Popular Geographies in a French Port City: The Experience of the Le Havre Society of Commercial Geography, 1884–1948

Abstract

In the wake of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, many French provincial cities established geographical societies that informed the business community about trading opportunities, and educated and entertained the general public, whose taste for the exotic was met by talks from returned explorers. In 1884, Le Havre founded its own society, with an explicitly commercial orientation. Detailed reading of its Bulletin reveals that, in practice, it presented a variety of forms of ‘popular geography’. At first, its lectures and articles met a genuine demand for information about the rapidly changing world; after 1900, attention was directed toward the geopolitics of Europe. Audiences declined in the 1920s and 1930s, as the city's businessmen joined new associations that offered effective professional contacts. The fate of the Society was sealed when its offices and library were bombed in 1944, however its role in diffusing geographical knowledge should not be ignored.