. Overath (eds), Die Internationalisierung von Strafrechtswissenschaft und Kriminalpolitik (1870–1939). Deutschland im Vergleich (Berlin 2007); T. de Oliveira Santos Pires Marques, ‘Mussolini’s Nose: A Transnational History of the Penal Code of Fascism’ (Ph.D. dissertation, European University Institute, Florence, 2007). 7. P. Clavin, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, Contemporary European History 14(4) (2005): 421–39 at 429. 8. A. Iriye and P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Introduction: The Professor and the Madman’ in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the Mid-19th Century to the Present Day, eds Iriye and Saunier (Basingstoke 2009), xvii–xx, at xviii. 9. For the concept of network, see the introduction to this volume and B. Unfried, J. Mittag and M. van der Linden (eds), Transnationale Netzwerke im 20. Jahrhundert. Historische Erkundungen zu Ideen und Praktiken, Individuen und Organisationen (Leipzig 2008). 10. The term ‘international organization’ is in common use, even though most organizations in the relevant period can be categorized as transnational according to modern definition. On the subject in general, see M. Herren, Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung (Darmstadt 2009). 11. As Patricia Clavin rightly points out, the role of power is ‘frequently underplayed’: P. Clavin, ‘Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern European History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts’, European History Quarterly 40 (2010): 624–40 at 626. 12. C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden and Oxford 2004), 237. Bayly records the ‘paradox’ that the nineteenth century saw both ‘the triumph of the nation-state . . . and the plethora of voluntary associations, reform societies, and moral crusades, now increasingly organized at both a national and an international level’ (ibid., 243). 13. For examples and the first phase in detail, see Riemer, Netzwerk, 106–14; Henze, Strafvollzugsreformen, 23–28. 14. In the Anglo-Saxon world it was common to talk about ‘prison reform’ or to use the French expression. See E. Ruggles-Brise, The English Prison System (London 1921), xiii. 15. F. von Holtzendorff, ‘Wesen, Verhältnissbestimmung und allgemeine Literatur der Gefängnisskunde’ in Handbuch des Gefängnisswesens, eds F. von Holtzendorff and E. von Jagemann, vol. 1 (Hamburg 1888), 1–34, at 4.

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16. Riemer, Netzwerk. 17. These societies were the first local, regional or national associations in the field, and dealt with practical questions such as improving prisons and the situation of the prisoners and their families. The first prison society was founded in Philadelphia as early as 1778. Of greatest influence, however, were the English societies, which from the 1820s spread to many European countries. The driving force was Quaker Elizabeth Fry, one of the few women deeply engaged in the male-dominated field of criminal policy. 18. L.H. Riemer, ‘“Areopag der Wissenschaft” – Die Behandlung gesellschaftlicher Krisen auf Fachtagungen des Vormärz am Beispiel der ersten internationalen Gefängniskongresse’ in Wissen in der Krise. Institutionen des Wissens im gesellschaftlichen Wandel, eds C. Kretschmann, H. Pahl and P. Scholz (Berlin 2004), 79–99. 19. For the definition and role of experts in general, see the introduction to Experten und Expertenwissen in der Strafjustiz von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Moderne, eds A. Kästner and S. Kesper-Biermann (Leipzig 2008), 1–16; more specifically for prison reform experts, see M. Henze, ‘Experten, Wissen, Staat. Strafvollzugsexperten in der internationalen Gefängnisreformbewegung und in Dänemark 1820 bis 1935’ in ibid., 121–32. 20. Verhandlungen der ersten Versammlung für Gefängnißreform, zusammengetreten im September 1846 in Frankfurt a.M. (Frankfurt am Main 1847). 21. For the example of Sweden, see R. Nilsson, En välbyggd maskin, en mardröm för själen. Det svenska fängelsesystemet under 1800-talet (Lund 1999), 171–75. 22. For the practical and language reasons for this gap, see Riemer, Netzwerk, 47. 23. Ibid., 47–53. 24. For examples, see ibid., 36. 25. For detailed discussion of relations between the network and Denmark, see M. Henze, ‘Danmark og den internationale fængselsreformbevægelse 1820–1950’, Fængselshistorisk Selskab (2007): 85–119. 26. For the failure to engage with the emerging prison reforms in Latin America, see, for example, Riemer, Netzwerk, 37. 27. As Chris Leonards and Nico Randeraad point out in their chapter in this volume, many protagonists did, however, remain active in other social/welfare issues during this phase. 28. M. Henze: ‘“Important forums . . . among an increasingly international penological community”: Die internationalen Gefängniskongresse 1872–1935’ in Kesper-Biermann and Overath, Die Internationalisierung, 60–84 at 64; Riemer, Netzwerk, 170–76. 29. Europe was represented both in the content of the conference and by papers written by ‘eleven leading penologists’ from the continent: B.S. Alper and J.F. Boren, Crime: International Agenda, Concern and Action in the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, 1846–1972 (Lexington, Toronto and London 1972), 17. 30. The numbering of the conferences was thus restarted after those held in 1846 and 1847. 31. P.-Y. Saunier, ‘International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs)’ in Iriye and Saunier, Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, 573–80 at 575. 32. Leon Radzinowicz identifies the proceedings as ‘indispensable to all those who work on the subject of criminal policy’ (Radzinowicz, ‘International Collaboration’, 482). Publication of periodicals and relevant books in individual states, however, continued. 33. ‘If ever true and solid penitentiary reform is had, it must in the end be through action of government’ was the credo of the founder Enoch Cobb Wines; see Negley J. Teeters, Deliberations of the International Penal and Penitentiary Congresses: Questions and Answers 1872–1935 (Philadelphia 1949), 14.

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34. Madeleine Herren points out that modern definitions of international ­non-governmental or governmental organizations cannot be applied to earlier organizations, before 1945. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Außenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA 1865–1914 (Munich 2000), 33. The IPC’s semi-official status was also evident in the congresses’ representational framework; these gatherings were held in different capital cities and towns in the presence of significant figures from the host country. For the dynamic relationship between states, governmental and non-governmental organizations, see S. Charnowitz, ‘Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance’, Michigan Journal of International Law 184 (1996–97): 183–286. 35. For the founding and the structure of the IPC, see Henze, ‘Important Forums’, 65–68. 36. Information about participating persons and states, official delegates and commission members is derived from the congress proceedings. See also the table for the period up to 1935 in Henze, ‘Danmark’, 102. 37. On the role of minor states in general and for the Swiss example, see Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. 38. The pioneer study of nineteenth-century internationalism up to 1914 was F.S.L. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe, 1815–1914 (Leiden 1963). For the pivotal role of organizations in shaping a global community or world culture, see A. Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley 2002) and F.J. Lechner and J. Boli, World Culture: Origins and Consequences (Malden and Oxford 2005). 39. S. Kesper-Biermann, ‘Die Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung. Zum Verhältnis von Wissenschaftsbeziehungen und Politik im Strafrecht 1889–1932’ in KesperBiermann and Overath, Die Internationalisierung, 85–107. 40. M. Kaluszynski, ‘The International Congresses of Criminal Anthropology: Shaping the French and International Movement, 1886–1914’ in Becker and Wetzell, Criminals and Their Scientists, 301–16. 41. For a comprehensive, comparative analysis of all relevant organizations, see M. Henze, ‘Crime on the Agenda: Transnational Organizations 1870–1955’, Historisk Tidsskrift 2 (2009): 369–417. 42. After the Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung had split up as a consequence of the First World War into a mainly German-speaking IKV and the newly founded Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP). This addition was seen as a way to continue international cooperation on penal law. See, also for the following discussion, Henze, ‘Crime’, 395–401. 43. This was the case, for example, for the German-led International Union of Penal Law, which split into a German-Austrian and a newly founded French-initiated branch. 44. E. Delaquis, ‘Internationale Zusammenarbeit auf dem Gebiete des Strafrechts’, Mitteilungen der Internationalen Kriminalistischen Vereinigung, Neue Folge 6 (1933): 127–40 at 132, n. 1. 45. Again the comparison with the International Union of Penal Law is striking for there the German, Belgian and Dutch frontmen had died in 1918/19. See Kesper-Biermann, ‘Die Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung’, 97–100. 46. D. Kolbe, Reichsgerichtspräsident Dr. Erwin Bumke. Studien zum Niedergang des Reichsgerichts und der deutschten Rechtspflege (Karlsruhe 1975), 251. Bumke is characterized as a ‘willing servant of the regime’ (ibid., 258). 47. Alper and Boren, Crime, 72. 48. Kolbe, Reichsgerichtspräsident, 248–52; Teeters, Deliberations, 177–80.

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49. Expression taken from Alper and Boren, Crime, 79. 50. E. Schmidt, ‘Ernst Delaquis zum Gedächtnis’, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 64 (1952): 434–35. Other Swiss biographies do not mention any reason for his return to Switzerland. 51. In his article on the IPPC’s history, Ernst Delaquis mentions only disagreements and not the controversies of the 1935 congress; see E. Delaquis, ‘Die Wirksamkeit der Internationalen Strafrechts- und Gefängniskommission 1872–1942’, Recueil de Documents en Matière Pénale et Pénitentiaire (1942/43): 30–60. As the head of the police department of the Swiss Ministry of Police and Justice from 1919 to 1929, Delaquis himself stood for a ‘restrictive administrative practice in immigration policy’: B. Studer, ‘Citizenship as Contingent National Belonging: Married Women and Foreigners in Twentieth-Century Switzerland’, Gender & History 13 (2001): 622–54 at 631. 52. For example, contact with Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Poland was interrupted. A list of the members of the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission, including information on dates of appointment and the interruption of relations due to the war, is found in Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission, Berne, April 1946 (Berne 1946): 70–73. 53. For a table of contributions paid in by the member states during the years 1939–46, see ibid., 68–69. The list contradicts Alper and Boren, Crime, 79, which claims that ‘the IPPC was reported to have received the greatest proportion of its financial support from Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as from Spain and Finland, between 1939 and 1945’. 54 Alper and Boren, Crime, 78. 55. Before the war the Dutch government had already indicated its desire to be the host of the thirteenth Congress (including the cancelled Rome congress), and in 1948 it extended an official invitation: T. Sellin, ‘Preface’, Proceedings of the Twelfth International Penal and Penitentiary Congress The Hague vol. 2 (Berne 1951), x–xvi at xv. 56. The United Nations congresses increasingly widened their transnational scope. Sixty-one countries and territories attended the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held in 1955 in Geneva. See Alper and Boren, Crime, 89. As a result of the Cold War, the UN did not adopt an active policy in these matters beyond the congresses. See E. Vetere, ‘The Work of the United Nations in Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice’ in The Contributions of Specialized Institutes and Non-Governmental Organizations to the United Nations Criminal Justice Program, ed. C. Bassiouni (The Hague, Boston and London 1995), 15–63; Henze, ‘Crime’, 409–10. 57. The UNO recognized the IPPF and the other main organizations in the field of criminal policy as consultative; the IPPF remained one of the so-called four major organizations. See Alper and Boren, Crime, 79–80, 124–29; P.-H. Bolle, ‘IPPF: Activities of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation’ in Bassiouni, Contributions of Specialized Institutes, 295–304. 58. Alper and Boren, Crime, 77–80. 59. F. Adler and G.O.W. Mueller, ‘A Very Personal and Family History of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch’ in Bassiouni, Contributions of Specialized Institutes, 3–13 at 4. 60. The article is cited in Kolbe, Reichsgerichtspräsident, 258. Van der Aa has also been criticized in the Netherlands. See J. Remmelink, ‘Iets over Simon van der Aa en “zijn” internationale strafrechtelijke congressen’ in Rede en recht. Opstellen ter gelegenheid van het afscheid van prof. Nico Keijser, eds G.J.M. Carstens and M.S. Groenhuijsen (Deventer 2000), 27–40 at 33–34.

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61. It must be added that both Italy and Germany were criminological great powers with long tradition, and were heavily involved in relevant organizations such as the mainly German Kriminalbiologische Gesellschaft, founded in 1927, and the International Criminological Society, founded in 1938. 62. Alper and Boren, Crime, 79. 63. ‘Delaquis, Ernst’, Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 19 Aug. 2009 http://www.hls-dhs-dss. ch/textes/d/D31877.php. 64. M. Herren, ‘Governmental Internationalism and the Beginning of a New World Order in the Late Nineteenth Century’ in The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War, eds M.H. Geyer and J. Paulmann (Oxford 2001), 121–44. 65. For the personal and professional demands on the organization’s leaders, see Henze, ‘Experten’, 125–26.

Chapter 10

International Congresses of Education and the Circulation of Pedagogical Knowledge in Western Europe, 1876–1910

( Damiano Matasci

At the end of the nineteenth century, the setting up of modern school ­systems raised a series of common questions and challenges at the European level.1 Global trends such as demographic transition, industrialization, international migration, urbanization and the intensification of international trade imposed a new way of thinking about and organizing social life. Such trends contributed to shape new forms of youth socialization through the setting up of school structures in response to new educational demands.2 The search for a balance between education, the training of qualified economic actors and the production of a social elite thus became the leitmotiv of school reforms in Western Europe. Institutional structures, their social and economic functions, as well as the coordination of various degrees of teaching, were at the core of cross-national polemics. Consequently, the numerous reforms at the end of the nineteenth century were not chronologically fortuitous coincidences but part of a reformist process that was characterized by the circulation of information and pedagogical ideas among West European countries.3 In this regard, recent studies in the history of education have pointed out that transnational connections and the use of foreign references played a major role in shaping modern school systems.4 Despite this historiographical renewal, the history of education is still mostly written from national perspectives, whereas the second half of the nineteenth century was characterized by a shared logic combining the construction of national identities with transnational school culture. Notes for this chapter begin on page 232.

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The aim of this chapter is to analyse the genesis and development of International Congresses of Education, one of the first institutional forms taken by the transnational circulation of knowledge in the field of education.5 As the chapters of this book highlight, education is one of the many fields characterized by the rise of transnationally oriented activities.6 Between 1876 and 1910 no fewer than twenty international congresses, often combined with World’s Fairs, were held in order to address the issues related to the construction of modern school systems. Congresses gathered together a wide range of national experts who tackled educational problems from an international perspective. These experts were active in reformist movements in their own countries and involved various professions as academics, teachers, pedagogues, school inspectors, politicians and civil servants. The chapter will focus on those actors who constructed internationalism in the field of education and school reform. More precisely, it will describe the emergence of transnational groups of experts who could operate as an epistemic community.7 The aim is to show how these informal networks operated and were related to the domestic and international political environment, as well as to assess their effectiveness in shaping national school reforms.8 The chapter will start with the genesis, development and characteristics of the international congresses selected for this research. In particular, it will stress the institutional forms that the transnationalization of school reforms took at the end of the nineteenth century. In the second part, the accent will be on actors who promoted transnational intellectual exchange by comparing the French, Swiss and German cases. Indeed, in order to understand the rise of these international congresses, it is important to consider the reformist context in which the experts were working. Finally, the third part will analyse the interaction between national and international levels as well as the impact of these congresses on national school reforms in Western Europe, reading them as the vectors of an international school culture.

International Congresses of Education and the Transnational Movement of ‘School Reform’ Chris Leonards and Nico Randeraad’s contribution to this volume provides a striking analysis of the congresses’ role in the transnationalization of European social reform and the spread of expert knowledge in this field.9 Education did not escape the general enthusiasm for international congresses typical of the second half of the nineteenth century.10 During this period, the education sections of World’s Fairs and International

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Congresses of Education were key places for the comparison and assessment of different educational systems.11 From the 1880s onwards, many international meetings looked into how to organize educational programmes, considering such things as subjects to be taught, target audiences, the transition from primary to secondary school, as well as, more generally, the different approaches for adapting school systems to the evolution of modern societies. Congresses may be seen as places where social demands were stated and developed by networks of specialists who had various interpretations of school problems and sought to advocate their particular model. According to Christophe Prochasson, international congresses were thus places of intellectual exchange and dialogue for reformers.12 Within the field of education, political, social, moral and scientific considerations were closely intertwined. Consequently, the number of congresses devoted to childhood and its intellectual development or social protection was extremely high.13 On the basis of the discussions that took place there, Catherine Rollet addresses the rise of an ‘international culture’ of childhood.14 By cross-comparing the list of congresses established by the International Associations Union in 1960 with the one produced by the Bibliographical Society of America, it has been possible to identify four main types of congresses dealing with education issues, and constituting a relatively homogeneous series (see Table 10.1).15 The congresses of the international reformist movement at the end of the nineteenth century not only tackled pedagogical aspects, but also political, social and economic problems related to the construction of a modern school system. More particularly, they focused on the organization, structure and coordination of the various educational levels (primary, secondary, and professional/technical). They mostly took place over a very short period of time (i.e. 1880–1900) and, with few exceptions, within a European framework. The intensity of international meetings during those two decades can be explained by the fact that most West European countries were then in the process of setting up their modern public school systems.16 As Eckhardt Fuchs has pointed out, these international meetings shared two important characteristics.17 First, they most often took place at the same time as World’s Fairs, which had, since the 1850s, offered permanent sections exhibiting educational items (drawings, school books, etc.) and explaining pedagogical methods of various countries.18 Such sections were organized and controlled by different states and sought to spread the benefits of their respective national school systems.19 By contrast, International Congresses of Education rather promoted international discussion on the principal school problems of the time. For example, three

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Table 10.1. Sample of International Congresses on Education, 1876–1910

International Associations

Year

Place

Event

International Congress of Education

1876 1880 1884 1884/85 1893

Philadelphia Brussels London New Orleans Chicago

World’s Fair (WF) – Health Exhibition WF WF

International Congress of Higher and Secondary Education International Congress of Secondary Education

1889

Paris

WF

1900

Paris

WF

International Congress of Primary Education

1889 1900 1905 1910

Paris Paris Liège Paris

WF WF WF –

International Bureau of Teachers’ Associations (1905)

International Congress of Technical, Commercial and Industrial Education

1886 1889 1895 1897 1898 1899 1900 1906 1910

Bordeaux Paris Bordeaux London Antwerp Venice Paris Milan Vienna

– WF – – – – WF WF –

Permanent Committee of International Congresses of Technical Education (1895)

International of Secondary Education (1912) Bureau

Sources: Union des Associations Internationales, Les Congrès internationaux de 1681 à 1899, de 1900 à 1919. Liste complete (Brussels 1960); G. Winifred, International congresses and conferences, 1840–1937: A Union List of their Publications Available in Libraries of the United States and Canada (New York 1938).

hundred professors, school inspectors, civil servants and pedagogues discussed pedagogical issues in Brussels during an international congress called by the Belgian League of Education in 1880.20 Educational problems were tackled in thematic sessions, including all school areas. From the end of the 1880s, Paris became the most important centre for these congresses. The prominent place of France testifies to the high level of activism of reformers in that country, who were supported by their own government especially during the 1889 and 1900 World’s Fairs.

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Secondly, these congresses were characterized by their fragmentary nature and the absence of a centralized organization. Taking place at a crucial time in the construction of modern school systems, they were thus informal gatherings for discussion, exchange and comparison between professionals in educational matters. Social observers and reformers of many countries described the end of the nineteenth century as a moment of crisis for educational systems caused by the introduction and extension of compulsory schooling, changing school parameters for the reproduction of a social elite (the conflict between ‘traditional’ versus ‘modern’ teaching) and the necessity of adapting education to suit the new economic requirements of industrialization.21 As places devoted to intellectual exchange and international comparison, congresses thus helped to provide suggestions aiming at the resolution of this educational crisis.22 For example, the organizing committee of the Congress of Secondary Education in 1889 reported that ‘elites in civilized countries are aware that, in the interest of their political community, it is important not to ignore experience gained abroad . . . and that exchanges between countries have become a prerequisite for prosperity and progress’.23 Over time, international congresses became more and more specialized in particular educational topics. In fact, starting in the 1880s, a series of congresses in France dealt with specific problems related to different levels of education – primary, secondary and technical. Despite the relative discontinuity of these international congresses, the beginning of the twentieth century saw the creation of the first permanent international bureaus and associations devoted to educational issues (see Table 10.1).24 With its French, German and British members, the Permanent Committee of the International Congresses of Technical Education played a major role in ensuring the thematic and organizational continuity of congresses from 1897 to 1910.25 Created in Bordeaux in 1895, this committee was the first attempt to propose a centralized organization of international activities in technical education. However, its role in the coordination of international congresses was quite limited. Congresses were always organized by national associations, but the committee was put in charge of developing a scientific programme, centralizing reports, and following national implementations of their resolutions.26 The International Bureau of Secondary Education, founded in 1912, and the International Bureau of Teachers’ Associations from 1905 were only partially in line with the intellectual aims of the international congresses of the end of the nineteenth century. They instead formed international federations that grouped together national associations of teachers and professors rather than networks of educational specialists. They sought to defend the corporate interests of these professional categories.27 These organizations did

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not explicitly wish to standardize and harmonize national school policies, nor did they want to institutionalize a common disciplinary and intellectual framework on the international level, as in the scientific field.28 Their international dimension was exploited as a strategy during national political struggles in order to improve the working conditions of teachers. In this sense, they were not an elitist or exclusive network of experts, but they provided a striking example of the internationalization of the school question, as well as of the gradual establishment of permanent transnational associations.29

International Congresses and Reformist Movements: The Elitist Nature of Transnational Expertise The building of modern school systems created new problems and challenges that were increasingly debated by experts who met in new forms of transnational spaces. Consequently, it is important to focus on the actors constructing internationalism and transnational networks. From a theoretical point of view, this issue raises the question of the genesis of epistemic communities. According to Peter Haas, these are ‘networks of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain’30 as well as ‘channels through which new ideas circulate from societies to governments as well as from country to country’.31 To a certain extent, international congresses can be seen as places from which epistemic communities emerged due to the presence of particular professional categories with the scientific purpose of influencing policy makers. However, research on epistemic communities often overlooks tensions related to the social reproduction of knowledge and professional fields on the national level.32 Consequently, the focus should be on the social and professional specificities of reformers organizing and participating in international congresses, and the fact that the topics addressed often reflected purely national debates. In order to understand the national construction of transnational expertise, three national cases (France, Switzerland and Germany) will be considered, with emphasis on the similarities between them as well as their different ways of integrating the transnational sphere. A significant number of international congresses of the selected sample were held in France (nine out of nineteen). Participants were pedagogues, inspectors and headmasters, as well as secondary school teachers and university professors. They were members of several societies and associations dealing with educational issues, and were extremely active in organizing international meetings.33 In particular, the Société pour l’étude

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des questions d’enseignement supérieur (founded in 1878), which published the Revue internationale de l’enseignement, was noteworthy for its international openness and its role in the French reforms of the late nineteenth century.34 This society took an active part in the organization of the international congresses of 1889 and 1900 on secondary education, and with the organizers of congresses on primary education as well. School inspectors of the Ministère de l’Instruction publique as well as professors and senior lecturers at universities were especially involved in promoting these events. The organizing committees of the international congresses held in France during this period were made up of a social elite, including wellknown professors. Léo Saignat, professor of law at the University of Bordeaux, was the instigator of the international congresses on technical education, organized in France by the Société philomatique, and president of the International Permanent Committee, founded in 1895. Professors and intellectuals such as Alfred Croiset, Ernest Lavisse, Gabriel Compayré and Ferdinand Buisson, as well as Michel Bréal and Emile Levasseur, were deeply involved in promoting congresses addressing secondary educational issues. These influential reformers exercised great moral authority and maintained public interest in problems relating to the whole of the educational system. In addition, they were socialized with cross-national contacts thanks to their academic careers and positions.35 They were also affiliated with foreign scientific societies and held key positions in public administration (in particular, on the Conseil supérieur de l’Instruction publique).36 Likewise, Department of Education inspectors often held prominent positions on the organizing committees of international congresses.37 They specialized in specific educational topics and provided technical advice that was able to influence the policies of the ministry. In fact, school inspectors took advantage of such congresses to promote the introduction of manual labour and professional education in French schools. French primary and secondary school teachers were, however, not involved in the first wave of congresses. Their lack of cultural and social capital may explain why they held no key posts on the organizing committees, although their work was a subject of discussion during the congresses.38 The debates themselves were often supervised by school inspectors and university professors.39 By contrast, the International Bureau of Teachers’ Associations and the International Bureau of Secondary Education, set up by national federations of several European countries in 1905 and 1912,40 represented the first attempts to improve international collaboration among teachers and to bring union defence of their profession to a transnational level, but they did not provide significant scientific expertise on educational topics.

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Something similar may be said about the social profile of Swiss experts, although, between 1876 and 1910, the Swiss Confederation did not organize any international exhibitions or congresses devoted to education.41 However, Switzerland was always present abroad. The federal government sent delegates to international congresses, encouraging them, through propaganda, to visit the exhibitions. In this regard, Madeleine Herren speaks about a ‘governmental internationalism’ initiated by Switzerland in the second half of the nineteenth century.42 Political authorities, cantonal teachers’ associations and specific trade associations (e.g. Vorort) gave subsidies to their most interested members (experts, industrialists, foremen and even apprentices) in order to facilitate visits to World’s Fairs and participation in the congresses.43 Officially, the Swiss presence at international congresses was relatively discreet (an average of two delegates per congress during the whole period), and served mainly to discuss issues relating to technical and professional education. The delegates, mostly university professors, were selected according to their scientific status and their academic specialization. Alexandre Herzen (professor of Physiology and Medicine at the University of Lausanne and correspondent for the French Revue internationale de l’enseignement) and François Guex (professor of Pedagogy at the University of Lausanne) took part in the French congresses on primary and secondary education in 1889 and 1900. Leon Génoud, headmaster of Technicum in Fribourg and founder of the Revue suisse de l’enseignement professionnel, attended almost all congresses on technical and professional education from the 1880s. In particular, Génoud argued that the influence of World’s Fairs on educational reform was very strong. He also thought that the development of professional education was linked to economic progress, due to the necessity to train competent economic actors facing the new economic settings of the end of the nineteenth century.44 Furthermore, the radical wing of Swiss liberalism often used the international reference to support reforms. Alexandre Gavard, a politician in Geneva and director of the Department of Public Education, was on friendly terms with members of French educational societies and admitted to being guided by the resolutions of several congresses in 1889 for his school reform project in Geneva.45 Professors such as Guex were also members of the Société des instituteurs de la Suisse romande (the ‘Société pédagogique romande’ after 1889), and used this society to spread information to other Swiss teachers. While underlining the advantages of the Swiss educational system, these rapporteurs often recognized the usefulness of international comparison: already in 1868, the Swiss pedagogue Alexandre Daguet wrote that ‘the advantage and the great utility of Exhibition and Congresses (in Paris) lie especially in comparisons

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s­ imilar to a mirror, where every country can show itself with its qualities and defects’.46 Similarly, the director of the Federal Office of Statistics, Johann Jakob Kummer, noted how international exhibitions highlighted both a nation’s capacity for achievement and its weaknesses.47 Official Swiss participation at congresses was controlled by the federal government, and the Conférence intercantonale des Chefs des Départements de l’Instruction Publique published reports.48 Despite the extreme heterogeneity of the Swiss school system, the discussions resulting from these congresses therefore influenced the entire country. Finally, German professors and pedagogues were conspicuous in their relative absence from the transnational arena. During the nineteenth century, the German school system was seen as a model by most European reformers: on the one hand, as a successful scientific model, due to its prestigious universities, and on the other, as a practical example of secondary and professional education.49 The European reform movement often turned to this model as a source of inspiration.50 In this way, it would have been possible to imagine the rise of a cultural strategy centred on the prestige of the German educational system. Despite the educational fame of Germany, no congress was organized there during the period under study. In addition, official German delegations to international congresses were not very numerous. Unlike the French and Swiss literature on the subject, German historiography stresses that internationalism was not a permanent strategy used during reform processes, although this attitude changed following the evolution of school debates.51 The major reason for the absence of German official delegates at French congresses was the political tension that existed between German and French governments after the war of 1870–71. However, some representatives were unofficially present at the international congresses in Paris. For instance, at the Congress of Secondary Education in 1889 three headmasters of women’s secondary schools, as well as a correspondent of the French Revue internationale de l’enseignement (Mr. Arndt, professor of History at the University of Leipzig), took part in the debate. Likewise, German delegates were very active in the congresses on technical education, and the president of the German Alliance for Education, Richard Stegemann, was a member of the Permanent Committee. By contrast, exhibitions and congresses in the United States were characterized by the massive attendance of German teachers and professors, as well as by remarkable official education sections. Cultural strategy and propaganda seem to have been directed above all towards the United States, where German schools were particularly well established,52 rather than towards Europe.53 In Europe, German reformers had a more visible role in establishing scientific correspondence with their European counterparts and in setting up networks

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for visitors within the framework of pedagogical missions, rather than in attending international meetings. Despite the conciseness of the above mentioned examples, the elitist and exclusive nature of international congresses becomes apparent. Reformers who participated in international congresses clearly shared professional ties and exchanged ideas in an attempt to influence policy. In addition, these professors and inspectors had close connections to political power and decision makers through their professional status or their membership of governmental institutions. Within the framework of international congresses, reformers clarified cause and effect relationships and helped states to formulate policies by proposing alternatives.54 National experts also formed part of a wider social and cultural group, which gradually constructed an ‘international grammar’ of school reform on the basis of their expertise.55 Knowledge about foreign school systems legitimated their suggestions for reform, while reinforcing their scientific authority ‒ a valuable asset for their academic careers. As places where experts could meet and talk, congresses provided these professors and inspectors with the possibility of comparing their school systems with those of their European counterparts. Such transnational activities thus increased the social and cultural capital of reformers, and facilitated the constitution of an ‘international capital’ of knowledge, experience and personal contacts that could be used as a form of social distinction on the national level.56 However, as the third part of this chapter will show, national stakes always remained important. Consequently, it is necessary to take into account interactions between the national and international levels and, in particular, those mechanisms that regulated the construction of transnational spaces and their impact on national school issues.57

Congresses between National Specificities and the Rise of an International School Culture Promoters and participants in international congresses aspired to create an ideal space for international discussion and comparison between ­representatives of different national educational systems. By operating as an epistemic community, this should have resulted in a coordinated programme of urgent reforms to be applied by the ministries and parliaments concerned. Yet, in spite of recurring rhetoric on the possibilities of international collaboration and the construction of a common set of reforms, the national dimension remained significant for two reasons. First, the place where a congress was held greatly influenced foreign attendance, and this prevented these meetings from being truly

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i­ nternational. At the congresses in Belgium, France or the United States, the majority of attendees were local representatives.58 In addition, geographical distance and a lack of English-language skills considerably reduced the attendance of European reformers at the congresses held in the United States (Philadelphia 1876, New Orleans 1884–85 and Chicago 1893).59 Secondly, topic choice depended on current national debates. In France, discussion topics were selected and prepared in advance by the organizing committee. Foreign members and participants were not involved in preparation of the programme.60 Although several issues were clearly cross-national (such as the overproduction of graduates and the new educational challenges due to industrialization),61 these were always adapted to national contexts. Starting from the characteristics of each particular national system, reformist groups addressed issues that were then discussed on the transnational level. International congresses thus operated as informal networks by providing intellectual exchange and collaboration between national experts. The same questions were afterwards retranslated for use in national debates and country specific educational reform. In this way, the comparative analysis of various national organizations and identification of the most effective formulas led to the discovery of a wide field of possibilities and alternatives. The final resolutions of these congresses show that respect for national peculiarities was the sine qua non condition of any reform. Professor Alfred Croiset repeatedly emphasized this: Among different conceptions of teaching and schooling, there must be a common and variable part due to the social situation of each country: the common part is – wherever one proposes the ideal of educated men – ­everything that contributes to the moral, physical and intellectual preparation for life of man in the modern world. Variable elements are modifications, changes as well as phenomena of adaptation to the geographical and historical environment of a nation.62

In the same way, Charles Victor Langlois, professor of History at the Sorbonne, analysed the main differences between the various school systems in Europe around 1900. His report showed how countries with an ‘aristocratic’ political structure, such as Great Britain and Germany, differed from ‘democracies’, such as Switzerland and the United States, or from ‘hybrid’ political regimes, like France.63 Consequently, different political traditions combined with differing parameters for the (re)production of a social elite made it hard to propose a general educational model valid for all national cases. A single rule for all societies was therefore impossible, even dangerous. At the end of the congresses, reformers refused to commit themselves to any common projects. Instead, they

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studied how to adapt school systems within their existing societies and political structures. The relative absence of coordinated international action is another reason for seeing the congresses as events that remained largely confined to their national contexts and responded to internal challenges only. In France, a recurrent topic during the last decades of the nineteenth century was the introduction of manual work and the teaching of drawing in primary schools.64 The French school inspector Gustave-Adolphe Salicis brought back, from the 1880 International Congress of Brussels, the idea of making manual work compulsory in primary schools.65 This was implemented in France at the beginning of the 1880s. In the Swiss case, the desire to make primary schools more professional also played a central role in the pedagogical debate because the teaching of drawing and manual work became compulsory in the 1890s. According to the Swiss national councillor Jürgen Schäppi, congresses, in their desire to improve education, helped to strengthen the utilitarian character of primary schools in countries like Great Britain, France and Austria-Hungary.66 Secondary education was another significant example. In France, topics discussed at congresses were selected by the organizing committees according to the most urgent issues. For instance, in 1889, questions related to the baccalauréat, other secondary school examinations and problems concerning teacher training received great attention because of their importance in several reform projects at the end of the 1880s. By 1900 this was no longer the case.67 By contrast, the quarrel between advocates of classical and modern education and the controversy over the place of ancient languages and modern sciences in the curriculum continued. The social role of secondary education and its function in the construction of a social elite also held the attention of reformers. The German school model, in particular the ‘Realschule’ model, addressed the issue of the social role of secondary education.68 The very aim of teaching ‘realities’ (modern languages and sciences rather than ancient languages) and the earlier ‘utilitarian’ specialization of secondary schools was precisely to find a balance between a traditional and a modern approach to education, or more specifically, between reproducing the existing social order and meeting new economic demands.69 Thanks to their professional status and international capital, national experts who participated in congresses made use of all these arguments to influence state policies. In summary, one of the main effects of international congresses was the setting up of national reform agendas.70 Reports and resolutions from educational exhibitions and meetings helped to establish a reformist schedule that finally triggered a set of initiatives taken by groups of reformers in the numerous European states concerned.71

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From a methodological point of view, an overall analysis of the international congresses held between 1876 and 1910 raises the question of transnational activities as a relevant variable when defining forms of schooling. Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann suggest that the transnational dimension may be studied as an analytical level that interacts with the local and the national levels: it ‘produces its own logics with feedback effects upon other space-structuring logics’.72 Similarly, sociologists of education of the Stanford group describe the universalization of modern schooling73 and the dynamics of convergence and divergence in the setting up of educational systems.74 Studies relating to the progressive worldwide institutionalization of the European school model since the end of nineteenth century, namely the spreading of a ‘state system of mass education’, provide a stimulating theoretical framework.75 The juxtaposition of different school models during international congresses, ranked according to effectiveness, gradually led to the emergence of common cognitive frameworks that shaped the national school systems of Western Europe. As a result, the guidelines for the educational reforms of the late nineteenth century basically had a common cultural matrix. In fact, congresses and World’s Fairs were a chance for reformers to assess the major trends in school organization and pedagogy. François Guex, a Swiss delegate to the French exhibitions, before leaving for Paris in 1900, argued that the main purpose of his mission was indeed ‘to report on the current state of education in the various civilized nations, and to evaluate to what degree these various nations are involved in this movement’.76 From this perspective, it is possible to identify three main results of international congresses and transnational activities in the educational field. First, participation in international exhibitions revealed the universal character of the evolution of school systems during the nineteenth century. Indeed, the existence of distinctive national models did not prevent the emergence of universal educational principles. For primary education, international conferences showed how the concepts of obligation, gratuitousness and secularism finally spread throughout Europe during the last decades of the nineteenth century.77 Furthermore, in most cases, the state, namely a public entity, was in charge of setting up and consolidating the school system.78 In this sense, François Guex emphasized in his rapport for the Congress of 1900 the universalization of the fundamental principles of primary education, and, especially, the spreading of the ideas of compulsory and public education.79 Emile Levasseur, professor of statistics and Collège de France’s administrator, also identified the basic principles of universalization of the school system with free compulsory education.80 The nineteenth century was thus characterized by the development of a common basis for school systems in all the so-called civilized countries.81

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Secondly, the move towards a division between a classical and a modern education in secondary schools, inspired by the German example, emerged during international congresses.82 According to Charles Victor Langlois, the gradual decline of classical studies throughout the nineteenth century occurred in parallel with the emergence of a more diversified school system. In order to study the major trends and significance of these reforms, Fritz Ringer suggests the concept of ‘segmentation’: the ‘process of subdivision of educational systems in parallel schools and programmes distinguished by curriculum and social background of students’.83 During the nineteenth century, the construction of a complex and coordinated educational system, which included a wide range of school levels based on sex, social origin, religion, age, individual skills or merit, became the general long-term trend characterizing most of the European school systems.84 International congresses encouraged the grasping of new educational opportunities in order to meet the growing ambitions of the middle class, and strove to meet the new educational challenges posed by industrialization.85 Along with the establishment of the state authority as a regulating entity (except for perhaps in Great Britain where the role of private schools remained very important), all countries saw this evolution as simultaneously necessary. Through discussion and exchange on the international level, the principle of the ‘segmentation’ of school systems spread to all European countries. Thirdly, international congresses remained informal spaces of transnational intellectual exchange. However, the beginning of the twentieth century saw their gradual transformation into structured and organized transnational networks (see Table 10.1).86 At that time, international associations and bureaus still had limited influence, but they represented a first step towards the formal transnational networks which were to be established in the field of education during the interwar period. Indeed, they were reactivated after the First World War as transnational networks, working with international organizations linked to the League of Nations.87

Conclusion As places of intellectual exchange promoted by specific reformist groups, international congresses of education offer an interesting research field for the analysis of the international circulation of pedagogical ideas and school models in Western Europe. Unlike the traditional comparative approach, this analytical perspective does not involve searching for every common characteristic between two or more national cases.88 By contrast, it allows

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us to see some problems too often restricted to a national framework in the context of the international movement and circulation of pedagogical ideas, crossing borders and mobilizing a set of solutions according to the political and cultural traditions of each national context. In this context, congresses served as institutional spaces where experts could compare and contrast various ideas about schooling. They stimulated intellectual exchange about educational problems and facilitated the comparison of national school systems. In our three cases, experts constituted an elitist and exclusive network, mostly made up of university professors and school inspectors who sought to identify a central set of problems and influence national policies. The concept of an epistemic community summarizes the ways in which specialized technical advice (re)oriented state behaviour and helps to explain how different national policies may converge. Although transnational groups remained informal, sharing casual beliefs and views that were always adapted to national debates, they created a new sphere of expertise that superseded former reformist strategies. Despite the absence of centralized organizations on the international level until the early twentieth century, congresses of education paved the way for the development of an international grammar of school reform, which largely circumvented the nation-state. Nevertheless, national stakes always constituted an important dimension. On the one hand, the main achievement of international congresses was the acknowledgment of cultural and political specificities as elements not to be ignored or bypassed by reformers. Rather than discussions on a universal school model, international congresses proposed a wide spectrum of possible changes according to different national contexts. On the other hand, the transnational sphere may be seen as a strategy to improve scientific and reformist legitimacy. Indeed, international comparisons and transnational discussions on educational issues provided additional knowledge and symbolic capital to reformers, who ultimately contributed to shape national reform agendas.

Notes 1. F. Ringer, Education and Society in Modern Europe (Bloomington 1979). 2. A. Iriye and J. Osterhammel (eds), A History of the World. A World Connecting, 1870–1945 (Cambridge 2012). 3. M. Caruso, T. Koinzer, C. Mayer and K. Priem (eds), Zirkulation und Transformation: Pädagogische Grenzüberschreitungen in historischer Perspektive (Cologne 2013); J. Schriewer

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(ed), Weltkultur und Kulturelle Bedeutungswelten. Zur Globalisierung von Bildungsdiskursen (Frankfurt and New–York 2007); E. Fuchs (ed), Bildung International. Historische Perspektiven und aktuelle Entwicklungen (Würzburg 2006); C. Charle, J. Schriewer and P. Wagner (eds), Transnational Intellectual Networks: Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities (Frankfurt and New York 2004). 4. J.F. Chanet, ‘Instruction publique, éducation nationale et liberté d’enseignement en Europe occidentale au XIXe siècle’, Paedagogica Historica 41 (2005): 10. For a general overview of ‘educational policy borrowings’ from a historical point of view, see D. Phillips and K. Ochs (eds), Educational Policy Borrowings: Historical Perspectives (Oxford 2004); G. Steiner-Khamsi (ed), The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending (New–York 2004). 5. For a general overview, see Eckhardt Fuchs, ‘Räume und Mechanismen der internationalen Wissenschaftskommunikation und Ideenzirkulation vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur 27 (1) (2002): 122–40. On the role of pedagogical press, see E. Fuchs, P. Drewek, M. Zimmer-Müller, Internationale Rezeption in pädagogischen Zeitschriften im deutsch-amerikanischen Vergleich 1871–1945/50 (Berlin 2010). 6. According to David Thelen, the transnational approach focuses on ‘how a particular phenomenon passed over the nation as a whole, how it passed across the nation, seeing how it bumped over natural and man-made features, or how it passed through, transforming and being transformed’: D. Thelen, ‘The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History’, Journal of American History 86 (1999]: 968. For a wider historiographical discussion, see P-Y. Saunier, Transnational History (Basingstoke 2013); P. Clavin, ‘Defining transnationalism’, Contemporary European History 14 (4) (2005): 421–29. 7. P. Haas, ‘Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination’, International Organization 46(1) (1992): 1–35. 8. On the nineteenth century’s internationalism, see M.H. Geyer and J. Paulmann (eds), The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840’s to the First World War (Oxford 2008). 9. Also see C. Leonards and N. Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform, 1840– 1880’, International Review of Social History 55(2) (2010): 215–39. 10. A. Rasmussen, ‘L’internationale scientifique, 1890–1914’, (Ph.D. dissertation, EHESS Paris, 1995). 11. M. Lawn (ed.), Modelling the Future. Exhibitions and the Materiality of Education (Oxford 2009). 12. C. Prochasson, ‘Les Congrès, lieux de l’échange intellectuel. Introduction’, Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 7 (1989): 5–22. 13. For an overview of the social and legal protection of children from an international perspective, see J. Droux, ‘L’internationalisation de la protection de l’enfance: acteurs, concurrences et projets transnationaux (1900–1925)’, Critique internationale 52 (2011): 17–33; M.-S. Dupont-Mouchat and E. Pierre (eds), Enfance et justice au XIXe siècle. Essais d’histoire comparée de la protection de l’enfance 1820–1914. France, Belgique, Pays-Bas, Canada (Paris 2001). 14. C. Rollet, ‘La santé et la protection des enfants vues à travers les congrès internationaux’, Annales de démographie historique 101 (2001): 113–16. 15. Union des Associations Internationales, Les congrès internationaux de 1681 à 1899, de 1900 à 1919. Liste complete (Brussels 1960). Another list has been edited by Gregory Winifred under the auspices of the Bibliographical Society of America: G. Winifred,

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International Congresses and Conferences, 1840–1937: A Union List of their Publications Available in Libraries of the United States and Canada (New York 1938). 16. J.N. Luc and P. Savoie (eds),  ‘L’État et l’éducation en Europe, XVIIIe–XXIe siècles’, Histoire de l’éducation 134 (2012); A. Green, Education and State Formation. The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA (London 1990). 17. E. Fuchs, ‘Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congress in the Early Twentieth Century’, Paedagogica Historica 5–6 (2004): 759–61. 18. For a general overview of international congresses during World’s Fairs, see A. Rasmussen, ‘Jalons pour une histoire des congrès internationaux au XIXe siècle: régulation scientifique et propagande intellectuelle’, Relations internationales 62 (1990): 115–33. 19. Klaus Dittrich, Experts Going Transnational: Education at World Exhibitions during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Portsmouth, 2010). 20. Ligue Belge de l’Enseignement, Congrès international de l’enseignement (Brussels 1880); B. Rheims, Congrès international de l’enseignement tenu à Bruxelles, du 22 au 29 août 1880. Deuxième section. Enseignement secondaire (Paris 1880). 21. Emile Durkheim argued that at the end of the nineteenth century the ‘school question’ raised common problems in every Western country. See E. Durkheim, L’évolution pédagogique en France (Paris 1990), 13. 22. See P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux’, Genèses 57 (2007): 115. 23. Le congrès international de l’enseignement supérieur et de l’enseignement secondaire en 1889 (Paris 1890), 5. 24. A. Rasmussen, ‘Tournant, inflexions, ruptures: le moment internationaliste’, Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 19 (2001): 27–41. 25. This committee was composed of three well-known personalities: Léo Saignat (professor of Law at the University of Bordeaux), Richard Stegemann (president of the German Alliance for Education) and Spencer Compton Cavendish (President of the Board of Education between 1900 and 1902.). 26. Le congrès international de l’enseignement technique (Paris 1900), 605. 27. See ‘La Fédération des instituteurs d’Europe’, Revue de l’enseignement primaire et primaire supérieur 39 (1907): 478–79; Bureau international des fédérations d’institutrices et d’instituteurs, Deuxième congrès de l’enseignement primaire. Compte rendu officiel (Paris 1910). 28. Especially see the special issue of the Revue germanique internationale entitled ‘La fabrique internationale de la science’ 10 (2010). On this question also see E. Crawford, T. Shin and S. Sörlin, ‘The Nationalization and Denationalization of the Sciences: An Introductory Essay’ in Denationalizing Science: The Contexts of International Scientific Practice, eds Crawford, Shin and Sörlin (Dordrecht 1992), 1–42; E. Brian, ‘Transactions statistiques au XIXe siècle. Mouvements internationaux de capitaux symboliques’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 145 (2002): 34–46. 29. Similar evolution took place in the field of social reform as well. See R. Gregarek, ‘Le mirage de l’Europe sociale. Associations internationales de politique sociale au tournant du 20e siècle’, Vingtième Siècle 48 (199): 103–18. 30. Haas, ‘Epistemic Communities’, 4. 31. Ibid., 27. 32. For a critical analysis of this concept, see Y. Viltard, ‘L’étrange carrière du concept d’épistémè en science politique’, Raisons politiques 23 (2006): 195–201; S. Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des politiques sociales dans l’entre-deux-guerres’, Genèses 71 (2008): 26–46.

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33. French National Archives, ‘Congrès divers’, F17 3098. 34. C. Charle, La République des universitaires, 1870–1940 (Paris 1994), 21–31. 35. M. Werner, ‘Philological Networks: A History of Disciplines and Academic Reform in Nineteenth-Century France’ in Charle, Schriewer and Wagner, Transnational Intellectual Networks, 205–24. 36. The Higher Council for Public Instruction, founded in 1850, was a consultative commission of the French Ministère de l’Instruction publique that included whole actors of the educational community. 37. School inspectors such as Gustave Salicis, Guillaume Jost, Félix Martel and Paul Jacquemart played a major role in organizing international congresses as well as pedagogical surveys in foreign countries. For an overview of the French pedagogical missions during the nineteenth century, see D. Matasci, ‘Le système scolaire français et ses miroirs. Les missions pédagogiques entre comparaison internationale et circulation des savoirs (1842–1914)’, Histoire de l’Education 125 (2010): 5–26. 38. P. Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’ in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J.G. Richardson (New York 1986), 241–58. 39. ‘Le congrès international de l’enseignement secondaire’, Revue internationale de l’enseignement (1889): 166. 40. The International Bureau of Teachers’ Associations included representatives of France, Germany, England, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. The International Bureau of Secondary Education was limited to France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Holland. 41. There were some exceptions, such as the Congrès international de l’enseignement du dessin (held in Bern in 1904) and the Congrès international de l’enseignement ménager (held in Fribourg in 1908). 42. M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914 (Munich 2000). 43. Swiss Federal Archives, ‛Ausstellung im Ausland’, n. 477 (1880–1907), vol. 62 03 10. 44. L. Genoud, L’enseignement professionnel pratique à l’Exposition de Chicago, (Fribourg 1894); L. Genoud, L’enseignement à l’Exposition universelle, Paris, 1900. L’enseignement professionnel (Fribourg 1901). 45. State Archives of Geneva, Mémorial du Grand conseil (1890), 1032. 46. Rapports sur l’exposition scolaire de Paris en 1867, adressés aux gouvernements cantonaux et à la Société des instituteurs de la Suisse romande par les délégués des cantons et de la Société: MM. Chappuis–Vuichoud, Maillard, Favre, Biolley, Paroz, Fromaigeat et Guerne. Rapports complétés, mis en ordre et précédés d’une introduction par A. Daguet, président de la délégation et rapporteur général (Lausanne 1868): 133. 47. J.J. Kummer, Das Fortbildungsschulwesen (Bern 1874), 9. 48. ‛Die Schule auf der Weltausstellung’, Der Pionier 10 (1890–1900): 34–53. 49. On the impact of the German reference in France, see D. Matasci, ‘L’école républicaine et l’étranger. Acteurs et espaces de l’internationalisation de la “réforme scolaire” en France (1870-première moitié du XXe siècle)’, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Geneva– EHESS Paris, 2012). 50. Many studies address the importance of the German school model during the nineteenth century. For primary and secondary education see D. Phillips, ‛Mehr als Reiseberichte? Britische Beobachter des deutschen Bildungswesens im 19. Jahrhundert’ in Weltkultur und kulturelle Bedeutungswelten. Zur Globalisierung von Bildungsdiskursen, ed. J. Schriewer (Frankfurt and New York 2007), 23–43; B. Trouillet, ‘Der Sieg des ­preussischen Schulmeisters’ und seine Folgen für Frankreich, 1870–1914 (Cologne 1991). On the diffusion

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of German university model, see M. Schalenberg, Humboldt auf Reisen? Die Rezeption des deutschen Universitätsmodells in den französischen und britischen Reformdiskursen (1810– 1870) (Basel 2003); R.C. Schwinges (ed), Humboldt international: der Export des deutschen Universitätsmodells im 19. und 20.Jahrhundert (Basel 2001). 51. P. Gonon, Das internationale Argument in der Bildungsreform. Die Rolle internationaler Bezüge in den bildungspolitischen Debatten zur schweizerischen Berufsbildung und zur englischen Reform der Sekundarstufe II (Bern 1998), 161; B. Zymek, Das Ausland als Argument in der pädagogischen Reformdiskussion. Schulpolitische Selbstrechtfertigung, Auslandspropaganda, internationale Verständigung und Ansätze zu einer Vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaft in des internationalen Berichterstattung deutscher pädagogischer Zeitschriften, 1871–1952 (Ratingen 1975). 52. On German interest in American education, see H. Geitz, J. Heideking and J. Herbst (eds), German Influences on Education in the United States to 1917, (Cambridge 1995);  B.  Goldberg, ‘The Forty-Eighters and the School System in America: The Theory and Practice of Reform’ in The German Forty-Eighters in the United States, ed. C.L. Brancaforte (New York 1989), 203–18. 53. E. Fuchs, ‛Gouvernamentaler Internationalismus und Bildung: Deutschland und die USA am Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts’ in Schriewer, Weltkultur und kulturelle Bedeutungswelten, 45–73. 54. Haas, ‘Epistemic Communities’, 15–16. 55. On the concept of ‘grammar of schooling’, see D. Tyack and W. Tobin, ‛The “grammar” of schooling: why has it been so hard to change’, American Educational Research Journal 31 (3) (1994): 453–79. 56. Y. Dezalay, ‘Les courtiers de l’international. Héritiers cosmopolites, mercenaires de l’impérialisme et missionnaires de l’universel’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 151–52 (2004): 7. Similarly, Peter Haas asserts that these communities form a network that confers authority and legitimacy to its members. 57. K.K. Patel, Nach der Nationalfixiertheit. Perspektiven einer transnationalen Geschichte (Berlin 2004), 11. 58. See for example International Conference on Education: Held at Philadelphia, July 17 and 18: in Connection with the International Exhibition of 1876 (Washington 1877); A. Du Mesnil, Lettre à Jules Ferry (Paris 1880). A critique is also provided by Ernst Von Sallwürk in his article ‘Der internationaler Kongress in Brüssel’, Deutsche Blätter für Erziehenden Unterricht 46 (1880): 366. 59. At the time of the exhibition and congress in Chicago, the Swiss Government noted the indifference of many potential participants. The main reasons for this indifference were geographical distance and financial costs of travel. See Feuille fédérale (14 Dec. 1892), 980. 60. H. Doliveux, ‘Le congrès international de l’enseignement primaire de 1900’, Revue pédagogique 10 (1900): 338–40. 61. See Ringer, Education and Society. 62. Le Congrès international de l’enseignement secondaire à l’exposition universelle de 1900. Procès verbaux et comptes-rendus officiels (Paris 1901), 81. 63. C.V. Langlois, Exposition universelle. Rapports du jury international–Etranger (Paris 1900), 101–14. 64. R. d’Enfert, ‘L’introduction du travail manuel dans les écoles primaires de garçons’, Histoire de l’éducation 113 (2007): 35–41. 65. P. Rougier-Pintiaux, ‘Les instituteurs et l’introduction du travail manuel dans les écoles primaires de garçons du XIXe siècle’, Revue de sociologie française 29 (1988): 279. Also see Salicis’ report: G. Salicis, De l’enseignement manuel et professionnel en Allemagne et dans

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les pays du Nord. Rapport à M. le ministre de l’Instruction publique sur une mission relative à l’enseignement du travail manuel dans divers pays étrangers (Paris 1887). 66. J. Schäppi, Bausteine zur Schule der Zukunft (Zurich 1899). 67. Le congrès international de l’enseignement supérieur et de l’enseignement secondaire en 1889 (Paris 1890). 68. See the report of Max Leclerc  : Le congrès international de l’enseignement secondaire à l’exposition universelle de 1900. Procès verbaux et comptes rendus officiels (Paris 1901): 81–88. 69. See R. Anderson, ‘The Idea of Secondary School in Nineteenth-century Europe’, Paedagogica Historica 40 (2004): 93–106. 70. D. Béland, ‘Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective’, Social Policy and Administration 39 (2005): 1–18. 71. E. Petit, De l’École à la Cité. Études sur l’Education populaire (Paris 1910): 130–31. 72. M. Werner and B. Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison. Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory 45 (2006): 43. 73. A. Benavot and P. Riddle, ‛The Expansion of Primary Education, 1870–1940: Trends and Issues’, Sociology of Education 61 (1988): 191–210. 74. A. Inkeles and L. Sirowy, ‘Convergent and Divergent Trends in National Educational Systems’, Social Forces 62 (1983): 303–33. 75. F.O. Ramirez and J. Boli, ‘The Political Institutionalization of Compulsory Education: the Rise of Compulsory Schooling in the Western Cultural Context’, in A Significant Social Revolution: Cross-Cultural Aspects of the Evolution of Compulsory Education, ed. J. A. Mangan (London 1994): 1–20. 76. Conférence intercantonale de la Suisse romande, L’école primaire à l’exposition universelle Paris 1900 (Sion 1903), 2. 77. The crucial issue of secular education was not directly tackled during these meetings. This could be explained by the fact that international congresses, especially those on primary education organized in France, gathered together partisans of secular education: participants were already convinced by the necessity to separate education from religion. For a comparative perspective on the history of secularization of schools in Europe, see B. Mély, La question de la séparation des églises et de l’école dans quelques pays européens: Allemagne, France, Grande-Bretagne, Italie (1789–1914) (Lausanne 2004). 78. E. Levasseur, L’enseignement primaire dans les pays civilisés (Paris 1897), 494. 79. F. Guex, Education et instruction. Rapport présenté au Haut Conseil fédéral sur le groupe I de l’Exposition universelle Paris 1900 (Lausanne 1903), 39. 80. Levasseur, L’enseignement primaire, 491–514. 81. E. Levasseur, ‘Instruction primaire et secondaire’, Exposition universelle de Vienne en 1873. Rapports vol. IV (Paris 1875): 506–29. 82. Langlois, Exposition universelle, 110. 83. F. Ringer, ‘La segmentation des systèmes d’enseignement. Les réformes de l’enseignement secondaire français et prussien, 1865–1920’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 149 (2003): 6. 84. See F. Ringer, D. Müller and S. Brian (eds), The Rise of the Modern Educational System: Structural Change and Social Reproduction (1870–1920) (Cambridge and Paris 1987). 85. H. Bérenger, Congrès international de l’enseignement secondaire, tenu à Paris du 31 juillet au 5 août 1900. Procès–verbaux sommaires (Paris 1900). 86. For a history of international organizations, see M. Herren, Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung (Darmstadt 2009). 87. For a synthetic overview of the educational activities of the League of Nations and other international organizations after the First World War, see R. Hofstetter

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and B. Schneuwly, ‘The International Bureau of Education (1925–1968): a Platform for Designing a “Chart of World Aspirations for Education”’, European Educational Research Journal 12 (2): 215–30; E. Fuchs, ‘The Creation of New International Networks in Education: The League of Nations and Educational Organization in the 1920s’, Paedagogica Historica 43 (2007): 199–209. 88. For a discussion on the limits of comparative history, see M. Werner and B. Zimmermann, De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée (Paris 2004); J. Kocka,  ‘Comparison and beyond’, History and Theory 42 (2003): 39–44.

Chapter 11

From Transnational Reformist Network to International Organization The International Association for Labour Legislation and the International Labour Organization, 1900–1930s

( Sandrine Kott

Between January and April 1919, the Commission for Labour Legislation (Commission pour la Législation du Travail) gathered in Paris, on the margins of the Peace Conference proper, to discuss the setting up of a new International Labour Organization (ILO) associated with the League of Nations. Reformist union activists, politicians and commis d’Etat of the victorious powers that met in Paris were brought together against the Bolshevist revolution1 as well as by the common ideas and experiences gained as participants, members or delegates of the International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL), created in 1900. The most influential among them were the Briton Malcolm Delevingne, the Frenchman Arthur Fontaine and the Belgian Ernest Mahaim, all of whom had regularly met during the annual IALL gatherings. Furthermore, as clearly emerges from the proceedings of the commission, experts previously involved in the IALL had provided the national delegations sent to Paris with preparatory memoranda that then became the basis of the discussions.2 Finally, prominent unionists, such as the Frenchman Léon Jouhaux and the American Samuel Gompers who were both members of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) founded in 1913, reiterated the support that the IFTU had given during the war for the creation of a new institution based upon the principles set forth by the IALL.3 This continuity between the IALL and the ILO has already been underpinned by several studies that have inspired my contribution.4 My aim Notes for this chapter begin on page 254.

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here is to expand the scope of previous studies by investigating the complicated synergy between the IALL and the ILO from 1900, when the IALL was established, to 1934, the year of its suspension. Unlike the abovementioned studies, I will not limit myself to considering the IALL as a ‘private’ predecessor of the ILO; rather, I wish to present a parallel history of both organizations in order to better understand the characteristics and specificities of late nineteenth-century international associations in contrast to the new international organizations.5 Moreover, the continuation of the IALL during the 1920s and its relations with the ILO questions the very nature of international organizations. Finally, and more broadly, analysing the complex IALL–ILO relations calls into question the usual dichotomy between official and unofficial, public and private, government and civil society, and requires the use of more nuanced distinctions between the two kinds of organization, and the social and political realities they encompass. This parallel and connected history of the IALL and the ILO between 1900 and 1934 fosters a reflection on three intertwined matters that are at the core of the emerging historiography on international organizations and transnational networks. The first is about the synergy between the transnational and international levels. In the context of this study the transnational dimension will refer to flows and circulations of ideas and know-how between national spaces carried by networks of actors.6 These flows could sometimes (but did not necessarily) feed political or social projects and programmes, and even became institutionalized at an international level in associations or organizations.7 The circulation of ideas in the area of social reforms that is at the centre of this study provides a good example of the conditions of this transition from the transnational to the international and vice versa. The second interwoven matter is the insight into the complexity of the interactions between the national and international/transnational sphere, and the attempt to understand how and by which channels knowledge and know-how, created and spread within various national spheres, could first feed transnational flows and secondly be used for specific and adequate projects at the international level. The third matter is to study the associations and organizations through the actors that founded and brought them to life, which in my view is an adequate way to grasp these complex interactions. I deal more specifically with individual and collective voluntary members of the IALL, representatives of governments, social partners and international civil servants. I focus on the vexed question of social reform to highlight the existence and the main features of international milieus: networks of reformers sharing common objectives and/or knowledge,8 groups of social experts9 and ­epistemic communities.10 The study will develop chronologically to

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grasp the evolution and dynamics of these milieus as both transnational networks and international bodies.

The International Association for Labour Legislation as a Reformist Network The IALL was set up during the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. This was a highly symbolic peak of early twentieth-century internationalism, characterized by the tension between national accomplishments and productions on the one hand and transnational exchange of knowledge, know-how and expertise on the other.11 This international association was  indeed the result of preliminary work by national committees  formed  in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1901, with the help of the city of Basel and the support of the Swiss government, the association was able to open an office (the International Labour Office) directed by Stefan Bauer (1865–1934), a professor of economics who had graduated from the University of Vienna.12 The original purpose of the office was to survey the progress of national social legislations and to publish a monthly bulletin that would provide the persons involved in social political issues with the most important information.13 But the office went beyond this task; it studied special social problems and convened congresses to discuss and promote social protection. The IALL successfully ensured national ratifications of the first international convention on night employment for women in 1910 and the prohibition of the use of white phosphorus matches in 1912. As already stated, both the place and the date of the IALL’s foundation locate it in the ‘international turn’.14 Several international conferences, such as the International Trade Union Congress in Paris in 1886, the Intergovernmental Conference in Berlin in 1890, the International Expert Conference in Brussels in 1897 and the International Social Congress in Zurich the same year15 preceded the IALL’s foundation. Other international associations like the Permanent Committee for Social Insurance and the International Association for the Fight against Unemployment were founded before the First World War. All of these congresses and associations can be considered as milestones on the road to a progressive convergence and the emergence of an international reform movement. In this context, the IALL functioned as a place of convergence for several reformist trends that had previously developed nationally and internationally in response to the social problems generated by rapid industrialization and to try to find, develop and implement social reforms. Among

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those who got involved in the newly founded international association we can discern three international schools of thought.16 The social liberals were represented by Frenchman Paul Cauwes, Belgian Ernest Mahaim, German Lujo Brentano, Austrian Eugen Philippovich17 and Briton Herbert Samuel. The second school, embodied by the Dutch bishop Mgr Nolens, the Swiss Joseph Beck and the German employer Franz Brandts, represented the social Christian tradition within their respective national sections. The fact that the association was founded in the Musée Social, a central place of French social Catholicism, was a sign of the importance of this tradition within the newly founded association.18 It is worth noting that the Vatican financially supported the IALL (which, after 1925, became the International Association for Social Progress).19 Although trade unionists were underrepresented, the socialist tradition was not entirely absent thanks to the presence of two Swiss men, August Keufer and Herrmann Greulich, the Britons Sidney and Beatrice Webb and the Frenchman Albert Thomas, all of whom represented the reformist wing of the second international and trade union movement. Heinrich Scherrer, a socialist member of the Swiss Ständerat, was the first president of the association between 1901 and 1919. In accordance with this diversity, various ways of looking at and solving the social question coexisted and were discussed within the national sections of the IALL or during the annual international meeting of this association. These annual meetings can be regarded as truly transnational places. Catholic employers, like the Frenchman Léon Harmel and the German Franz Brandts, promoted the so-called ‘paternalist’ way, whereas Auguste Keufer and Herrmann Greulich, and also professors like the Frenchman Charles Gide, supported by reformist trade unionism (and some social liberals), put forward a cooperative and self-help idea to solve the question. Finally, civil servants or ministers, like the Frenchman Arthur Fontaine,20 the German Freiherr von Berlepsch and the Briton Herbert Samuel,21 who were in charge of the implementation of public social policies in their respective nations, favoured a legislative solution. Even if the meetings of the association were used as stages for nationalistic discourses,22 these trends of thoughts were not associated with a particular nation or government, they were just differing answers to common social problems that arose in the wake of industrialization. Given its social composition, the association can be regarded as a community of experts whose competence and stability was based on shared knowledge. Of the 188 members of the Patrons’ committee of the IALL, 67 were university professors, a proportion that mirrors the role played by this ‘intellectual elite’ in the public debate on social policies. A careful look at the lists of individual members of national sections (at least the

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Austrian, Belgian, French, German, British and American ones) reinforces the impression of dealing with a ‘parliament of the learned’.23 Among them, economists were by far the most represented.24 Professors of economics played a leading role in the American section;25 in the Germanspeaking world Nationalökonomen (political economists) were particularly influential, including the secretary of the Basel office Stefan Bauer himself. The Frenchmen Paul Cauwes, Charles Gide and Albert Aftalion, who all taught political economy in law faculties, were also very influential.26 As stated by historian David Moss, ‘situating themselves between labor and capital, these men regarded themselves as “scientific stewards” who would objectively apply their expertise to the study and resolution of critical social problems’.27 In this position between ‘the learned and experts’ they were absolutely typical of what sociologist Christian Topalov has, for the French case, described as the ‘nébuleuse réformatrice’28 or what has been called ‘epistemic communities’.29 The IALL, however, cannot simply be reduced to a network of experts. It also constituted a forum of discussion for the social groups directly involved in the industrialization process: the employers and the workers. Socially minded employers, coming from the Christian tradition, as in the case of Franz Brandts or Léon Harmel, or from the liberal one, in the case of Heinrich Freese, were present at the delegate meetings.30 Individual as well as organized employers were involved in national sections. In the French case, Madeleine Herren has emphasized the role played by local employers from the northern part of the country who got involved in the French section of the IALL in order to promote the idea of preventive social negotiation.31 The proportion of workers’ delegates present at the international meetings remained very low but some national sections did send workers’ representatives, as seen in the Swiss, French and, in particular, British ones. But, above all, an increasing number of national trade union federations sent representatives to participate in its national sections.32 The 1905 Executive Committee of the British section was composed of various prominent Labour workers, among them Ramsay MacDonald and Sidney Webb.33 Trade union representatives played an important part in the Committee of the German Society for Social Reforms (Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform, GfSR), mirroring the growing role of the trade unions as indirect members of the society. Christian and liberal trade unions, which represented not only industry workers but also employees, were the first to join the organization,34 but even the social-democrat trade unions began to work together with the organization just before the war.35 In fact, with the spread of reformist ideas in the working-class movement in all industrialized countries, there was a clear evolution towards more involvement of workers’ trade unions in the

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IALL, particularly in the national sections. During the war the representatives of the International Federation of Trade Unions, who met in Leeds in 1916 and then in Berne in 1917, strongly advocated for the creation of an international and intergovernmental organization that would work in association with workers’ trade unions and could issue international social regulations.36 They expressed their wish to consolidate, extend and regulate what had been elaborated on a voluntary basis by the IALL. The IALL can thus be regarded both as an epistemic community and a tripartite organization in the making. It shows the role of both the bourgeoisie (educated and economic) connected in networks and the working class organized in movements for the internationalization of social reform. Meanwhile the machinery and working of the IALL was also based on national cooperation involving state actors.

The International Association for Labour Legislation as a Proto-International Organization In various respects the IALL is typical of the numerous non-governmental international associations that developed during the nineteenth century and were neither really non-governmental nor truly transnational, and paved the way for the emergence of international organizations.37 First, although founded as a private welfare association, the IALL relied heavily and from the beginning on governmental subsidies, which kept increasing over time.38 Its reputation and influence depended on the number of state civil servants and ministers who belonged to the association or attended the association’s conferences. Civil servants, well represented in national sections or on patrons’ committees, came from labour administrations and social insurance departments, and were employed at national or local levels (factory inspectors were particularly numerous in the French case). They played a very important role as information providers and intermediaries between the international and the national levels. Since governments could have representatives on the committee of the association (Article 7 of its statutes) there was even room for the official representation of national governments, and gradually the annual national delegates’ meetings became a place for informal official gatherings. At the first delegate meeting in 1901, four government delegates and thirty-seven representatives of national sections were present. But in the following years, there was a clear reversal in favour of the governments.39 Because the association was a private body its secretary could not formally invite government representatives, thus the invitations as well as all the reports relating to the matters that were to be discussed at

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the conference were sent by the Swiss government.40 The role played by the Swiss federal authorities between formal and informal relationships41 underlines the ambiguous nature of the IALL, lying between private and public, unofficial and official. Nevertheless, the various national governments were not involved at the same level. Very early on the French government sent Arthur Fontaine, director of the Labour ministry, as a representative, and his role rapidly became very influential. German government representatives showed up at the second meeting and then built up very strong representation. In comparison, British government involvement in the IALL remained weak, even if, from 1906 on, Herbert Samuel, under secretary of state for the Home Office, was regularly sent to the annual delegates’ meeting. During the commission on labour legislation of 1919 in Paris these diverging roles of the IALL according to the different national administrations were made very clear. The American delegates relied on a memorandum on international labour agreements prepared by John B. Andrews, secretary of the American section of the IALL.42 The French also used the IALL’s expertise. In November 1918 the former war minister, Alexandre Millerand, had chaired a meeting of the French section of the IALL (of which he was a member) in order to collect information for the Paris commission.43 Conversely, the British civil servants who prepared their national memorandum for the commission were not members of the British section of the IALL and did not make mention of it. The IALL clearly emanated and resulted from national undertakings that were coordinated within the organization but did not really merge. In 1912 only thirty people were directly affiliated to the IALL; the vast majority were enrolled in one of the fifteen national sections. The statutes of the organization mirrored the pre-eminence of national logic. The ruling committee was composed of national representatives proportionate to the relative strength of each national section, as well as the number of delegates sent by each national section. The Patrons’ committee, which supported the birth of the new international association, showed a clear overrepresentation of French social reform, but the Germans quickly became the most influential group  through the powerful GfSR,44 which in 1912 had 1,586 individual  members and 189 organizations (totalling around 1.6 million members).45 This  allowed the Germans to exert a huge influence in the association. The American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL), founded in 1906 as a U.S. branch of the IALL by a network of progressive academic economists,46 already had 2,500 individual members by 1912. It gained recognition through publication of the widely read American Labor Legislation Review. On the other hand, the British influence always

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remained marginal. In 1904 and 1905, Stefan Bauer had to visit England to help to set up a British section, whose first meeting was held in February 1905. With 298 individual members in 1912, the British section can be regarded as very modest. Around forty societies, mainly trade unions, did join the association but none of them was central in the organized working-class movement.47 A last and interesting feature stresses the peculiarity and also the relative marginality of the British section.48 Unlike the other sections, women were heavily involved in the British one. This section was founded by Miss Gertrude Tuckwell (1861–1951), honorary secretary of the English Women’s Trade Union League,49 while Mary Macarthur, member of the Women’s Cooperative Guild and secretary of the Women’s Trade Union League, was a member of its executive committee along with Miss Macdonald, Miss Adelaide Anderson, Constance Smith and Sophy Sanger, who later became an ILO official. In 1906 the British section sent a ‘women only’ delegation to the conference in Basle, which ‘surprised the previously masculine representation’.50 But unlike their French or American counterparts, this active British delegation was not very influential in Great Britain. Finally, the feminization of the British Association for Labour Legislation (ALL) was above all a sign of its marginalization within British national space. This feature has to be underlined here since this tension between the presence and marginalization of women was continued within the newly founded ILO.

The International Labour Organization and the Institutionalization of the Social Reform Movement Undoubtedly the goal of the ILO, as defined in Part XIII of the Peace Treaty, derived directly from the IALL. The collection of information as well as the publication of reviews and studies on social legislation was a common objective of both the IALL and the ILO. Like the IALL, the ILO aimed at holding congresses on labour protection and at setting the ground for international conventions on social issues. Questions already raised by IALL actors, like the follow-up of ratified conventions addressed by the British representative Herbert Samuel in 1906, were clarified during the Paris labour conference in 1919.51 As generally stated,  the  main innovation in the ILO’s machinery was the tripartite composition of the delegations sent to the annual International Labour Conference, which for each nation was to encompass two representatives of the governments and one of each workers’ and employers’ trade union. The organization’s governing body, or the executive committee of

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the organization, was also tripartite. This institutionalization of the trade union’s role contrasted with its role in the IALL as stated by the Belgian law professor Ernest Mahaim, long-lasting member of the IALL and participant of the International Labour Conference: ‘The International Association for Labor Legislation had never had a strong representation of workers or employers. It had remained in the hands of professors, statesmen, and administrators’.52 Statesmen and administrators did nevertheless continue to play an important role in the new international organization as well as in its office (or secretariat). Several people embodied the continuities between both organizations. Albert Thomas, originally a member of the French committee of the IALL, became the first director of the ILO. A social liberal, the French civil servant Arthur Fontaine, chaired the governing body of the ILO until his death. Sophy Sanger, former member of the IALL British section, became responsible for the ILO Social Legislation Section. She was assisted in this task by Eduard Schluep and Edouard Thommen, both former officials of the Basel office. Clearly the relative importance of the above-mentioned social trends shifted in favour of the socialist one. Albert Thomas, himself a socialist, stood close to other socialist reformists such as the German Eduard Bernstein.53 The international socialist reformist tradition, the Second Socialist International as well as the International Federation of Trade Unions, which, as seen before, had advocated for the constitution of the future ILO, played a major role during the first decade of the organization54 and remained largely dominant afterwards, even if room was made for the Christian reformist movement. The catholic trade unionist, Hermann Henseler, was appointed to the ILO staff as early as 1921,55 and the first Jesuit, Father Arnou, was nominated as a special advising director for religious affairs in 1926.56 In 1932, after the death of Albert Thomas and the election of British civil servant Harold Butler as director, the social liberals regained more influence. As expected, and despite the tripartite structure of the organization, the influence of national governments and state apparatus, in particular from France and Great Britain, became clearly stronger in the international organization and its office than was the case in the IALL. The tripartite representation was dominated by government representatives who were twice as numerous as the trade unionists. Even the nomination of staff members was heavily influenced by governments. Among the staff, which was notoriously younger than the reformers enrolled in the IALL, the proportion of civil servants, often seconded by their national administration, was much more significant than in the IALL. Mirroring the international balance of power, the leading positions were generally occupied by British

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and French officials. In return, the academics were far less numerous than they had been in the national section of the IALL, and their role in expert committees tended to further decrease during the 1930s. Under pressure from national governments, they were often replaced by politicians and civil servants. This social change follows a more general social evolution towards the rise of a new class of state administrators over learned experts. The importance of these civil servants testified to the importance of national logics within the organization, but in return these officials contributed to secure the organization’s influence within various national contexts. In general, the constitution of the ILO contributed to and speeded up the marginalization of the weakest interest and social groups in different national spaces that had previously relied on the international sphere to counterbalance their national marginalization.57 The liberal and Christian trade-union movements and, above all, women trade unionists were not represented in the tripartite representation. The ambivalent role of women has already been demonstrated for the British IALL committee but the tension between inclusion and marginalization was even more acute in the official ILO. Women were much more present in the ILO than in the League of Nations (the ILO almost reached parity in 1922);58 and this can certainly be interpreted as a result of the role played by women in earlier international social reform networks and associations like the IALL. As expected, the vast majority of women were found in subordinate activities (secretaries, steno typists, etc.); nevertheless, in contrast to the League of Nations, few women assumed leading positions. In line with IALL tradition, two British women, Constance Hinton-Smith and Sophy Sanger, were in charge of a section, but fifteen other women were also hired for less important positions. Among them was the German Martha Mundt, later replaced by the French Marguerite Thibert,59 who was in charge of keeping contact with women’s organizations. But even in comparable leading positions, and in sharp contrast with the rights promoted by the ILO, women were not guaranteed equal treatment with men. Sophy Sanger finally resigned in 1924, partly in protest against what she felt was sexual discrimination.60 Although building on the IALL, the ILO thus differed from its predecessor because it clearly depended much more on the international balance of power and on governmental material and human resources. Internationally weaker states, like Germany, and socially weaker groups, like academics and women, were thus less influential than they had been in the private organization. This raises the question of the role of the private association alongside the official organization in ensuring better representation of these actors who were marginalized from then on.

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The Reformist Movement in the Shadow of the International Labour Organization? The war, on one hand, and the creation of the ILO, on the other, clearly threatened the survival of international reformist associations. The International Association for Social Security never met after the end of the war. This is understandable if we know that, as Max Lazard the former president of the International Association for the Fight against Unemployment puts it, that society served above all as a means to propagate the German experience. After the war this German expertise could no longer be referred to openly.61 The International Association for the Fight against Unemployment barely survived until it merged with the IALL and became the International Association for Social Progress (IASP) in 1925. The IALL itself could have disappeared. Max Lazard, as well as other social reformists, disliked Stefan Bauer, claiming that he was ‘old’62 and ‘stubborn’.63 But in fact, although Bauer adopted Swiss nationality in 1919, Lazard and the social reformists suspected him of wanting to protect an association dominated by the German-speaking world.64 This hidden influence of German reformers on the IALL can partly explain why British civil servants clearly wished it to disappear. Delevigne openly stated in a letter to Butler in July 1920: ‘I should like to see the Association disappear altogether . . . The British section of Bauer’s Association never had much influence in this country and must have very much less now . . . we would not have Bauer connected with the International Labour Organization’.65 When the IALL held its first postwar meeting in Basel in 1920, a large German delegation, including two government representatives, attended, as did Belgian, French and British social reformers – but French and British officials abstained. The tension between the former enemies of war was palpable;66 nonetheless, the participants dealt with the most urgent question: the role of the private association in relation to the official one, since the aims and tasks of both organizations were very similar. Although everybody emphasized the independence of the old organization, its material and intellectual dependence on the ILO was obvious. After the creation of the ILO, most governments reduced or stopped their financial contributions to the IALL, and it had to sell its rich library to the ILO in 1920,67 and its four employees joined the staff of the official organization. Stefan Bauer became the old general secretary of a powerless association.68 Last but not least, many people involved with IALL national sections became ILO officials or started to collaborate with the new labour organization. The IALL lost its momentum and the ILO absorbed the greatest part of its material and human resources, depriving it of any ­ability to conduct independent enquiries.69

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And yet, the IALL did survive. This was certainly partially due to the persistence of its general secretary, Stefan Bauer, but it would not have been possible without the support of the ILO and of the above-mentioned marginalized groups and countries. At the first postwar meeting in 1920, Harold Butler, who represented the ILO in the name of Albert Thomas, gave a kind of official blessing for the association’s revival. The German delegation expressed its wish that the IALL should continue its work, and the members of the British sections, mainly women, pushed strongly in the same direction. In fact the ILO director, Albert Thomas, constantly encouraged the rebirth and even the reinforcement of international private associations.70 He was very influential in their fusion and the creation of the new IASP in 1925.71 This organization was clearly dominated by the ILO, as both Albert Thomas and Arthur Fontaine sat on its committee, its vice director Louis Varlez was a first-rank ILO official, and its secretary Adeodat Boissard was a longstanding friend of Thomas. The director of the ILO became the president of the French section of the IAPS, which could enrol the most prominent French employers, in particular the representatives of the very powerful employer coal mine trade union, Comité des forges, as well as the socialist trade unionist Léon Jouhaux and the Christian Jules Zirnheld. Professors like Célestin Bouglé, Elie Halévy, Charles Rist and François Simiand, to name a few, were also represented.72 The composition of the new IASP was clearly complementary to the existing ILO. During the founding congress of the association held in Prague in 1924, Albert Thomas made his intentions very clear. While Lady Hall and Joseph Cohen, delegates of the British section of the IALL, spoke passionately in favour of the independence of the newly founded association, which should not become a ‘servant’ of the ILO, Thomas clearly asked for firm support from the IALL. In 1922 he had already bitterly reproached Stefan Bauer for having criticized the new organization.73 Gertrude Tuckwell, secretary of the British section, exposed the relationship between the IALL (and further the IASP) and the ILO as follows: ‘M. Albert Thomas, regarded the existence of strong national sections of the IALL as of importance and of great assistance to the ILO, above all during its early years. On its side the ILO did everything in its power to give help and encouragement. Its London Office under its Director, Mr. Burge, was of special assistance to the British Section’.74 In fact, after a few years of vain attempts to gain new ratifications for the Washington conventions – in particular the eight-hour workday convention – from governments, Thomas’s strategy was to build up a broader network of socially minded people in order to secure the influence of the ILO. In the mid-1920s, efforts were made in all directions: in 1926 Albert Thomas established contacts with the Vatican, strengthening the

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relationship with the Christian-social movement. In 1927 Adrien Tixier and Oswald Stein, heads of the Social Insurance section, initiated the foundation of an International Association for Social Insurance, which was and still is in a very close relationship with the ILO.75 The same kind of procedure can be documented in many other fields.76 In his opening speech at the assemblée générale of the IASP held in Paris in October 1931, Thomas underlined what he regarded as the special task of the private organization: ‘the help of propaganda, the support of public opinion which you can lead and stimulate’ and ‘the effort of criticism’.77 The IALL, and later the IASP, did follow and support the ratification process. It was even written down in the statute (paragraph 4) of the IASP. At each meeting of the association an entire commission devoted its efforts to the study of the ratifications of conventions and tried to understand why it did not succeed.78 In 1928, as the British government raised the question of a revision of the eight-hour workday convention in Great Britain, the IASP issued a declaration in support of the ILO’s convention, and urged its British national section to address British public opinion in order to safeguard it.79 Besides addressing national and international public opinion, the members of the private association, which also included national politicians and high-ranking officials, could act as unofficial intermediaries with the governments. In its report for the year 1927, the secretary of the German section of the international association emphasized the important domestic position held by its leading members Ludwig Heyde (secretary) and Hans von Nostitz (president), who had been appointed members of various research and consulting committees on social issues in which they could promote and support the ILO’s cause.80 In the 1920s the creation of new national sections of the IASP in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, which relied on personal links, preceded and eased the penetration of the ILO in these countries.81

An Alternative International Tribune for Social Reforms Finally, even though the IALL, and later the IASP, were materially and intellectually dependent on the ILO, because their composition differed from that of the ILO, they still played a specific role by promoting actors and directions that were marginalized or even not represented in the ILO. First of all, the IALL, and later the IASP, were well known in internationally marginalized countries that had not taken part in the war (Switzerland), lost it (Germany and Austria), did not enter the League of Nations (the United States) or were new on the international scene (Czechoslovakia) and were consequently underrepresented in the ILO.

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Until 1929 the IASP was administered by two Swiss citizens (Bauer as a secretary, Charles de Blarer as a treasurer) and presided over by the Austrian politician Karl Renner. The above-mentioned Congress of Social Policy, which launched the fusion procedure and the birth of the IASP, was held in Prague in 1924, emphasizing the role played by Czech social reformers who the same year had founded an Institute for Social Reform under the direction of Evzen Stern. This congress brought the most prominent social reformers together, particularly those who came from the German-speaking world. Among the congressmen were 107 delegates from Germany, 86 from Austria, 74 from Belgium, 62 from France and 31 from Great Britain.82 The same discrepancy can be observed for other meetings of the IASP. Until 1933 (when all German participants withdrew) the German delegation remained by far the most numerous. In addition to prominent government representatives, famous social reformers – mainly members of the new Liberal Republican Party such as Lujo Brentano, Ernst Francke, Ludwig Heyde and a representative of the ­social-democratic-minded trade-union movement, Leipart – attended the meetings.83 Austria and Czechoslovakia were also permanently overrepresented. The governments of these countries saw this strong presence as a possibility to assert international influence beyond their diplomatic weakness. For the social reformers it was a way to gain greater recognition in their own countries. For the ILO it was a resource that strengthened its position in countries that were not members or in which the organization was not well implemented. This was particularly the case for the United States. The members of the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) quickly became the most influential ‘ILO activists’. Samuel Lindsay, one of the founding members of the IALL’s American section, deplored the weak involvement of his government in international social policy in a letter he wrote to Butler;84 he and John Andrews, secretary of the AALL,85 became important intermediaries between the ILO and the United States. At this time Leifer Magnusson, director of the Washington branch office of the ILO, was one of the members of the advisory council of the AALL. Conversely, when the United States entered the ILO in 1934, the role of the AALL became less evident. The ‘suspension’ of activities by the German section in 1933 and the imprisonment of Karl Renner in 1934 caused a real setback in the activity of the international association.86 This national imbalance was not the only discrepancy between the official and the private association. As had already been the case before the war, weaker movements and actors were strongly represented in the IASP while they had greater trouble finding a place in the ILO. As already discussed, this was the case for women who got involved in the British, American and Norwegian sections of the IASP but were underrepresented

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at international labour conferences. This was also the case for some social groups, such as employees, and for the Christian reformist movement, both of which were much better represented in the IASP than in the ILO. The general secretary of the IASP, Adeodat Boissart, taught at the Catholic University in Paris and was very influential in the social Christian movement, relying a great deal on that network to strengthen the position of the association. All these discrepancies were able to create a kind of emulation that had a positive impact on international legislation. One good example is the social condition of employees. Because they felt that their interests were poorly defended and hardly heard by the ILO in comparison to the workers’ interests, they used the IASP as a sounding box.87 One item on the agenda of the first meeting of the newly founded association held in Montreux in 1926 was devoted to the condition of employees.88 Although the high-ranking ILO official Henri Fuss, who was sent by Thomas, complained that the research done by the association was poor, he acknowledged that it had helped to draw attention to problems that had been neglected by the ILO. In the resolution of the conference, the association asked the ILO to try to promote an extension of the protection guaranteed to workers to include employees. In 1927, regulation of employees’ working hours was proposed at the labour conference by a Swiss delegate.89 The question was further studied90 and an ILO convention was established by vote in 1930.91 This case illustrates the multiple complementary levels that existed between both organizations.

Conclusion In general, relations between international governmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations (INGO) are set in terms of shared roles and complementarities between, on the one hand, international organizations that represent governments, and, on the other hand, associations that support causes for ethical reasons. The INGO are supposed to carry on causes formulated by and between ‘international civil societies’ as well as to supply intergovernmental organizations with information and knowledge that they would otherwise be unlikely to acquire. This case study offers a more complex image of this relationship. In  our  case the international organization did not arise mainly as the result of negotiations between states but rather because it was also part of a vast movement of earlier knowledge carried by various social groups, organized internationally upon national grounding. This transnational network was still active in the new organization, but a few actors – academic

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and ‘minority’ (women in particular) actors – were left in the background or disappeared, to the benefit of actors more directly linked to various political powers or more implicated in powerful international networks. Compared with the previous association, the international organization contributed, as expected, to reinforcing the more powerful and organized collective actors at the expense of the weaker ones. It also strengthened a shifting power balance between various social groups. The relationship maintained between the international organization and the reformist network that carried on is therefore complex. On the one hand, the IALL as well as the IASP depended on the ILO for its material but also intellectual survival, but, on the other hand, it continued to fulfil a specific role for the official organization. It primarily constituted a go-between, a reservoir of expertise and a sounding box within the various national societies, in a different way according to each country. It was also the place where forces temporarily marginalized within the ILO could express themselves as seen with regard to national spaces (Germanspeaking countries, for example), trends of thought (social Christianity), and specific social groups (women, employees). These actors communicated demands and propositions that could, under certain conditions, fuel the work of the international organization and yield results. This balance remained precarious, and evolved continually according to evolutions of the global context and of national societies. In summary, this study outlines the complementarities and complex interplay between non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, between trans- and international logics and between national societies and international organizations.

Notes 1. J.T. Shotwell, ‘The International Labor Organization as an Alternative to Violent Revolution’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 166, The International Labor Organization (Mar. 1933): 18–25. 2. For the commission, see E. Phelan, ‘The Commission on International Labor Legislation’ in The Origins of the International Labor Organization, ed. J. Shotwell (New York and Washington, DC 1934), 127–85. 3. R. Tosstorff, ‘The International Trade-Union Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’, International Review of Social History 50 (2005): 399– 433 and Compte rendu de la Huitième assemblée générale du comité de l’AIPLT tenue à Bale les 6–7 juillet 1920 (Paris 1920), 15. 4. Some of these are Shotwell, Origins; J.W. Follows, Antecedents of the International Labour Organization (Oxford 1951); and International Review of Social History 50 (Dec. 2005), 399–433 and 435–66.

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5. On that and for the terminology, see J. Boli, ‘Conclusion: World Authority Structures and Legitimations’ in Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875, eds J. Boli and G.M. Thomas (Stanford 1999), 287–95, and M.H.  Geyer and J. Paulmann, The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford 2001). 6. I use here the definition given by P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux’, Genèses 57 (2004): 110–26. 7. Here I refer to the usual definition of the term by the actors that I study. On that, see M. Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht: Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914 (Munich 2000), 12–17. 8. C. Topalov, ed., Laboratoires du nouveau siècle. La nébuleuse réformatrice et ses réseaux en France 1880–1914 (Paris 1999). S. Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des politiques sociales dans l’entre-deuxguerres’, Genèses 71(2) (2008): 26–46. 9. L. Raphael, ‘Die Verwissenschaftlichung des Sozialen als methodische und konzeptionelle Herausforderung für eine Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22 (1996): 165–93. 10. E. Adler and P.M. Haas, ‘Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the  Creation of a Reflective Research Program’, International Organization 46(1) (Winter 1992): 367–90; J. Van Daele, ‘Engineering Social Peace: Networks, Ideas, and  the  Founding of the International Labour Organization’, International Review of Social History 50 (2005): 435–66; and Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social?’, 26–46. 11. On the international exhibition see, in particular, A. Rasmussen, ‘Jalons pour une histoire des congrès internationaux au XIXe siècle: régulation scientifique et propagande intellectuelle’, Relations internationales 62 (Summer 1990): 115–33. 12. Stefan Bauer was born to a bourgeois family in Vienna in 1865. During and after his time as a student he travelled to France, England and the United States, where he held conferences and made many scientific contacts. In 1899 he became a professor of political economy at the University of Basel. But his scientific career in Austria as well as in Switzerland was hampered by anti-Semitism despite his conversion to Protestantism in the 1880s. The most complete account of Stefan Bauer’s life is in Matthias von Bergen’s study ‛Nationalökonomie und Weltbürgertum. Ein Beitrag zur Biographie des internationalen Sozialpolitkers Stephan Bauer’, Lizentiatsarbeit, Bern 1990. I wish to express my thanks to Madeleine Herren who sent me her copy of this work. 13. S. Bauer, ‘The International Labour Office in Basle’, The Economic Journal 13(51) (Sept. 1903): 438–43. 14. A. Rasmussen, ‘Tournant, inflexions, ruptures: le moment internationaliste’, Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 19 (2001): 27–41. 15. These conferences were also used for nationalistic purposes. The Berlin conference has thus been ‘forgotten’ in most of the writings of the interwar period. Zurich is always emphasized by the Swiss actors who played an important role in the IALL, and it even tends to overshadow the founding conference in Paris. 16. The superposition of these four inspirations is obvious when looking at the journal published by the organization: Avenir du travail (henceforth AdT) and in particular the special issue published in 1925. 17. Eugen Philippovich, a student of Carl Menger, was a friend of Stephan Bauer and he recommended him for the position of director. Von Bergen, ‛Nationalökonomie und Weltbürgertum’, 23.

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18. We should add the social protestant tradition, which is influential in the United States. See, in particular, the case of Richard T. Ely, who attended the Paris conference and was a member of the Patrons’ committee as well as a founding member of the American Association for Labor Legislation. B.G. Rader, ‘Richard T. Ely: Lay Spokesman for the Social Gospel’, The Journal of American History 53(1) (June 1966): 61–74. 19. J. Beck, ‛Die Stellung der Kirche zum internationalen Arbeiterschutze. Rückblick’, International Labour Organization Archive (henceforth ILOA), AIP, 7 102. 20. On Fontaine, see M. Cointepas, Arthur Fontaine (1860–1931) (Rennes 2008). 21. D. Powell, ‘The New Liberalism and the Rise of Labour, 1886–1906’, The Historical Journal 29(2) (June 1986): 369–93. 22. R. Gregarek, ‘Le mirage de l’Europe sociale. Associations internationales de Politique sociale au tournant du 20e siècle’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire 48 (1995): 103–18. 23. AdT (1926–1927): 42–50. 24. There were also a few sociologists, such as the very well-known Emile Durkheim and René Worms. 25. See D. Moss, Socializing Security: Progressive-era Economists and the Origins of American Social Policy (Cambridge, MA 1996). 26. The affiliation to law faculties can be misleading. The French law faculties were the place where reformist political economy developed at the end of the nineteenth century. See Topalov, Laboratoires du nouveau siècle, 427, based on the work completed by Lucette Levan Lemesle. 27. Moss, Socializing Security, 245. 28. Topalov, ed., Laboratoires du nouveau siècle, in particular its conclusion, 419–59. 29. See note 8. 30. For the conflictual relationships between employers and the German branch of the organization, see U. Ratz, Sozialreform und Arbeiterschaft: die ‘Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform’ und die sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges (Berlin 1980), 169–81. 31. M. Herren, Internationale Sozialpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg: Die Anfänge europäischer Kooperation aus der Sicht Frankreichs (Berlin 1993), 112–13. 32. Tosstorff, ‘International Trade-Union Movement’, 403. 33. See the annual Report of the British Association for Labour Legislation, published since 1905. 34. Ratz, Sozialreform und Arbeiterschaft, 51–52. 35. Ibid., 181–238. 36. Tosstorff, ‘International Trade-Union Movement’, 399–433; and Compte rendu de la Huitième assemblée générale du comité de l’AIPLT tenue à Bale les 6–7 juillet 1920 (Paris 1920), 15. 37. See A. Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley 2002), 12–18. 38. The contribution of the various national governments increased from CHF 34,000 to 55,000 between 1903 and 1912; meanwhile the contribution of the various national sections increased from CHF 9,000 to 13,000. 39. See M. Herren, Internationale Sozialpolitik, 98–99: ‘das Verhältnis zwischen Regierungsund Sektionsvertreter wandelte sich von 1:9 auf fas 2:1’. Beside the involvement of  ‘backward’ countries like Portugal, Romania, Russia and Turkey, which did not have a national section of the association, German states (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hamburg but also the Reich) sent nine representatives . . . Report of the Seventh General Meeting of the Committee of the IALL held at Zurich September 10–12 1912 (London 1912), 15–25.

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40. M. Delevingne, ‘The Prewar History of International Labor Legislation’ in Shotwell, Origins, 36. 41. It is in fact a peculiarity of Swiss international politics. On this, see M. Herren and S. Zala, Netzwerk internationale Aussenpolitik. Kongresse und Organisationen als Instrumente der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik, 1914–1950 (Chronos 2002). 42. L. Magnuson, ‘American Preparations’ in Shotwell, Origins, 98. 43. C. Picquenard, ‘French Preparations’ in Shotwell, Origins, 88 and 95–96. 44. On the Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform, see Ratz, Sozialreform und Arbeiterschaft. 45. Ibid., 49. 46. On the American branch of the IALL, see Moss, Socializing Security. 47. Report of the British Association for Labour legislation (1908–9): 7–8. 48. In 1939, quoting the most important people for the development of both associations (legislation and unemployment), Max Lazard underlined the importance of the French, German, Swiss, Dutch and Italian actors, but did not mention a single British personality. M. Lazard, ‘L’association internationale pour le progrès sociale et son activité pendant l’entre deux guerres, discours prononcé lors de la 7è Assemblée générale des délégués des sections nationales Liège 1939’ in L’avenir du travail. Publication de l’Association internationale pour le progrès social 1939–1945, 6. 49. G. Tuckwell, ‘The First International Labour Association: The Passing of the British Section’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, third series 28(3–4) (1946): 53–56. 50. Tuckwell, ‘First International Labour Association’, 54. 51. See Delevingne, ‘Prewar History of International Labor Legislation’, 42–47. 52. E. Mahaim, ‘The Principles of International Labor Legislation’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 166 (1933): 10. 53. M. Rébérioux and P. Fridenson, ‘Albert Thomas. Pivot du réformisme français’, Le mouvement social (Apr.–June 1974): 85–97. 54. See G. Van Goethem, The Amsterdam International: The World of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 1913–1945 (Aldershot and Burlington, VT 2006). 55. ILOA, P 928. 56. M. Barbier, ‘Les relations entre l’Eglise catholique et l’Organisation internationale du travail’, Politique étrangère 37, 3 (1972): 351–87; and B. Delpal, ‘Sur le tableau de Maurice Denis: la dignité au travail (Genève 1931)’, Chrétiens et sociétés XVI–XXè siècles, Bulletin du Centre Latreille 9 (2002): 139–77. 57. See the example of the women’s movement as described by L.J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton 1997). 58. F.B. Boeckel, ‘Women in International Affairs’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 143, Women in the Modern World (May 1929): 230–48. 59. On Marguerite Thibert, see F. Thebaut, ‘Les femmes au BIT (Bureau international du travail): l’exemple de Marguerite Thibert’ in Femmes et relations internationales, eds J.-M. Delaunay and Y. Denéchère (Paris 2006), 177–87; and ‘Réseaux réformateurs et politiques du travail féminin. L’OIT au prisme de la carrière et des engagements de Marguerite Thibert’ in Politiques sociales transnationales. Réseaux réformateurs et Organisation ­internationale du travail, eds I. Lespinet-Moret and V. Viet (Rennes 2011), 27–39. 60. See A.M. Allen, Sophy Sanger: A Pioneer in Internationalism (Glasgow 1958). 61. M. Lazard, ‘L’association internationale pour le progrès social et son activité pendant l’entre deux guerres’, L’Avenir du travail, 1939–1945 (Gand 1945), 6. 62. ILOA RL 01/4/52 Note of Sophie Sanger to Phelan and Butler undated (1920?). 63. ILOA G 790, various letters from Max Lazard to Varlez in 1922.

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64. ILOA G 790, correspondence between Lazard and Varlez. Also, ILOA RL 01/4/52, ­correspondence between Thomas and Bauer. 65. ILOA XR 25/1/11, letter from Delevingne to Butler 5 July 1920. 66. See in particular the argument between the Belgian Mahaim and the German Francke in 1920. Compte rendu de la huitième assemblée générale du comité de l’association internationale pour la protection légale des travailleurs tenue à Bale les 6–7 juillet 1920 (Paris 1920), 13–15. 67. BIT, Bulletin d’information, (22 Sept. 1920): 19–21. 68. ILOA, RL 01/4/52 the arrangement in a note of 1920. See also the personal file of Eduard Schluep, secretary from 1901 to 1920. ILOA P 425. Paul Brändli, who was a bibliographer, and Edouard Thommen, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Office from 1906 to 1920, were Swiss. Wolfgang Mohr, translator, was German, ILOA P 481. S. Bauer, Der Wiederaufbau des internationalen Arbeiterschutzes seit dem Friedenschluss, Schweizerische Verreinigung zur Förderung des internationalen Arbeiterschutzes, Heft 46, (Basel 1922), 13. 69. This point was discussed in 1920 but it quickly became apparent that the IALL, and later the IASP, no longer had the potential to conduct enquiries that would be of any value. 70. D. Guérin, Albert Thomas au BIT 1920–1932. De l’internationalisme à l’Europe (Geneva 1996), 57–58; and Martin Fine, ‘Un instrument pour la réforme: l’Association française pour le progrès social (1927–1929)’, Le Mouvement social 94 (Mar. 1976): 3–29. 71. Speech of A. Thomas in 1924 at the International Congress for Social Reform in Prague. Congrès international de politique social. Compte rendu des séances et rapports (Paris 1924), 75–76; and ILOA AIP 237. 72. AdT (1928): 136. 73. ILOA RL 01/4/52, letter to Bauer 21 Feb. 1922; and response from Bauer to Thomas, 23 Feb. 1922. 74. Tuckwell, ‘First International Labour Association’, 55. 75. See Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social?’ 76. For housing, see P.-Y. Saunier, ‘Borderline Work: ILO Explorations onto the Housing Scene until 1940’ in J. Van Daele et al. (eds), ILO Histories: Essays on the International Labour Organization and its Impact on the World during the Twentieth Century (Bern and New York 2010), 197–221. For child protection, see J. Droux, ‘15 ans de réflexion: la genèse du Comité de Protection de l’enfance de la SDN (1910–1925)’, forthcoming, Critique Internationale July (2011). 77. ‘L’aide de la propagande, le concours de l’opinion publique que vous pouvez entraîner et stimuler’ and ‘l’effort de critique’, AdT (1932): 24. 78. AdT (1923): 119. 79. AdT (1928): 125. 80. AdT (1926–27): 42; and AdT (1929): 150. 81. AdT (1929): 148. 82. Congres international de politique sociale, tenu à Prague. . ., 35–36. 83. Ibid. 84. ILOA XR 61/4/8, letter from Lindsay to Butler, 29 May 1929. 85. ILOA XR 61/4/13, various letters between Andrews and Butler. 86. ILOA XRG 1/10, letter from Butler to Lady Hall, 20 Mar. 1934. 87. See the correspondence in 1926 on this topic in AILO N 200/13/1000/0. 88. See AdT (1926–27): 184–85. 89. International Labour Conference 1, session X (1927): 683. 90. Report of the Governing Body Meeting, 38 session, Geneva (Feb. 1928): 122. 91. Until now no major industrial country has ratified this convention.

Chapter 12

Shaping Poland Relief and Rehabilitation Programmes Undertaken by Foreign Organizations, 1918–1922

( Davide Rodogno, Francesca Piana and Shaloma Gauthier

This chapter examines aspects of relief and rehabilitation programmes in Poland in the aftermath of the First World War, focusing on the aspirations of actors involved in various operations in Europe after 1918 and on the extent to which these organizations were equipped to deal with emergencies. We define humanitarian action (including aid, relief and/or assistance) as an altruistic action that, according to the agent undertaking it, is intended to contribute to improving the moral well-being and political, social and economic standards of other human beings. In our case, the actors engaged in Poland claimed that their activities aimed to accomplish all these goals for the civilian population, although, as we shall see, some of the actors had mixed motives, such as alleviating distress with the objective of minimizing the appeal of communism. We distinguish between, on one hand, short-term relief operations aimed at providing civilian populations with food, clothing and medical supplies and, on the other hand, medium-term rehabilitation programmes designed to have a permanent effect on individuals, groups or societies. Both relief and rehabilitation programmes undertaken by a host of non-state actors shaped international politics as well as Polish politics and society; international politics also shaped relief action. The ideology, modus operandi and ways various actors adapted to changing situations on the spot affected their ‘humanitarian’ actions. For the purpose of this chapter we will focus on the following players: the American Relief Administration (ARA), the American Red Cross (ARC), the Polish Grey Samaritans (PGS) and the American Polish Relief Expedition (APRE), as well as some of the initiatives that were undertaken Notes for this chapter begin on page 274.

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by the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS) and the League of Nations (LoN). Both the weight of activity undertaken by the various organizations and the importance of that activity varied. Our aim is twofold: we will determine the extent to which these organizations and associations were able to shape international politics and we will investigate the ways in which they influenced the establishment of Polish institutions. To some extent, cooperation under the umbrella of the ARA and the ARC overcame rivalries or competition between smaller relief agencies, a situation explained by the sheer size of the resources wielded by the ARA and ARC and the close links of these agencies with the Polish and United States governments.

Food Relief to Poland In the aftermath of the First World War, Poland faced severe economic and political conditions. Although its boundaries were still being determined, Poland was proclaimed independent in late 1918. There were divisions among the Allies and disunity among Polish policymakers, such as Ignacy Paderewski, Józef Piłsudski and Roman Dmowski. Poland waged wars against all its neighbours, including Bolshevik Russia, from early 1919 to the autumn of 1920.1 Initially the Poles pushed deep into Russian territory, taking much of Belarussia in the east. Wilno (Vilnius) in the north and vast territories of ex-Austro-Hungarian Galicia in the south-east were conquered by the Polish army, and in April 1920 Kiev fell into Polish hands.2 In May, however, when the Bolshevik counter-offensive began, the Ukrainian capital as well as Minsk and Wilno were quickly recaptured; by July it seemed likely that Warsaw would fall to the Bolsheviks. The situation was calamitous for the Allies as it signified that one of the cornerstones of the Paris settlement might collapse, but the Polish forces managed to save Warsaw, defeating the Red Army by 21 August 1920.3 An armistice was agreed in October 1920 at Riga and a peace treaty signed in the same town on 18 March 1921. The treaty gave Poland a border in the east that went well beyond the Curzon line, the frontier that had been drawn by the Allies in Paris.4 With Poland now at peace with Russia, hundreds of thousands of repatriates swarmed across the Russian frontier into Poland.5 The northern and eastern districts of Poland, especially the regions of Brest-Litovsk, Wilno, Białystok, Kowel and Lublin, were most affected by the flow of refugees and also experienced epidemics and food shortages. As a result, many organizations concentrated their relief efforts in these areas. Delivery of food to Poland was an immediate priority. The Allies had created the Supreme Economic Council (SEC) in early February 1919,

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but Herbert Hoover, the representative of the U.S. government, made it clear that given that the United States would furnish the bulk of the supplies and funding, Americans would control the use of its own supplies.6 The leadership by the United States remained uncontested, for none of the European powers could rival U.S. contributions to postwar relief, and resulted in the establishment of the American Relief Administration (ARA) in February 1919, which was in charge of allocating that very significant American share of relief supplies.7 The ARA was, to a large extent, Hoover’s creation. Before being appointed ‘chief’ of the ARA, Hoover had been the American Food Administrator and chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium. At the end of the war he convinced President Woodrow Wilson that famine could damage the social structure of various European countries and that it was in the political and commercial interest of the U.S. government to undertake relief in these regions. Hoover’s argument was that this occasion was also an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its political, economic, organizational and moral supremacy to the world. The bill appropriating US$100 million (the equivalent of US$990 million in 2013) passed the House and the Senate, and was signed by the president in Paris on 24 February 1919 as ‘an act providing for the relief of such populations in Europe and countries contiguous thereto, outside of Germany, ‘German-Austria-Hungary’, Bulgaria and Turkey as may be determined upon by the President’.8 On that same day, Wilson issued an executive order designating the ARA, under the directorship of Hoover, administrator of the relief, and authorizing the ARA to employ the American Grain Corporation as the agency for the purchase and transport of supplies. Almost entirely funded by public funds and with close relationships with the U.S. administration and official authorities, the ARA was a semigovernmental organization entrusted by the U.S. government with full authority to determine to whom supplies would be allocated and in what quantity. The ARA undertook relief programmes as a private non-profit organization in Poland and twenty-two other European countries. The impact of such a foreign, non-state agent at the local, regional and national level of a sovereign state was unprecedented. The ARA was a hybrid or semi-governmental agency – not entirely a governmental agency and certainly not the equivalent of a modern-day non-governmental organization (NGO). Its actions can be characterized as transnational, for they crossed national boundaries and shaped international as well as Polish domestic politics. Preliminary investigations for the ARA, based on a report from Dr Vernon Kellogg and Colonel William R. Grove, indicated that more than one-third of the Polish population of 27 million were unable to procure

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sufficient food to sustain their health.9 On the basis of the report, a programme of ‘revictualment’10 was established. The new Polish state was in dire economic straits and unable to secure the food necessary to prevent famine. Moreover, Poland lacked the political means to circumvent the Allies’ continuing blockade. The U.S. Congress’s Appropriation Act made it possible to undertake relief in Poland. Vital food credits were now available to the Polish government and the act allowed the ARA to put into effect an extensive short-term operation for the transport of food, clothing and medical supplies to Poland. From 1919 to 1921, the U.S. government released credit to Poland at 4.25 per cent interest for food and for engineering and other supplies. This credit should not be misidentified as an act of charity provided by the ARA to the Polish nation;11 Poland would have to reimburse the ARA for the supplies received. Cooperation between the ARA and Polish authorities, voluntary associations and religious communities was of crucial importance for the effective distribution of this relief. The ARA workers liaised with government inspectors and regional committees but were not to intervene in the actual distribution except in cases of abuse. The Polish Ministry of Approvisation sold food to district committees, which in turn sold it to local administrators’ committees. The ARA relief workers were to report on food and clothing conditions in their districts, see that the food was distributed without distinction as to race, creed or politics, monitor the movement of foodstuff, and report any cases of the exportation of imported food or of speculation or overcharging. The bulk of the ARA relief workers were recruited on a voluntary basis from members of the U.S. military who were still in Europe, whose presence ensured a certain discipline and expertise in dealing with the numerous problems, which ranged from sanitary and hygiene issues to transportation and logistics. Hoover stated that the objective of the U.S. presence was to solve a great and human emergency for no political and no commercial advantage. As a general rule the ARA representatives were instructed to ‘keep entirely out of politics’,12 and concentrate solely on relief work. In practice, however, Hoover and the ARA rapidly acknowledged that if relief was to be distributed efficiently, it was crucial to undertake further political action in Poland and at the international level, a recognition that explains how and why the ARA became actively involved in international and Polish politics, enforced rehabilitation and state-building programmes.13 Under the term ‘rehabilitation’ fall specific programmes aimed at the strengthening of public health or child welfare; ‘state-building’ encompasses the participation of the ARA in Polish governance, in decision making and the implementation of decisions made by the Polish authorities.

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Hoover devised a two-level strategy distinguishing what should be done – on one hand, at the international and diplomatic level and, on the other, at the level of Polish governance. In Paris he negotiated the lifting of the blockade between Poland and Germany, in order to ensure that the supplies of the American Expeditionary Force, mainly stocked in France, could reach Poland. He fostered the establishment of the Coal Commission of the SEC for the Territory Included in the Former Empire of Austria-Hungary and Poland, a non-political body whose main aim was to revive the movement of international trade.14 In Hoover’s view, relief without trade at the domestic and international levels would be a worthless effort. Relief would enhance trade, which in turn would diffuse social tension and eventually strengthen the government, and hence ensure peace. Hoover did not hesitate to recommend to policymakers institutional changes for the improvement of Polish governance structures. When he visited Poland in August 1919, Hoover met President Paderewski and suggested that an economic council be created to deal with the domestic and foreign economic problems of Poland.15 This step would in turn help to create the atmosphere of confidence that the newborn Polish Republic desperately needed. Following up on this recommendation, the Polish government formed an economic council of ministers, with the finance minister as chairman. U.S. technical and food advisers were frequently consulted on such matters as taxation, loans and currency. However, many of these plans could not be enforced because of the Russian–Polish War, which worsened the living conditions of civilian populations and produced further waves of refugees. In a speech delivered in September 1919, Hoover expounded the ARA’s role in postwar Europe, where, he said, 200 million people needed economic rehabilitation. The organization would need to erect departments, furnish advisers and take over the actual operation of thousands of miles of disintegrated communication systems. It would stimulate the production of coal and other primary commodities, control their distribution and find a basis for the exchange of surplus commodities from one state to another. Finally, the ARA would exercise the strongest political pressure to ensure that surplus food production would reach areas of famine to encourage disheartened civilian populations.16 In Hoover’s vision, short-term relief and rehabilitation programmes were to work towards the principle of ‘helping these [Polish] people to help themselves’,17 and accordingly it was essential to involve local communities in accomplishing the ARA mandate. The ARA ‘civilizing mission’ consisted of enlightening East Europeans on the most efficient way to become self-reliant. Intrinsic to this intent was a sense of superiority wielded by the Americans. As Chief

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of Mission in Poland, W.P. Fuller stated: ‘Generally speaking, the Poles are weak in initiative and aggressiveness . . . We think that in affording American supervision [we] would be doing but one more favor to the Polish people’.18 It should be noted that both Hoover and Fuller linked the above-mentioned rehabilitation programmes with the issue of warding off Bolshevism. The agreements reached by the ARA, both in Paris and with Polish authorities, also enhanced the relief activities of the American Red Cross, Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JJDC), British and American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), National Lutheran Council, Methodist Mission, YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) and YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association).19 Not only did the ARA act as a transport agency for most of these organizations during 1919, but without the ARA the political, technical and practical problems they encountered would have been much harder to overcome. Smaller actors accepted, nolens volens, the ARA’s leadership. The ARA was willing to cooperate with religious organizations, as long as the latter respected the working principles of the ARA and refrained from proselytizing, especially in a Roman Catholic country like Poland.20 It should also be noted that, in the autumn of 1920, Hoover contributed to the creation of the European Relief Council, the purpose of which was to increase the efficiency of fund-raising campaigns through the coordination of efforts on the domestic front.21 The American Red Cross (ARC) also became active in Poland. In February 1919 the ARC started to send supplies and workers to Poland and would soon become one of the largest donors to the country. The ARC was a ‘large, purely disinterested, non-sectarian, non-commercial, non-political organization’, closely connected with the U.S. government.22 In fact, like the ARA, the ARC was also a quasi-governmental agency; its president was Woodrow Wilson. As the ARC was less centralized than the ARA, it was not so intimately dependent upon a charismatic figure like Hoover. The ARC Commission to Poland conducted the largest single postwar operation in Europe, distributing considerable amounts of used clothing during 1919, and having three active field units in the eastern districts engaged in feeding, clothing relief, and medical work.23 Each field unit had a director from the United States and worked with PolishAmericans and local personnel, including nurses’ aides, interpreters, translators, chauffeurs, mechanics, warehouse labourers, cooks, laundry and kitchen helpers, and chambermaids. Like the ARA, the ARC was heavily affected by external events such as the Russian–Polish War, which made the distribution of aid supplies almost impossible.24 The ARC terminated its mission in Poland in June 1922, at the same time as the ARA, although the initial plan had been to withdraw in 1920 at the latest. Again

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like the ARA, the ARC stayed longer than planned and put in place medical and child-welfare rehabilitation programmes in response to miserable living conditions, especially in Poland’s eastern districts.

The Relief and Rehabilitation of Children In addition to the provision of food, relief in Poland focused on specific programmes on behalf of children. As was the case with revictualment, short-term relief turned into medium-term programmes. In 1919, of the estimated ten million needy Polish people no fewer than two million children required food, clothing and medical care. The ARA acknowledged that the supplies required to feed these children did not exist in Poland and could not be provided by the government. Accordingly, it proposed operating a separate relief campaign, parallel to and almost as large as the revictualment programme, that would be based on the ‘scientific principles of child-feeding’.25 This relief was conducted through the European Children’s Fund (ARA-ECF), which was named as the repository of government grants for the feeding of children. The ARA-ECF, an ‘independent organization, responsible not directly to the American government but to its Chairman, Directors, Members and American contributors’,26 was responsible for foodstuff turned over from U.S. sources and for food purchased anywhere against cash assets. The creation of the ARA-ECF on 1 March 1919 did not cause a rupture in the ARA’s work. Personnel were retained and operated through channels similar to those of the ARA. Hoover was chairman of the ARAECF and men who had been active in food distribution and relief since the beginning of the war composed its executive committee.27 In contrast to the earlier loan-based programme, however, children’s relief was disbursed as gifts; the only common criterion of the two programmes was the distribution of relief without consideration to race, religion or politics. In its campaign on behalf of children, the ARA acted like any other charitable organization: funds were received from donors and the purchased relief supplies remained the property of the organization until they reached the consumer. Then, food was delivered to district and local committees in charge of distributing and cooking it for the children.28 In January 1921 the U.S. plenipotentiary in Warsaw, Hugh Gibson, noted that the maintenance of peace, orderly government and commerce in the future would be greatly dependent upon the mental and physical soundness of the coming generation.29 A fundamental principle of children’s relief was that food received by children in their homes or institutions would not be replaced; rather a distinct supplement would be

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offered to the neediest. Therefore, the ARA-ECF set up a system of rations and established three fundamental rules concerning distribution. First, a single ration was allowed per child per day. Secondly, children’s foodstuff was to be distributed to its final recipient only in cooked form and was to be eaten by the children on the premises where the food had been prepared. Thirdly, all needy children in Poland were to be aided without reference to nationality or creed. An additional fundamental principle of the ARA-ECF was to stimulate national and local participation in children’s relief work.30 The ARA-ECF head office in New York controlled policy and finance and arranged shipments. The London offices supervised missions and personnel, financed missions, assembled general statistical reports from missions, prepared programmes and passed orders to New York. Each European mission, the one in Poland being the largest, controlled general distribution, forwarded weekly statistics to the London office on received and delivered food and on medical and clothing stocks, sent reports on population figures, food situations, local resources, principal needs and local occurrences of interest.31 Americans were not supposed to take over and ‘intimately’ administer national or local bodies and they fully respected the principle that self-help could only be accomplished by granting more responsibility to the local organizations.32 Lieutenant Maurice Pate, who had been working with Hoover as director of the child-feeding programme in Belgium, now directed the ARAECF programme in Poland. Placed under the supervision of the Polish Ministry of Health, by May 1919 the programme had a budget of US$2.4 million. A central committee had been formed in Warsaw on 30 March, with Mrs Paderewska (the wife of the Polish president) at its head, supported by eight men and women, ‘experts’ in child welfare. This committee, operative from June 1919, was later named the Państwowy Komitet Pomocy Dzieciom (State Children’s Relief Committee, or PKPD; its subsequent abbreviation, PAKPD, marked the inclusion of ‘American’ in its title). The PAKPD divided the country into twenty-one sectors with a Polish delegate in each (and fifteen Americans on the child-feeding staff) and its organization took shape around a network of committees and subcommittees. The national, district and local committees for distribution were composed almost entirely of volunteers;33 of the 27,890 Poles working on children’s relief in 1920, 70 per cent were volunteers. Officially the ARA did not run the PAKPD, but in practice U.S. involvement with the PAKPD went far beyond supervision. In May 1921 the ARA bulletin pointed out that the Polish constitution contained a clause on the responsibility of the government for the protection and welfare of children, unique in the framing of constitutions and indicative of ‘a big stride

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ahead and we [the ARA] feel that our work in a large measure at least has been instrumental for this action’.34 The ARA-ECF helped central governments in Poland and other Central and East European countries to appoint as national executive of child-welfare work ‘a man or a woman of special fitness, and without regard to political factions or religious creed’, a process that would be repeated at the district and local level.35 In the minds of the ARA decision makers, the permanent legacy of the ARA-ECF’s work was to be the creation of national ‘child-welfare commission(s)’, modelled on the United States Child Welfare Bureau in the Department of Labour. These commissions would deal with the medical examination of children, and their segregation into groups – needy, normal, sub-normal and tubercular. Part and parcel of the U.S. legacy was formed by special children’s hospitals and sanatoria, as well as orphanages (there were between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand orphans in Poland alone) that national governments had been induced to establish.36 The Polish authorities willingly cooperated with the Americans in the implementation of the ARAECF programmes. The Polish personnel, approximately five thousand people, were organized in a hierarchical structure, with paid executives and volunteers at the top, regional managers below them, and, at the base, kitchen managers. The Polish committees had certain advisory, supervisory and distribution functions.37 Following the pattern of the ARA, the ARC took over the technical direction of the sanitary branch of the PAKPD, distributing medicine and sanitary supplies through PAKPD distribution channels.38 Once the emergency relief had ended, the ARC undertook rehabilitation programmes on disease prevention, and attempted to establish standards of assistance for child welfare. In order to ensure the continuation of the work once the organization withdrew, the ARC encouraged local efforts, part of a plan to ‘educate European communities in the idea of social responsibility to the child’.39 With the cooperation of the government and local organizations, the ARC tried to revitalize or establish child health and welfare stations, educated medical personnel in the value of preventive medicine, and trained Polish personnel to take over all American Red Cross activities after the latter’s withdrawal. Moreover, the ARC continued to work with the PAKPD in medical and sanitary matters. The ARC Sanitary Medical Stations operated with a total staff of nine ARC doctors, thirteen nurses and ten social workers. The 156 ambulatories and 69 infant health stations were organized and conducted by local committees under the supervision of the ARC and the PAKPD. When the ARC withdrew from Poland at the end of June 1922, over twenty thousand children were registered in health centres and under regular supervision, and two thousand expectant mothers were receiving prenatal care.40

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In April 1921, when discussions about the end of the ARA-ECF programme within the organization were rife, Walter Lyman Brown, director of the ARA-ECF, reiterated that the objective of the programme was to make local organizations like the PAKPD sufficiently efficient, autonomous and self-sustaining to be able to handle responsibility for continuing the necessary work for children.41 The ARA-ECF, however, did not trust the commitment of the Polish members of the PAKPD and feared that refraining from further involvement or a premature withdrawal of U.S. representatives and workers might compromise the entire operation. As a result the withdrawal planned for late 1920 was postponed until June 1922. Between May 1919 and June 1922 the ARA-ECF distributed US$4 million worth of clothing for children, and during the summer of 1921 the organization fed up to 1,315,000 children per day. The PAKPD was increasingly decentralized and its membership enlarged. Inspectors were increased in number and conducted frequent visits to the kitchens.42 Such measures were often a result of Pate’s insistence that the Polish members of the PAKPD were disorganized and that abuse was running rife. As U.S. inspectors were more respected than local PAKPD inspectors, the ARAECF decided to increase the U.S. staff. Further ARA inspectors were found in the Polish Grey Samaritans, U.S. women of Polish and Catholic origin who were sent to the country by the YWCA for relief work. The initial plan, worked out among representatives of the YWCA, the Polish government and the ARA, was to place twenty Grey Samaritans in nurseries and hospitals as nurses’ aides, ‘and to send them out as social workers to help in the investigation of cases through home visits and in the distribution of food and clothing in order to set a standard for child welfare, and to build up scientific social service’.43 Grey Samaritans helped with clothing distribution and were assigned to feeding districts as kitchen inspectors. Their knowledge of Polish, and the Polish eagle badge that they proudly wore on their blue-grey uniforms, as well as the fact that they were Catholic in the midst of a vast majority of Protestant or Jewish agencies, all had an impact on the success of their missions.44 When the ARA-ECF terminated its mission in June 1922, it was fully aware that the need for children’s relief in Poland had not reached its end. In its assessment of relief needs, the ARA-ECF held that the emergency phase would last, especially in the eastern regions of Poland, until the harvest of 1922 or shortly thereafter. The PAKPD kept the kitchens open in the eastern districts of Poland in anticipation of the return of three-quarters of a million refugees (of whom 30 per cent were under fifteen years of age) and maintained a relief scheme for closed and semi-closed institutions, and open-kitchens for children living in industrial areas. The ARA also

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highlighted the importance of reforming the PAKPD after its withdrawal. The ARA-ECF’s final report concluded by asserting that: aside from purely humanitarian reasons, a prompt efficient and businesslike handling by the Polish Government of her child relief problem would create an excellent impression abroad and would not only tend to inspire confidence on the part of America in Poland’s ability to take an important place among nations, but might be the direct means of stimulating America’s active financial backing and cooperation.45

The ARC left in the summer of 1922, believing that the Poles were sufficiently efficient, autonomous and self-sustaining. By that date, however, the funds allocated to the ARA and ARC had been depleted. And in addition to food and child relief, the Polish state was faced with another emergency, namely the fight against epidemics.

The Fight against Typhus The typhus epidemic in Russia reached its peak in 1919. As prisoners of war and refugees moved westwards from Russia, bringing more than two million men, women and children into Poland, the disease spread. The Supreme Economic Council asked for the cooperation of the League of Red Cross Societies in the fight against typhus. One of the first official acts of the league was to notify the Supreme Council of its readiness to take charge of the typhus campaign provided that the governments of the Allied powers furnished the necessary funds, medical personnel and materials.46 As this response from the Allied powers remained wanting, the LRCS did not assume the responsibility and so, for a month between May and June 1919, nothing was accomplished beyond the drafting of well-intentioned resolutions. During the First World War the U.S. Army had created a special detachment of approximately five hundred men to free its soldiers of vermin on the battlefields. Based on this experience, the army established the American Polish Typhus Relief Expedition, later named the American Polish Relief Expedition (APRE). The bulk of APRE operations took place in the eastern territories that had been occupied by the Polish army.47 The APRE was neither a private nor a voluntary humanitarian organization, but an ‘army organization, whose personnel were members of the Regular Army establishment; the APRE was ordered to Poland by the Secretary of War by direct orders of the President of the United States’.48 In late 1919, Colonel Harry Gilchrist, the commander of the mission, realized that the most efficient way to stop the typhus epidemics was to establish a sanitary

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cordon on the eastern border and enforce strict quarantine rules. By the beginning of 1920 the APRE sanitary cordon consisted of delousing and bathing plants, railway cars and quarantine stations. When the Red Army advanced towards Warsaw, the APRE withdrew and focused on the disinfection of the occupants and contents of hospitals, sanatoria and houses in regions that were not directly affected by the fighting.49 The destruction of the sanitary cordon resulted in the resurgence of various epidemics, including typhus, in Poland. Seven months after it had begun its activities, the APRE reduced the number of its personnel. Gilchrist promptly recruited Polish medical officers, soldiers and drivers for the ambulances, trucks and hospital trains that had been provided by the U.S. Army. He also supervised the use of medical materials purchased by the Polish government and worked in close cooperation with the Polish authorities. The Polish government created a central committee of the Polish Ministry of Public Health, which was given the responsibility of implementing programmes to eliminate typhus and other infectious diseases, and an extraordinary epidemic commission, which was headed by Lieutenant Colonel E. Godlewski, a former professor at the University of Kraków who would become known as the ‘typhus czar’, as he assumed control of all typhus relief operations.50 On 10 July 1920, with the threat from typhus no longer deemed an emergency, the U.S. military authorities decided to terminate the APRE mission.51 In addition to the APRE, the ARC also contributed to the fight against typhus. The ARC personnel of 187 units under Lieutenant Colonel A.J.  Chelsey worked alongside the APRE and Polish government, ­importing hundreds of carloads of medical supplies, hospital equipment, food, clothing and other materials. The ARC established a sanitary unit at Brest-Litovsk, where it conducted a clean-up campaign from June 1919. In Białystok, Chelsey assisted the Polish authorities in establishing typhus hospitals and camps for refugees, opened a bacteriological laboratory and arranged a transport service to carry the sick and wounded from the train to the hospital. Typhus became a visible and debated subject for the League of Nations (LoN) from 1919 because the containment of the disease intersected with plans to establish a LoN health organization. With the LoN not yet fully operational, in July 1919 the British government convened the first conference on the creation of a LoN health organization, at which typhus was identified as an urgent international public health emergency. Accordingly, it was decided that an inter-Allied commission of inquiry should be sent to Poland in August. The medical commission report, published in October 1919, claimed that the typhus epidemic was ‘widespread’ and ‘enormous’ and would only worsen with the onslaught of winter.52

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The anti-typhus campaign ensured that the establishment of a LoN health organization remained on the international agenda. The LoN Council decided that typhus should be included in the discussions of the health conference that took place in London from 13 to 16 April 1920,53 and out of that conference arose the decision that the LoN Typhus Commission would raise money and oversee operations in collaboration with the Polish Extraordinary Epidemic Commissariat. The conference resolved that the LoN Commission (the LoN Epidemic Commission) would extend its action to all countries other than Poland and take any steps necessary in order to prevent the spread of typhus and other serious epidemics. Only in the spring of 1921 did the LoN Epidemic Commission establish its headquarters in Warsaw.54 The typhus epidemic was contained after the end of hostilities between Russia and Poland thanks to an operational plan proposed by Ludwik Rajchman, a Polish bacteriologist who was a member of the Epidemic Commission. Rajchman’s idea of setting up zones sanitaires provided the most effective way of preventing further outbreaks of the disease. The action of the Epidemic Commission came far too late to solve the problem of typhus in Poland. Polish health authorities were entrusted with the distribution of supplies, the handling of personnel and the management of the campaign. The LoN Epidemic Commission in Warsaw had only an advisory purpose and those who worked for the commission were probably animated by the best intentions. We would argue that the threat of typhus in Poland and elsewhere in Europe was used by the LoN to enhance its visibility and legitimacy at the international level and to promote plans for the international health bureau that became operational by 1924.55

Conclusion Some U.S. organizations – the ARA and the ARC, for example, with the extensive resources at their disposal – intervened promptly to bring relief to Poland’s population. Although these organizations initially refrained from interfering in Poland’s domestic politics, by the time the ARC and  ARA withdrew in 1922 the situation had changed greatly. Relief had become politicized even amongst people who explicitly claimed that they wanted to stay away from politics, a process that was evident when short-term relief operations merged with rehabilitation programmes. The foreign organizations had extensive influence on the shape of national institutions that dealt with economic matters, health policies and child welfare, and sought to accomplish more than

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merely deal with the immediate emergency. Through rehabilitation programmes the ARA shaped the institutional building of the Polish state and strengthened the Polish state administration. The interaction among foreign actors also shaped Poland’s domestic politics. Hoover’s involvement in high politics in Paris with Wilson and the Allies was a vital precondition for the ARA’s work in Poland, which was enhanced in three distinct areas: financial means, logistic machinery and diplomatic connections. Furthermore, Poland represented an opportunity for both the newly created LRCS and LoN to legitimize their presence and develop their skills. Constrained by its lack of finances, LRCS ended up playing a marginal role as an operational organization. The LoN used the fight against typhus epidemics for its own purposes, to foster the creation of the LoN Health Organization. Many of the organizations and associations examined in this chapter formed part of a network. Yet, there was no specific institutional design or framework to which they adhered, nor were their collective actions unified according to a specific set of goals and objectives. Their interaction formed non-binding contracts. The dominance of the ARA resulted from the money at its disposal, and the organization was not averse to cooperation with other associations, as long as it maintained its pre-eminence. In essence, the actors aligned to promote particular interests and worked in concert to assist in relief. Although their objectives were not all identical, these participants held strategies, tactics and, at times, even ideologies in common. This chapter has examined the way in which transnational actions undertaken by a number of foreign relief organizations shaped both international politics and Polish domestic politics in the aftermath of the First World War. We are fully aware that the Polish side of the story is missing; we did not consult the Polish archives, although even had we, many Polish sources would have been unavailable, destroyed during the Second World War. The roles played by Polish authorities, associations and civil society, and the ways in which these groupings interacted with foreign humanitarian agencies and contributed to the shaping and execution of humanitarian actions on behalf of the Polish civilian population, are all hard to determine. It is even more difficult to measure the discrepancy between how foreign institutions wished Polish institutions to work and how the latter implemented policy guidelines. In the same vein, one cannot investigate fully the degree of ‘Americanization’ of Polish institutions and society that resulted from the transfer of expertise and practices from foreign relief agencies. From the documentation gathered so far, it is evident that the surveys carried out by foreign humanitarian associations and their experts

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on Polish institutions and society established the recipients, location and duration of relief programmes. Foreign humanitarian players determined the daily calorie intake for Polish children, settled on the orphanages to which children should be sent, and decided upon access to soup kitchens. They also both facilitated collaboration between Catholics and Jews and effected further separation between these religious communities, especially when the JJDC was in charge of specific relief or rehabilitation programmes on behalf of Jewish communities. Foreign experts determined which Polish associations would take part in their programmes and designed new institutions, like the PAKPD, with the assumption that they knew which institutions, practices and policies were most appropriate for the rehabilitation of Poland. The foreign relief associations adhered to the definition of ‘configuration’ as established by historian Pierre-Yves Saunier and outlined in the introduction to this volume, for they constituted a transnational network of associations with self-proclaimed expertise in humanitarian affairs. Further research is needed to establish the identity of the U.S. (and European) experts, their origins and their training. The archives of foreign relief associations rarely reveal how decisions were made and what alternatives were rejected, but even in this time of great innovation, these experts brought with them traditions that they then used to create new institutions (the Children’s Bureau model, for example), and principles such as neutrality and an aversion to proselytizing. Additional organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, British Red Cross, Save the Children Fund and Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants were also active in Poland in the aftermath of the First World War and were part of the same configuration. But this chapter has mainly dealt with two U.S. associations, the ARA and the ARC, which disposed of financial means and human resources far greater than those available to other groupings. As we have seen, the impact of the ARA and ARC as transnational actors at both the domestic and international levels was remarkable; it was not repeated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (other than on the issue of prisoners of war), League of Red Cross Societies or Save the Children. The Polish experience was also, however, very important for these European organizations, whose reports make evident the extent to which they learned from their exposure to the Polish situation. Daily contact and occasional confrontation with U.S. organizations had an impact on participants in European humanitarian projects. Whether admiring or harshly critical of U.S. relief or rehabilitation programmes, no participant in Polish relief could be indifferent to the sea change brought by a U.S. business-like mentality and quasi-obsession with ‘efficiency’ to the way

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humanitarian programmes were carried out. Furthermore, U.S. activities had an evident missionary tone: relief in one geographical area was intended to promote relief elsewhere, and rehabilitation encompassed and promoted ‘civilization’. The Polish experience would be used as the standard against which would be measured responses to other ongoing humanitarian calamities – to the impending catastrophe in Russia, the exchange of population after the disaster of Smyrna in October 1922 in Greece, and to the Armenian crisis in Turkey. The significance of the configuration of foreign associations active in Poland would continue to be played out even after the organizations themselves had left Poland, as experiences and connections from Poland were subsequently repeated or discarded. The intertextual and interactional community that had formed within the Polish context was subsequently replicated, its patterns of interaction repeated in, for example, Greece and Turkey. The configuration of foreign humanitarian actors in Poland established a common discourse within which agreements, misunderstandings and disagreements took place and also enabled various institutions, private voluntary organizations, philanthropic foundations, charities and intergovernmental organizations to establish and nourish connections. This particular configuration produced an uneven landscape dominated by the U.S. presence, and especially by the ARA and ARC, which is in accord with Saunier’s contentions. And the knowledge generated by transnational humanitarian ‘experts’ helped to shape Poland’s domestic and international politics.

Notes This chapter is the result of research project fully funded by the Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique, ‘From Relief to Rehabilitation: Transnational Humanitarian Actions in the Aftermath of the First World War (1918–1933)’. We would like to thank David Forsythe, André Liebich, Dominique Marshall, Johannes Paulmann and Pierre-Yves Saunier for their comments on a draft of this chapter. 1. N. Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919–20 and the ‘Miracle on the Vistula’ (1972, London 2003); K. Lundgreen-Nielsen, ‘Aspects of American Policy towards Poland at the Paris Peace Conference and the Role of Isaiah Bownman’ in The Reconstruction of Poland, 1914–1923, ed. P. Latawski (Basingstoke 1992), 95–116; M. MacMillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and its Attempts to End War (London 2001); P.S. Wandycz, ‘The Polish Question’ in The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years, eds M.F. Boemeke, G.D. Feldman and E. Glaser (Cambridge 1998), 313–37.

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2. MacMillan, Peacemakers, 235–37; and Wandycz, ‘The Polish Question’, 329. 3. A. Zamoyski, Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe (London 2008). 4. MacMillan, Peacemakers, 238. The border with Galicia was subject to a plebiscite in twenty-five years, by decision of the Allies’ Supreme Council. 5. P. Baldwin, ‘Poland’s Refugee Problem’, P. Fuller Private Papers, Box no. 2, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA (henceforth HIA). 6. ARA Mission for Poland. Report of Operations to 30 June 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 371, folder 9, HIA. 7. H.H. Fisher and Sidney Brooks, America and the New Poland (New York 1928); and B.  Sidney, America and Poland, 1915–1925: Being the Story of the Rebirth and Restoration of the Polish Nation and America’s Participation Therein (American Relief Administration 1925). See also The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure 1874–1920 (New York 1951) and G.J. Lerski, Herbert Hoover and Poland: A Documentary History of a Friendship (Stanford 1977). See also Thomas Dickinson Fund, Box no. 1, vol. III, p. 3, HIA: ‘A History of Economic Reconstruction in Europe during the Armistice’, an unpublished contemporary history of the ARA. 8. ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, Folder 3, HIA. 9. Mission to Poland of the ARA, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 3, HIA. The Polish government claimed that the population of Poland was 27 million. 10. Although now an obsolete term in English, ‘revictualment’ meant the procuring of fresh  stocks of provisions; contemporary documents often used the French ravitaillement. 11. Lerski, Herbert Hoover and Poland, 30. ARA-ECF, Outline of ARA Activities by Sidney Brooks, 9 June 1921, ARA European Operation, Box no. 13, folder 5. See also Poland, Number of Children for Whom Supplies Were Provided, 1 Feb. to 31 July 1921, ARA European Operation, Box no. 17, folder 1, HIA. 12. Fisher and Brooks, America and the New Poland, 26. The quote is from Grove, ARA representative in Poland. Grove established his headquarters in Warsaw and subsidiary missions at Lwów, Lódź, Brest-Litovsk, Wilno, Sosnowiec, Kraków, Lublin and Lide (Lida) to oversee the feeding. 13. It should be noted that the term ‘state-building’ was used in an ARA report in 1919; see The New Poland. Perils in East and West. State-Building Under Difficulties, ARA General Office File 1916–1937, Box no. 603, folder 1, HIA. 14. Fisher, America and the New Poland, 207–8. The signing of the Versailles and St Germain treaties marked the expiration of the mandates of many of the commissions set up by the Supreme Council, among them the Coal Commission. 15. Hoover to Paderewski, 17 Aug. 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 370, folder 5, HIA. 16. ‘Herbert Hoover’s Impressions of Socialism in Europe, Speech at Dinner in WaldorfAstoria, New York, 16 September 1919’, Mining and Metallurgy: Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers 54 (Oct. 1919): xi–xxviii. 17. ARA-ECF, Warsaw to London, doc. No. 934, C. J. C. Quinn, Jan. 1921, ARA European Operation, Box no. 77, folder 3, HIA. 18. Copy of letter from Warsaw to London, ‘Bolshevism, Food and Other Troubles’, by W.P. Fuller, Chief of Mission, 22 Jan. 1920, ARA European Operation, Box no. 9, folder 3, HIA. 19. H.H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia 1919–1923 (New York 1923), 457–68. 20. See the Poslaniec Serca Jezusowego (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus) publication of Jan. 1921. See also Brown to Rickard regarding agitation in Poland against the YMCA,

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20 June 1921, ARA European Unit, General Office 1916–1937, Box no. 605, folder 5, HIA. 21. The European Relief Council was headed by Hoover, and included the ARA, ARC, American Friends’ Service Committee, Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, American Jewish Relief Committee, Knights of Columbus, YMCA (including the World’s Christian Students’ Federation) and YWCA. 22. J. Bykofsky, The History of the American National Red Cross, vol. 29: Foreign Relief in the Post-Armistice Period, 1918–1923 (Washington, DC 1950), 16. 23. Memorandum to form basis for instructions to American Red Cross representatives on the subject of cooperation with ARA representatives, 21 Mar. 1919, ARA, Box no. 429, folder 5, HIA. 24. Report of Northern District, Nov. 1919, ANRC, Box no. 120, folder 1, HIA. 25. In various ARA-ECF documents one finds detailed references to the number of calories. The chief of mission in Poland, W.P. Fuller, wrote an extremely detailed report explaining how decreasing milk by ten grams per ration, fats by one gram and sugar by one gram, but then increasing coca by one gram and peas and beans by eleven grams, would have kept the total calorie value of the ration the same as before, while considerably decreasing the cost. Incidentally he noted that children seemed to like peas and beans better than anything else in the ration. ARA-ECF Warsaw Mission to London, doc. No.122, subject: ‘More Food’, by W.P. Fuller, 10 Dec. 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 73, folder 2, HIA. 26. London office to New York, 19 Nov. 1919, Walter Lyman Brown – Director for Europe to Rickard of the ARA-ECF in New York, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 1, HIA. The main contributors were the American Friends Service Committee, ARC, ARA, American Relief Warehouses, Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, YMCA and YWCA, as confirmed by the Minutes of Meeting – European Relief Council, New York, 24 Feb. 1921, ARA European Operations, Box no. 9, folder 3, HIA. 27. ARA-ECF, London, 22 Aug. 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 1, HIA. 28. How food is distributed in Poland. Method of commodity. Book-keeping. System of Accounting and Control, ARA European Operations, Box no. 13, folder 4, HIA. 29. Telegram from American Minister, 7 Jan. 1921, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box 619, folder 1, HIA. 30. Information and instructions for delegates of the ARA Children’s Relief Bureau, by Maurice Pate, 3 June 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 372, folder 1, HIA. 31. ARA-ECF Organization, London office to New York, 22 Aug. 1919, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 1, HIA. Field Missions were in Estonia, Finland, ‘NonBolshevik Russia’, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, ‘German-Austria’, Romania and Yugoslavia. An extension to Petrograd ‘if and when liberated’ was contemplated, and a temporary operation took place in Hungary. Each mission had a head and a varying number of assistants. 32. Herbert Hoover, Organization of American Relief Administration, European Children’s Fund, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box no. 630, folder 2, HIA. 33. Information Regarding the Activity of the ARA-ECF and PAKPD, Warsaw, 1 Feb. 1921, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box no. 707, folder 2, HIA. 34. ARA Bulletin, XI, May 1921, ‘Plans for Child Feeding after 1921 Harvest’. 35. General instructions for the officers in the children’s relief work of the ARA in Poland, Jugo-Slavia, Czecho-Slovakia, Roumania, Finland, and Armenia-Syria, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 3, HIA.

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36. ARA-ECF Warsaw Mission to London, doc. No. 948, subject: Social and Permanent Aspect of the Children’s Relief Work in Poland, by P.S. Baldwin, chief of mission, ARA European Operations, Box no. 74, folder 2, HIA. 37. Homer Folks to Kendall Emerson, Recent Visit to Poland, and ARC Program in Poland, ANRC, Box no. 115, folder 20, HIA. 38. Medical Program ARC in Poland to be Extended through the PAKPD – Summary of Instructions to Local Committees, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box no. 703, folder 3, HIA. The programme comprised the development of an organization whereby children received medical attendance and treatment under a routine system of physical examinations. The ARC particularly emphasized the educational phase during which nursing mothers and schoolchildren attended lectures and demonstrations; see also Chief Sanitary Medical Department of the PAKPD to Dr R.M. Taylor, ARC Director in Poland, Monthly Report, May 1922, ACRN, Box no. 125, folder 1, HIA. 39. Bykofsky, History of the American National Red Cross, 78. 40. Ibid., 84–85. 41. Brown to Rickard, London, 20 Apr. 1921, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box no. 620, folder 2, HIA. 42. Brown to New York Office, 8 Mar. 1922, ARA European Operations, Box no. 7, folder 1, HIA. 43. R. Szymczak, ‘An Act of Devotion: The Polish Grey Samaritans and the American Relief Effort in Poland, 1919–1921’, Polish American Studies 43(1) (1986): 20. Before making the ocean voyage, volunteers were required to take the Polish Grey Samaritan Pledge, in which the Grey Samaritian promised to ‘serve the cause of Poland’ and stated ‘that in so doing I serve the cause of humanity’. ARA-ECF, Warsaw Mission, P. Fuller on YWCA girls, 19 Jan. 1920, ARA European Operations, Box no. 73, folder 1, HIA. 44. Szymczak, ‘An Act of Devotion’, 22 and 35. He explains that the ARA-ECF requested the Grey Samaritans for its relief work in Lwów, Wilno, Lublin, Kielce, Lódz, and other locations as needs arose. Sent to these places in teams of four to six, the Polish Greys were charged with the distribution of seven hundred thousand outfits for children in January 1920 alone. These volunteers were made responsible for all ARA distribution of food for children outside Warsaw, regardless of ‘race, politics, religion, inability to pay’. 45. ARA-PAKPD, Warsaw to London, Baldwin, 27 Mar. 1922, ARA European Operations, Box no. 76, folder 1, HIA. See also the report ‘The Future of the Child Relief Action of the ARA-PAKPD in Poland’, June 1922, ARA-ECF, General Correspondence, Box no. 609, folder 11, HIA. 46. Fisher, America and the New Poland, 239, quotes a memorandum of the LRCS to the SEC of 8 May 1919. 47. Report from the Commanding Officer A.T.P.E., H.L. Gilchrist, to the Surgeon General U.S. Army. Warsaw, Poland, 1 Feb. 1920, ARA European Operations, Box no. 611, folder 21, HIA. 48. The American typhus fever expedition, ARA European Operations, Box no. 611, folder 21, HIA. 49. The APRE also focused on another important aspect of the fight against typhus, undertaking propaganda tours to convince the local populations to adopt sanitary measures such as bathing. As a result of U.S. pressure, the Polish government rapidly promulgated laws compelling all persons to produce a certificate of cleanliness before using any transportation facility. A.E. Cornebise, Typhus and Doughboys: The American Polish Typhus Relief Expedition, 1919–1921 (Newark, DE 1982), 71. 50. Cornebise, Typhus and Doughboys, 54.

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51. Chelsey stated in November 1919 that typhus was a ‘relatively insignificant question, but a slight menace to western Europe and not even in a remote way to America’. Chesley to Colonel Bicknell, acting Commissioner for Europe. 19 Nov. 1919, ANRC, Box no. 116, folder 16, HIA. 52. Bulletin LRCS, 4, 1 (Oct. 1919), 4. 53. ALON, Box R811, 12.B.4124.126. PV of the meeting of the conference held at the Ministry of Health, London, 13–16 Apr. 1920. 54. ALON, Box 822, 12.B.13136.12462. Minutes of the first meeting of the Advisory Board, held in Warsaw, 15 Apr. 1921. 55. P.J. Weindling, Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe (Oxford 2000), 146.

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Notes on Contributors

( Tobias Brinkmann is Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History, Penn State University, U.S.A. His publications include Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in an American City, 1861 to 1961 (2012) and ‘Why Paul Nathan Attacked Albert Ballin: The Transatlantic Mass Migration and the Privatization of Prussia’s Eastern  Border Inspection, 1886–1914’, Central European History 43 (2010), 47–83. Stéphane Frioux is Maître de conférences (Assistant Professor) at Université Lyon 2, France. His doctoral dissertation (2009), Les réseaux de la modernité. Diffusion de l’innovation et amélioration de l’environnement dans la France urbaine (fin XIXe siècle-années 1950), examines municipal policies of environmental sanitation and the diffusion of sanitary devices in French cities in the first half of the twentieth century. His publications include ‘Settling Urban Waste Disposal Facilities in France c.1900–1940: A New Source of Inequality?’, in Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud and Richard Rodger (eds), Environmental and Social Justice in the City: Historical Perspectives (2011), 189–207. Shaloma Gauthier obtained her Ph.D. with a study on international organizations and state building at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. She has also worked as Research Assistant for Davide Rodogno. Martina Henze is a consultant at a Danish non-profit organization; until 2010 she researched and taught at Copenhagen University, Denmark. Her principal publications are Strafvollzugsreformen im 19. Jahrhundert. Gefängniskundlicher Diskurs und staatliche Praxis in Bayern und HessenDarmstadt (2003) and ‘Crime on the Agenda: Transnational Organizations 1870–1955’, Historisk Tidsskrift 2 (2009), 369–417.

294 | Notes on Contributors

Sandrine Kott is Professor of European Contemporary History at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Among her publications are L’État social allemand. Représentations et pratiques (1995) and Le communisme au quotidien. Les entreprises d’Etat dans la société est-allemande (1949–1989) (2001). She has recently edited, with Joëlle Droux, Globalizing Social Rights: The International Labour Organization and Beyond (2012). Chris Leonards is Senior Lecturer in History at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University, the Netherlands. His publications include ‘Ter bestrijding van armoede, misdaad, oorlog en immoraliteit; Europese congrescultur in de negentiende en vroege twintigste eeuw vanuit filantropisch perspectief’ in V. Kingma and M.H.D. van Leeuwen (eds), Filantropie in Nederland; Voorbeelden uit de periode 1770–2020 (2007), 49–62, and, with N. Randeraad, ‘Transnational Experts in Social Reform, 1840–1880’, International Review of Social History 55(2) (2010), 215–39. Dominique Marshall is Professor of History at Carleton University, Canada. Her current research is on the Conference on the African Child of 1931, and the early history of OXFAM in Canada. She is the author of The Social Origins of the Welfare State: Quebec Families, Compulsory Education, and Family Allowances, 1940–1955 (2006) and of articles about the history of children’s rights and about the League of Nations. Damiano Matasci is currently a postdoctoral fellow of the Société Académique de Genève and visiting scholar at the CHRIC/IRICE at University of Paris I Sorbonne. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Geneva and EHESS-Paris in 2012. Among his publications are ‘Le système scolaire français et ses miroirs. Les missions pédagogiques entre comparaison internationale et circulation des savoirs (1842–1914)’, Histoire de l’Education 125 (2010), 5–26, and ‘L’éducation, terrain d’action internationale: le Bureau international de l’enseignement technique dans les années 1930’ Relations internationales (2012), 37–48. Julia Moses is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Sheffield. She is currently completing a book entitled The First Modern Risk: Workplace Accidents and the Origins of European Welfare States, and has co-edited, with Michael Lobban, Comparative Studies in the Development of the Law of Torts in Europe: The Impact of Ideas (2011). Christian Müller is Lecturer in History, Culture and Communications at the University for Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK), Göttingen. He is currently writing a book entitled The Politics of Expertise: The

Notes on Contributors | 295

Institutionalization of Transnational Legal and Social Networks in Europe, 1840–1914. His publications on internationalism include ‘Designing the Model European – Liberal and Republican Concepts of Citizenship in the 1860s’, History of European Ideas 37 (2011), 223–31, and, together with Jasmien van Daele, ‘Peaks of Internationalism in Social Engineering, 1860– 1925’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis – Special Issue ‘Beyond Belgium’ (2012). Francesca Piana is currently Postdoctoral Fellow of the Swiss National Sciences Foundation with a project entitled ‘”Parallel Lives”: Women, Humanitarianism, and Imperialism (1880-1950)’. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2012 from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, with a study entitled ‘Towards the International Refugee Regime. Humanitarianism in the Wake of the First World War’. She has published ‘Humanitaire et politique, in medias res: le typhus en Pologne et l’Organisation internationale d’hygiène de la SDN (1919–1923)’, Relations internationales 138 (2009), 23–38. Nico Randeraad, Lecturer in History and European Studies at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, previously studied at the Free University, Amsterdam and at the European University Institute in Florence. He is the author of States and Statistics in the Nineteenth Century: Europe by Numbers (2010) and, with H. Jones and K. Ostberg, has edited Contemporary History on Trial: Europe since 1989 and the Role of the Expert Historian (2007). Katharina Rietzler is the Mellon Research Fellow in American History at the University of Cambridge. She completed her Ph.D. at University College London, and has been a Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the German Historical Institute, Washington, and the University of Oslo, and the German Historical Institute, Washington. Her recent publications include articles on U.S. philanthropic foundations in Europe, and on American cultural diplomacy in the interwar years. Davide Rodogno is Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He teaches the history and politics of international government and non-government organizations and of transnational movements since 1800, and his publications include Fascism’s European Empire (2005) and Against Massacre (2011). He is currently preparing From Relief to Rehabilitation: A History of International Humanitarian Actions on Behalf of Civilian Populations from 1918 to 1933.

296 | Notes on Contributors

Bernhard Struck is Reader in Modern History and Director of the Centre for Transnational History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is the author of Nicht West – nicht Ost. Frankreich und Polen in der Wahrnehmung deutscher Reisender, 1750–1850 (2006) and, with Claire Gantet, of Revolution, Krieg und Verflechtung. Deutsch-Französische Geschichte 1789–1815 (2008). Vincent Viaene has been a Research Fellow and Lecturer at KU Leuven, and a Marie Curie Fellow at Oxford University. His publications include Belgium and the Holy See from Gregory XVI to Pius IX (1831–1859): Catholic Revival, Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Europe (2001). He has edited The Papacy and the New World Order: Vatican Diplomacy, Catholic Opinion and International Politics at the time of Leo XIII (1878–1903) (2005) and, with Abigail Green, Religious Internationals in the Modern World: Globalization and Faith Communities since 1750 (2012). He is currently a Belgian diplomat in Kenya and Somalia. Jakob Vogel is Professor of European History (19th and 20th centuries) at the Centre d’Histoire, Sciences Po, Paris. His publications include Ein schillerndes Kristall. Das Salz im Wissenswandel zwischen Frühneuzeit und Moderne (2008) and he has edited, with R. Jessen, Wissenschaft und Nation in der europäischen Geschichte (2002), and with P. Laborier, F. Audren and P. Napoli, Les sciences camérales. Activités pratiques et histoire des dispositifs publics (2011).

Index

( Abbott, Grace, 84–5, 87–8, 95 Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 119 Ackersdijck, Jan, 117, 119 Adler, Freda, 210 Aftalion, Albert, 243 Aguillon, Louis, 65 Aix-en-Provence, 55 Alexandria, 53, 157 Ali, Mehmet, 157–8 Alliance Israélite Universelle, 153–69 American Association for International Conciliation (AAIC), 179 American Association for Labour Legislation (AALL), 245, 252 American Jewish Committee, 160, 168 American National Council of Jewish Women, 160 American Peace Society, 181 American Polish Relief Expedition (APRE), 259, 269–70 American Red Cross (ARC), 259–60, 264–74 American Relief Administration (ARA), 259–74 American Soil Hygiene Association, 86 Ames, Herbert Brown, 86, 100 Amsterdam, 131, 142 Anderson, Adelaide, 246 Andrews, John B., 245, 252 Angell, Norman, 176 Angers, 25 Annecy, 51–3 Annonay, 51 Antwerp, 221 Arrivabene, Giovanni, 116

Asser, T. M. C., 143 Association for the Advancement of Science, 115 Association catholique des oeuvres de protection de la jeune fille, 38 Association française pour la Société des Nations, 185 Association Générale des Hygiénistes et Techniciens Municipaux (AGHTM), 49–50 Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP), 206 Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (International Social Sciences Association ISSA), 8, 64, 124, 131, 135–6, 138–40, 142–6 Association pour la paix par le droit (APD), 178, 184–5 Avignon, 52, 55 Avila, Theresa of, 25 Babcock, B., 186–7 Barni, Jules, 140 Bauer, Stefan, 241, 246, 249–50 Baumhauer, Marie-Matthieu, 114, 116 Beck, Joseph, 242 Belgrand, Eugène, 44 Bennett, R. B., 97 Berlepsch, Freiherr von, 242 Berlin, 23, 44, 46–7, 54, 74, 122, 155, 162, 167 Berne, 77, 180, 206, 212, 244 Bernstein, Eduard, 247 Bezault, Bernard, 52 Białystok, 260, 270

298 | Index

Bibliographical Society of America, 220 Bismarck, Otto von, 24, 112 Bluntschli, Johann Caspar, 144 Boissard, Adeodat, 250 Booth, William, 33 Bordeaux, 221 border(s) (also: boundaries), 1–7, 14, 40, 44–5, 53, 60–61, 86–7, 89, 93, 115, 120, 126, 136, 153–4, 156–7, 161–4, 167, 169, 175, 179, 198, 211, 232, 260–1, 270 Bouglé, Célestin, 250 Bouquet, Louis, 65 Brandt, Franz, 242–3 Bréal, Michael, 224 Brentano, Lujo, 242, 252 Brest-Litovsk, 260 British and American Friends Service Committee, 264 British Association for Labour Legislation (ALL), 246 Brothers of Charity, 32–3, 40 Brougham, Lord, 134 Brown, Samuel, 119 Brown, Walter Lyman, 268 Brussels, 35–6, 44, 46, 48–50, 64, 77, 84, 90, 114–8, 123, 181, 221 Buchanan, George, 95 Bucharest, 55 Budapest, 54 Buenos Aires, 167 Buisson, Ferdinand, 224 Bumke, Erwin, 207–8 Burge, 250 Butler, Harold, 247, 250 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 175, 179–80, 184–6 Cairo, 157 Calabria, 24 Calmette, Albert, 54 Cannes, 55 Carnegie, Andrew, 174–5, 177, 179–80, 182–3 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 173–4, 177–9, 181–4, 186 Catholicism (also: Catholic) Catholic international(ism), 25, 28–30, 34, 36, 38–9, 41 liberal, 32, 35 political, 23, 38 orders / congregations, 28–31, 33–4

Cauwes, Paul, 242–3 Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, 175, 179, 180–1, 185–7 Chadwick, Edwin, 116, 119–22 Chambéry, 55 Chaptal, Léonie, 90, 92–3 charity 25, 30–4, 36, 40, 88–9, 94–6, 115–6 Chartres, 51–2 Châteaudun, 51 Chelsey, A. J., 270 Cherbourg, 51 Chevalier, Michel, 134, 140, 142 Chicago, 9, 164, 221 child (also: children), 10, 63, 82–100, 120, 122–7, 206, 265–71, 273 Christian Brothers schools, 31 circulation, 1, 5, 46, 48–9, 61, 111, 120, 126, 218, 240 ‘circulatory regime’, 111, 125–7 civil society, 2, 14–5, 26, 39 civilisation, 4, 10, 34, 136, 138 Clamagéran, Jean-Jules, 139 Cobden, Richard, 134, 176 Cohen, Joseph, 250 Colin, Andrée, 83–5, 87, 90, 92 Collège de France, 230 Compayré, Gabriel, 224 Conciliation internationale, 178–9, 182–6 Congress (also: conference, exhibitions, expositions, fairs), 48, 65–9, 71–4, 99, 113, 115–6, 118–9, 122, 126, 131, 134, 136, 140–1, 145–6, 161, 168, 177, 180, 184–5, 200, 202, 205, 208, 221–3, 225–6, 252 anti-slavery, 37 of ‘bienfaisance’, 36, 115 international, 2–3, 6–7, 13, 27, 36–7, 46, 65–9, 72–4, 76, 113–5, 117, 122, 124, 132–4, 136, 141–2, 144–5, 168, 176, 180, 184–5, 200–1, 218–32, 241 international positivist, 9 masonic, 9 movement, 131, 138 prison, 192–212 statistical, 119 Zionist, 9 Congressi degli Scienziati Italiani, 115 Constant, Benjamin, 178

Index | 299

Copenhagen, 24 Corps de Mines, 65 Cosne-sur-Loire, 51 Courmont, Jules, 53 Crémieux, Adolphe, 157–59 Croiset, Alfred, 224 Crowdy, Rachel, 83, 85 Curtis, Lionel, 187 Czacki, Mgr., 29 Damascus, 157 Daguet, Alexandre, 225 Dandurand, Raoul, 89–90 David, Christian Georg Nathan, 117, 119 De Brito, Saturnino, 50 Delaquis, Ernst, 207–10 Delevingne, Malcom, 239 De Merode, Mgr., 29 Demetz, F.-A., 35 Demille, Cecil, 31 Desmarest, Ernest, 134, 138 D’Estournelles de Constant, Paul Henri, 178–80, 182, 185 Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, 187 Dijon, 44 diplomacy, 87, 89, 95, 97–9, 186, 263, 272 Dmowski, Roman, 260 Dresden, 46–7, 77 Droste zu Vischering, ClemensAugust, 23 Droste zu Vischering, Maria, 23–6, 41 Drummond, Eric, 185 Ducpétiaux, Edouard, 32–3, 35, 41, 112, 115, 117, 120–4, 126–7 Dunant, Henri, 159 Dupin, Charles, 122 Dupin, M., 44 Durand-Claye, Alfred, 44 Düsseldorf, 46, 66, 77 Ecole nationale supérieure des mines, 65 Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, 44, 46, 50 education, 35, 88–9, 92, 96–7, 160, 186–7, 198, 218–32 Eiffel, Gustave, 65 Ekstrand, Erik Einan, 83, 94 Engel, Ernst, 117, 119 Engels, Friedrich, 113 engineer, 26, 44, 46, 48–50, 52–6, 70

‘epistemic community’ (see also: transnational), 1, 6, 14, 45, 61, 63, 71, 76, 116, 120, 123, 125, 219, 223, 227, 232, 240, 243 European Children’s Fund (EFC), 265–9 European Union, 1, 11 expert / expertise (see also: networks, knowledge, transnational), 1, 3–6, 8, 12, 26, 28–9, 34, 37, 39–40, 45–6, 69, 83, 86–7, 89, 91–2, 95–100, 113, 116, 121–2, 133, 136, 139–40, 143–6, 160, 183, 188, 223, 225, 228, 232, 241, 246, 249, 262–3, 273–4 educational, 11 legal 133, 139, 144–5 scientific, 2, 89, 136 technical / technological, 2, 45 Faure, Félix, 65 Fédération Internationale de la LibrePensée, 9 Fiume (Rijeka), 53 Fontaine, Arthur, 239, 245, 247, 250 Francke, Ernst, 252 Frankfurt am Main, 36, 47, 114–6, 122, 164, 200 Freese, Heinrich, 243 Fribourg, 38, 225 Fried, Alfred, 146, 176, 181 Fuller, Edward, 82, 91–2, 94 Fuller, W. P., 264 Furse, Katherine, 85 Fuster, Édouard, 68 Galen, Ferdinand von, 23 Garnier-Pagès, Louis Antoine, 134 Gavard, Alexandre, 225 Geneva, 47, 68, 83, 86, 90, 92–3, 95–6, 98, 116, 141, 225 Génoud, Leon, 225 Gérando, Joseph Marie de, 122 Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte, 115 Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform (GfSR), 243, 245 Ghent, 33, 46 Gibson, Hugh, 265 Gide, Charles, 242–3 Gilchrist, Harry, 269 Glasgow, 47 globalization, 5–6, 8, 10, 100, 174

300 | Index

Gobat, Albert, 181–2 Godlewski, E., 270 Goebbels, Joseph, 208 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 116–7 Gompers, Samuel, 239 Greulich, Herrmann, 242 Grimshaw, Harold, 91–2 Gürtner, Franz, 208 Guex, François, 225, 230 Guillaume, Louis, 205 The Hague, 8, 77, 209 Halévy, Elie, 250 Hall, Lady, 250 Hamburg, 35, 45 Harmel, Léon, 242–3 Harris, Sydney West, 84, 86, 90, 94, 99 Hazen, Allen, 50 health (public, social, urban), 11, 44–6, 50, 86, 90, 93, 98–9 Heidelberg, 138 Helsinki, 51 Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), 168 Helseler, Hermann, 247 Herzen, Alexandre, 225 Heyde, Ludwig, 251–2 Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, 160, 164 Hinton-Smith, Constance, 248 Hobrecht, James, 44 Holy Cross sisters, 32 Hoover, Herbert, 89, 99–100, 261–6 Howard Association, 119 Howard League for Penal Reform, 206 Howatson, Andrew, 51 Hugo, Victor, 134 humanitarianism (also: humanitarian), 35, 89, 95, 98, 113, 153, 158–9, 170, 272–4 humanitarian action / relief, 7, 10, 14, 82, 100, 260, 272 humanitarian crisis, 158 humanitarian organization, 170, 269, 272 Humboldt, Alexander von, 116 hygiene, 47–4, 53, 60, 62, 68, 93, 114–5, 119 Imbeaux, Édouard, 49–50 industrialization, 1, 54, 112–3, 125–6, 136, 218, 222, 228, 241, 243

Institut de Droit International (IDI), 144, 175, 177, 182 Institut des hautes études internationales, 187 Institut of International Education (IIE), 186 Institut International de la Paix, 9 Institut international des sciences administratives, 48 insurance 9, 66–6, 70, 72–5, 112 International Association for the Fight against Unemployment, 241, 249 International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL), 239–254 International Association for the Legal Protection of Workers, 68, 76 International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare, 83, 85, 90 International Association for Social Progress (IASP), 249–50, 252, 254 International Association for Social Security, 249 International Associations Union, 220 International Bureau of Secondary Education, 222, 224 International Bureau of Teachers’ Associations, 222, 224 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 14, 99, 119, 159–60 International Congress on Accidents at Work (ICAW) (later: International Congress on Accidents at Work and Social Insurance), 61–2, 66–76 International Congresses of Criminal Anthropology, 205 International Federation of Trade Unions, 244, 247 International Labour Organization (ILO), 10, 68, 124, 239–54 International Organization of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, 86 International Peace Bureau, 180–82, 184 International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC), 206–12 International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF), 209 International Penitentiary Commission (IPC), 203–7, 210–2 International Socialist Bureau, 9

Index | 301

International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), 48 International Union of Penal Law, 208 Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung (IKV), 205–6 internationalism (also: internationalization, internationalist; see also: congress, networks, experts, movement), 3, 8–10, 26–7, 36, 40, 89, 92, 95–7, 99, 113, 132, 136, 138, 146, 162, 173–9, 181, 183, 185, 187, 199, 201, 209, 219, 222–3, 225–6, 253 religious internationalism, 27 international coordination, 124 international cooperation, 9, 89, 92, 176–7, 205 international encounter 93, 97, 115 liberal internationalism, 9 international law / legislation, 2, 8, 90, 134 international movement, 8, 95, 133–4 International norm 96, 144 international organization 12, 68, 141, 160, 175, 186, 199, 202–5, 207, 211, 239–40 international problems / questions, 86, 95 international relations, 2, 95, 97, 134, 144, 182, 185, 187 international society, 8, 178 Interparliamentary Socialist Commission, 9 Istanbul, 157 Jebb, Eglantyne, 88–9, 96, 99 Jesuits, 24, 30–31, 34 Jewish, 3–4, 8, 152–69 Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JJDC), 264 Jobard, Jean Baptiste, 116 Joint Distribution Committee, 168 Jouhaux, Léon, 239, 250 Joulot, Antoine, 55 Katchenowsky, 134, 144 Ketteler, Wilhelm-Emanuel von, 23 Keufer, August, 242 Kiev, 260 Kishinev, 166 knowledge (see also: epistemic community), 1, 6, 12, 34, 37, 39–40,

50, 84, 88–9, 91–3, 95–7, 100, 120, 126, 145, 174, 185, 187, 198, 227, 240, 253 ‘bodies of knowledge’, 2 circulation of knowledge, 1, 50, 120, 126, 218 expert knowledge, 1, 9, 87, 97, 116 knowledge society 1 Königsberg, 155 Königswinter, 67 Kowel, 260 Kulturkampf, 23 Laboulaye, Edouard, 144 Ladies of the Sacred Heart, 32 La Fontaine, Henri, 181 Laplace, Pierre Simon de la, 117 La Salette, 24 Laskar, Paul, 167 Lathrop, Julia, 86–7, 96 Launay, Felix, 54 Lausanne, 141 Laveleye, Émile de, 144 Lavisse, Ernest, 224 law (also: legislation), 2, 8, 52, 56, 60–1, 63, 68–9, 72–4, 76, 89, 90, 93, 126–7, 131–4, 138, 140–1, 143–4, 175, 177, 186, 203, 206, 253 lawyer, 26, 28, 70, 76, 121, 144, 177–8, 184 Lazard, Max, 249 League of Education, 221 League of Nations, 2, 7, 10–11, 39, 47–8, 82–9, 92–5, 97–9, 185186, 206–7, 209–11, 231, 239, 248, 252, 260, 270–72 League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS), 260, 269, 272–3 Lectoure, 51 Leeds, 244 Leipzig, 164Lenroot, Katherine, 87, 99 Leo XIII, 24, 41 Le Play, Fédéric, 33, 117 Lessard, Alphonse, 92 Levasseur, Emile, 224, 230 liberalism, 26, 36–7, 138–9, 225 Liège, 38, 47, 221 Ligue Internationale de la Paix (LIP), 140, 142, 144–5 Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté (LIPL), 140–3, 145–6

302 | Index

Lindley, William, 44 Lindner, Oscar, 65, 73 Liszt, Franz von, 208 London, 36, 44, 47–8, 52, 116, 122, 142, 162, 164, 203, 221 Lourdes, 24 Lublin, 260 Luzzatti, Luigi, 74 Lyon, 33–4, 36, 46–8, 52 -6 Lyons, F.S.L., 26–8 Macarthur, Mary, 246 MacDonald, Ramsay, 243 Magnusson, Leifer, 252 Mahaim, Ernest, 239, 242, 247 Mamiani, Terenzio, 135 Mancini, Pasquale Stanislao, 144 Marpingen, 24 Marx, Karl, 113, 176 McCarthy, H., 100 McGeachy, Mary, 99 Mechelen, 36–8 Memel, 155 Menn, Charles, 141 Methodist Mission, 264 Mettray, 35, 115 migration, 152–69, 218 Milan, 47, 68, 77, 221 Millerand, Alexandre, 245 Minsk, 260 Mission, 32, 34–5, 38–9 Molinari, Gustave di, 141 Montefiore, Moses, 157–9 Montheuil, Albert, 49 Montluçon, 44 Mortara, Edgardo, 139 Moscow, 55 Moss, David, 243 movement anti-slavery, 7 Communist, 9 humanitarian, 8 juridical 8 labour 9 mass, 142, 144 peace, 26, 131, 140–1, 173, 178, 180 prison, 197–212 Socialist, 9, 178 women 95 workers’ 9 Moynier, Gustave, 116, 119, 144

Mulhouse, 66 Mundth, Martha, 248 Münster, 25 Murray, Gilbert, 186 Mussolini, Benito, 97 Napoleon III, 141–2 Nancy, 50, 56 Narbonne, 55 Nathan, Paul, 167 National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 119 Near East Relief, 11 Netter, Charles, 159 network (see also: transnational), 1, 3, 6, 13, 25–8, 30, 40–1, 45, 49, 51, 55, 64, 67, 69, 76, 83, 88–9, 91–2, 117–9, 121, 125–6, 131–3, 138, 140–1, 143, 155, 159–60, 173, 175, 181, 187, 199–202, 211, 219, 222, 226, 232, 240, 244, 248, 253–4, 266, 272–3 Catholic, 41 elite, 2, 40, 211 eugenicists / racist, 4 expert, 1, 4, 7, 10, 12–3, 38–9, 63–4, 82, 143–4, 146, 243 (proto-)fascists, 4 Grassroot, 89 Information, 51, 53 pedagogical, 35 philanthropic, 4, 13, 35, 39, 173 professional, 45 reform, 2, 7, 118, 121, 125, 240–1, 248, 254 secular, 39 Neuilly, 51 New Orleans, 221 New York, 155, 157, 185–6 New York Prison Association, 203 Nightingale, Florence, 159 Nippold, Otfried, 181 Nolens, Mgr., 242 non-governmental organizations (NGO), 27, 40, 96, 99, 174–5, 206, 253 Nostitz, Hans von, 251 Oeuvre pour la propagation de la foi, 34, 40 Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance, 34 Ontario, 90 Ostende, 52

Index | 303

Paderewski, Ignacy, 260, 266 Pan´stwowy Komitet Pomocy Dzieciom (State Children’s Relief Committee, PKPD or PAKPD), 266–9 Pate, Maurice, 100, 266 Paris, 23, 33, 36, 38, 46, 48, 51–4, 56, 67, 77, 86, 115–7, 122, 134, 160, 162, 164, 175, 179–80, 184, 221, 230, 239, 245, 260, 263 Passy, Frederick, 140, 142 patronage, 33, 36 Pau, 51–2 pauperism (also: poverty, the poor), 118, 122–3, 165 peace, 7, 9–10, 26, 68, 82, 84, 95–6, 98, 114–5, 132–6, 138–46, 173–88 penitentiary (also: penitential, penal; see also reform), 197–212 care 118 congress, 35–6, 122 field, 35 institution, 33, 35, 37, 38 system, 32, 40 work, 32 Philadephia, 164, 221 philanthropy (also: philanthropists, philanthropic; see also reform, network), 5, 32–3, 35, 41, 87–9, 113, 115, 133, 153, 155, 157, 159, 165, 168–70, 173–5, 177, 182, 184, 200 philanthropic circles, 13, 35 philanthropic house 87 philanthropic foundation, 173–4, 183 philanthropic institution, 155 philanthropic organization, 8, 10, 152–3, 159–60, 164, 169–70, 175, 177 philanthropic tourism, 115 Philippovich, Eugen, 242 Philippson, Ludwig, 156–7 Piłsudski, Józef, 260 Polish Grey Samaritans (PGS), 259, 268 Politis, Nicolas, 186 Poor Sisters schools, 32 Porto, 25 Prague, 47, 53, 250 progress, 1, 3–4, 9, 34, 134, 136, 138, 145, 177 Quebec, 92 Quetelet, Adolphe, 115, 117–8

Radzinowicz, Leon, 197 Rajchman, Ludwik, 88, 99, 271 Rashkovitch, 48 Reading, 52–3 reform (also: reformers) constitutional 133 school, 14, 219 liberal 132–3 penitentiary (also: penal), 8, 41, 114–5, 117, 122, 134 philanthropic, 35 prison, 7, 32, 114, 117, 119, 126, 197, 200 secular, 36 social, 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 27, 29, 39, 112–9, 121, 244, 246 Reinsch, Paul, 176 relief, 83, 92, 121–3, 125, 136, 138, 178, 248, 251, 260–74 Renner, Karl, 252 revolution 1848 revolution, 114, 132, 202, 212 Belgian, 32 French, 24, 65 industrial, 111 urban, 111 Riboli, Charles, 141 Riddell, Walter, 90 Rist, Charles, 250 Rockefeller Foundation, 11, 174–5, 184–6 Rolin-Jaequemyns, Gustave, 143–4 Rome, 24–5, 29–30, 33, 39, 41, 67, 74, 77, 208 Roosevelt, Theodore, 177–8 Root, Elihu, 175, 179–80, 185 Rouen, 53 Royal Statistical Society, 63 Sagra, Ramón de la, 117, 119 Saignat, Léo, 224 Saint Joseph Sisters, 24 Salesians of Don Bosco, 31 Salvation Army, 27–8, 33 Samuel, Herbert, 242, 245–6 Sanger, Sophy, 246–8 Sanitary Institute of Great Britain, 119 sanitation 44–6, 48, 52–3, 114, 123 Save the Children International Union (SCIU), 85, 88, 91–2, 96 Scherrer, Heinrich, 242 Schluep, Eduard, 247

304 | Index

Scott, James Brown, 175, 177, 185 Sellier, Henri, 48 sewage (also: garbage, waste), 44, 46, 48–50, 55–6 Silbernagel, Alfred, 85, 94 Simiand, François, 250 Sismondi, Léonard de, 122 Sisters of Charity, 30 Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd (Bon Pasteur), 25, 27–8, 32 Sisters of Providence, 32, 40 Smith, Constance, 246 sociability, 7, 119 social question, 75, 89, 94, 98, 112–3, 125–6, 132 Social Science Organisation (SSA), 64, 131, 134, 144 Socialist Second International, 9 Société d’Economie Charitable, 33, 119 Société d’Economie Sociale, 119 Société des instituteurs de la Suisse romande, 225 Société générale d’épuration et d’assainissement, 52 Société Internationale de Charité, 36 Société philomatique, 224 Société pour l’étude des questions d’enseignment supérieur, 224 Society of Medicine and Hygiene, 119 Society for the Prevention of the of Factory Accidents, 66 Statistical Society (London), 119, 123 Statistical Society (Manchester), 119 Society of St Vincent de Paul, 33, 37, 40–1 statistics 44, 50, 54, 62–5, 67–8, 70–1, 75–6, 82, 92, 94, 114–5, 118–9, 122–3, 126, 134, 144, 198, 230, 266 Stein, Oswald, 251 St Petersburg, 167 St Raphael Society, 167 Strasbourg, 47 Strauss, Oscar, 167 Suringar, Willem Hendrik, 35, 116–7, 119, 122 Terni, 67 Thibert, Marguerite, 248 Thomas, Albert, 242, 247, 250–1 Thommen, Edouard, 247 Tilsit, 155

Tirol, 24 Tixier, Adrien, 251 Toulon, 44 Toulouse, 55 transfer (cultural, technological, medical; also: exchange), 2, 26, 33, 35, 40, 45, 48, 54, 60, 62, 84, 86–7, 89, 92, 97, 100, 120, 126, 175, 219–20, 228, 231, 261, 272 transnational (see also: experts, networks) action 87, 123, 175, 219, 227, 230, 272 actors, 6, 10, 14, 127, 273 advocacy, 82 arena, 126, 226 assistance system, 152 association, 8, 168–9, 222 circles, 29 ‘circulatory regime’, 61 community, 3, 5, 61–2, 69, 76, 118, 122, 178 competence, 38 concern, 96 connectedness (also: connection), 116, 126 consciousness, 2–3, 157–8 contacts, 55 context, 2, 89, 124 conversation, 12 cooperation, 27, 197, 212 discourse, 127 encounters, 3 entanglements, 174 exchange 12–3, 87, 219, 230 experts / expertise, 4, 8–9, 12, 30, 40, 50, 83, 98, 100, 121–2, 160, 223, 274 flows, 240 fieldwork, 92 groups, 219 idea 87, 111 institution, 37, 92 missionary culture, 34, 38 movement, 199 network, 2, 4–8, 10, 12, 28–32, 37, 40, 45, 56, 60–2, 67–9, 71–2, 75–6, 88, 92, 121, 155, 162, 173, 175, 183, 199, 202, 211, 223, 231, 239–41, 253, 273 organization, 27, 40, 76, 167, 169–70 outlook, 33, 113, 198 policy 96 practices, 92 reformers 114, 116–18, 121

Index | 305

relations, 1, 5, 207 religion, 37 scene, 46 setting, 124 society, 5 space, 2, 6, 132, 139, 188, 223, 227 sphere, 2–5, 7–8, 10–14, 39–40, 152, 155, 160, 165, 169, 223 ties, 6 web, 32 world(s), 35 transnationalism (also: transnationalization), 3–5, 10, 83, 111, 126–7, 198, 211, 219 travel (also: tour, journey), 3, 54, 87, 116–7, 134, 167, 199–201 Tuckwell, Gertrude, 246, 250 Turin, 31, 138 ultramontanism, 36, 41, 139 UNICEF, 100 Union des Associations Internationales, 48 Union de Fribourg, 37 Union Internationale des Villes, 46 Union de Patronages, 38 United Nations (UN), 11, 98–100, 209–11 Vajkai, Julie, 88, 91–2 Valence, 55 van der Aa, Simon, 205, 207 van Lint, Victor, 49, 210 Varlez, Louis, 250 Varrentrapp, Georg, 115, 117–9, 122, 140, 142 Vatican, 24, 30–31, 38 Vendeé, 24–5 Venice, 221 Verband für Internationale Verständigung (VIV) (see also Conciliation international), 181 Verein für Sozialpolitik, 119

Vienna, 47, 53, 77, 122, 162, 221 Villermé, Louis de, 122 Visschers, August, 119 Warsaw, 260, 266 Washington, D.C., 77, 167, 185 Webb, Beatrice, 242 Webb, Sidney, 242–3 welfare 11, 88–9, 90, 93, 95, 97–8, 100, 112, 114–5, 121–3, 125–6, 134, 136, 138, 145 Westlake, John, 143 Whitton, Charlotte, 86–8, 90–3, 96–7 Wilno, 260 Wilson, Woodrow, 261, 264 Wolowski, Louis, 116, 118 Women’s Cooperative Guild, 246 women’s movement, 28, 170 Women’s Suffrage Association, 95 Women’s Trade Union League, 246 world exhibition (also: world Fair, exposition universelle), 24, 36, 64, 66, 73–4, 115–6, 142, 219–21, 230, 241 World Health Organization, 100 World’s Parliament of Religions, 9 World War First World War, 8, 10–11, 28, 39, 47, 50, 53–4, 68, 76, 95, 97–98, 146, 174, 176, 182–4, 205–7, 211, 241, 260, 269, 272–3 Second World War, 10–11, 48, 56, 99, 208, 272 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 264 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 264, 268 Zimmern, Alfred, 83–6, 90, 97 Zirnfeld, Jules, 250 Zurich, 52–3, 77 Zygmunt, Rudolf, 48