American Relief Administration Research Articles

Американская администрация помощи в Симбирской губернии (1921-1923 гг.)

Introduction. The article examines the charitable activities of the American Relief Administration, known as the ARA, during the famine of 1921-1923 in Simbirsk province. Materials and methods. The research is based mainly on previously unpublished archival materials. Photocopies of the documents of the so-called Russian Mission of the ARA itself, transferred by the Archive of the Hoover Institute to the State Archive of the Russian Federation, documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the State Archive of the Modern History of Ulyanovsk region, were used. The periodical Russian and American press of those years and other sources are also analyzed. The methodological basis for writing this work was general scientific, source-based and special historical methods. Results. The author thoroughly examines the charitable activities of the foreign philanthropic organization. For the first time, they have shown the scale of supplies of food and medicines to the suffering population of this Russian territory. With some wary attitude towards foreigners on the part of the Soviet authorities, the author especially notes their support for the activities of the ARA, which saved the population from starvation and disease. The article notes the positive role of authorized representatives of the central Soviet government, the local Bolshevik party organization, the police and the Chekists in the rapid promotion of foreign aid and the protection of ARA cargo. At the same time, some difficulties in the relationship between Soviet officials and foreign philanthropists are shown. Basically, as can be seen from the article, they were objective in nature. Conclusion. The author concludes that the help of the American organization was very important for the hungry and sick population of the Simbirsk province. The ARA worked closely and productively with the local authorities in the rescue of people. It saved the lives of tens of thousands of people and contributed to the restoration of the economic life of this territory.

Bread or Iron? Competing Visions of American Aid to Soviet Russia, 1921–1923

Abstract World War I was a watershed moment in the rise of a new network of international humanitarian organizations that sought to develop systematic responses to the unprecedented social and economic crises caused by the war. Many organizational questions about types of relief, distribution networks, and roles of relief workers, among others, became points of discussion and an open confrontation ensued among different organizations. This article analyzes competing visions of US famine relief to Soviet Russia during the devastating Volga famine of 1921–23. Unofficially presided over by Herbert Hoover, the American Relief Administration sent food, clothing, and medicine to the Soviets, while the so-called radical relief groups demanded a more “permanent rehabilitation” of Soviet agriculture and sought to ship technologies and agricultural specialists. These visions were guided by more than humanitarian ideals. Economic rivalry, class solidarity, anti-communism, and a belief in the power of technology shaped the US famine relief to Soviet Russia.

Humanitarian Aid of the Red Cross and Other Public Organizations of the Netherlands To Soviet Russia During the Famine of 1921–1923

Historiography of the famine in Soviet Russia and Ukraine 1921-23. includes a large number of scholar papers covering foreign humanitarian aid to starving population in the context of the work of such large organizations as the American Relief Administration, the Nansen Committee, etc. At the same time, there are practically no articles and thesis which fully describe the assistance to the Soviet starving from individual states and national aid committees. The purpose of this article is to highlight and summarize the main aspects of the activities of the Dutch charitable and public organizations on the territory of Soviet Russia and the Ukrainian SSR during the famine of 1921-23 on the basis of documents from the Russian central and regional archives, as well as the National Archives of Sweden, whose data are first introduced into the scientific circulation. Despite the absence of diplomatic relations between Soviet Russia and the Netherlands, representatives of almost all sectors of Dutch society took part in that activities. The collected data allow us to identify four main channels for the receipt of Dutch humanitarian aid in the areas affected by crop failure:1) Pro-government and public charitable organizations (the Red Cross of the Netherlands, the Dutch branch of the International Union "Save the Children"), which provided aid to the population in Volga region, Crimea and in Ukraine. In addition to sending humanitarian supplies, the Dutch Red Cross equipped its own expedition to Samara province;2) Associations of trade unions of the Second International, which participated in the financing of an independent expedition of the "International Federation of Trade Unions" to the Chuvash Autonomous Region;3) communist trade unions and associations of the Netherlands, acting through the organization "International Workers' Aid", which took part in the restoration of the Soviet national economy, and also maintained numerous orphanages in Soviet Russia;4) Religious societies of Dutch Mennonite Protestants, which sent humanitarian aid to the places of settlement of their co-religionists, where, at the insistence of the Soviet government, they provided aid to all those in need, regardless of religion.All the activities of various Dutch organizations and individual citizens in Soviet Russia and the Ukraine showed the readiness of the population and political forces of the Netherlands to maintain close contacts and interaction between our peoples, regardless of the official relations of states and political differences.

American Relief Administration (ARA) in Katerinoslav Region in 1922–1923: The Problem of Relations with the Government and the Population

The aim of the article is an analytical reconstruction of the specific and contradictory dynamics of the ARA’s relations with local authorities and the population of Yekaterinoslav during the famine of 1921–1923. Research methods: dialectical, analytical, historical-systemic, comparative. Main results. It is established that during the years of independence domestic historiography has made a real breakthrough in the study of previously taboo topics of the so-called “naked nerves” of our Soviet history, in particular, the famine of 1921–1923 in the Southern Ukraine and the unique phenomenon of international support including Yekaterinoslav. It is proved that the undisputed leader among foreign charitable missions was the American Relief Administration (ARA), which effectively realized its powerful potential to create appropriate resources (financial, logistical, personnel), organized large-scale relief actions, saved lives of millions of Ukrainians. It is shown that the process of emergence, adaptation and deployment of ARA in the Yekaterinoslav region was not cloudless, sometimes contradictory, accompanied by certain misunderstandings and problematic situations in its relations with local authorities and the population, and even blocking certain actions of Americans. This course of events was largely explained by the novelty of the format of foreign humanitarian aid to starving citizens in the mysterious Bolshevik state, the manifestations of elements of ideological and mental “dissent”, suspicion and distrust on both sides. However, in general, this did not prevent the ARA branches from ensuring their uninterrupted and dynamic functioning throughout the campaign in order to organize broad support for the starving population of the Yekaterinoslav region and the Southern Ukraine. Originality: a significant array of mostly unpublished archival sources is discovered, systematized and impartially used. Scientific novelty: almost for the first time at the regional level the character, features and problematic situations in the relations of ARA with local authorities and the population of Yekaterinoslav region in the hungry 1922–1923 are revealed. Practical significance: the materials of the article can be used for further research of foreign charity organizations in Yekaterinoslav during the famine of the early 1920s, as well as during the writing of generalizing works on the history of the Soviet famines in Ukraine, in the educational process at the historical faculties of universities. Type of article: analytical.

International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War by Jaclyn Granick

Reviewed by: International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War by Jaclyn Granick Jessica Cooperman Jaclyn Granick, International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 404 pp. Hardback $39.99. ISBN: 9781108495028 Jaclyn Granick's compelling new book, International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War, powerfully reminds its readers of the enormous impact of World War I, not only on the lives of millions of Jews across Europe and in Palestine, but on the philanthropic, social, and political structures of the Jewish world. Granick's book focuses on the devastating turmoil unleashed by World War I and examines the efforts of American Jews to stabilize and sustain the lives of Jews trapped in the "shatterzone" between the crumbling Russian, Austrian, German, and Ottoman empires. Through her thought-provoking exploration of the dynamics of Jewish humanitarian work, Granick offers reader a complex picture of American Jewish identity and its intertwined commitments to American Progressive ideals and diasporic Jewish community. The book is primarily an account of the work done by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Poland, Ukraine, Soviet Russia, and Palestine during and immediately following World War I. At numerous points, however, Granick considers how the goals and efforts of JDC intersected with and diverged from those of other American relief organizations, such as the American Red Cross and the American Relief Administration, and other Jewish organizations, including HIAS and Hadassah. Granick opens with an examination of how the JDC and its various partners maneuvered to send money and financial assistance to Jewish "war sufferers" during the period of American neutrality. She poignantly describes the immense challenge of moving funds to people in need in the midst of a global crisis—and the added complexities created by the United States's entry into the war in April 1917. As American policies made it increasingly difficult to send aid, JDC leaders found ways to partner with European Jewish organizations on both sides of the battle lines to bring money and life-saving resources to East European Jews in desperate need of help. In the chapters that follow, Granick thematically explores the staggering demands faced by the JDC during the chaotic years after the war. While civilian populations across Eastern Europe suffered through the devastation and destabilization the war left behind, Jews lived in particularly precarious circumstances, becoming, Granick argues, "the war's paradigmatic [End Page 249] refugees" (111). Antisemitism lead both to wide-scale popular violence and to neglect from newly formed national governments that saw Jews as a "foreign element." In Ukraine, for example, pogroms led to approximately 200,000 Jewish deaths between 1917–1920 (92), and widespread famine left hundreds of thousands of Jewish children and adults facing imminent starvation and almost totally dependent on the JDC and the American Relief Administration for food (105). Granick offers detailed accounts of the strategies that Jewish agencies adopted as they struggled to feed the hungry, house refugees and orphans, tend to the sick, educate children, and establish stable Jewish economic systems in Eastern Europe and Palestine. Many of the people behind this massive humanitarian effort are familiar figures in American Jewish history. As Granick describes, established leaders like Cyrus Adler, Judah Magnes, Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff, and Felix Warburg, saw the establishment of the JDC as part of their widespread involvement in Jewish institutional life. Granick, however, also highlights the efforts of less well-lauded figures—particularly professional social workers like Boris Bogen, Jacob Billikopf, Frank Rosenblatt, and others—who led the JDC's strategic efforts and on-the-ground programs. And while the leadership of Jewish organizations remained dominated by men in the interwar period, Granick spotlights the work of women, like Harriet Lowenstein, who established the JDC's European headquarters in 1919, and Jesse Bogen, Boris's daughter, who accompanied her father in his travels and eventually led the JDC's efforts to promote the "financial adoption" of Jewish children in Europe by Jewish women in the United States (210). While meticulous details of the material, financial, and medical aid provided by the JDC and other agencies lie at the heart of Granick's...

Қазақстандағы 1921–1922 жылдардағы аштыққа ұшырағандарға шетелдік қоғамдық ұйымдардың көмек көрсетуі

The article is devoted to the participation of foreign public organizations in helping the starving during the famine of 1921–1922 in Kazakhstan. The authors of the article study the contribution of foreign public organizations, such as the American Relief Administration, the Society of Quaker Friends, the Catholic Mission,the Workers International Relief, the Red Cross Society, and others, to helping the starving population of Kazakhstan. As a result, they note that the assistance of foreign organizations consisted of the implementation of food and medical assistance, cooperation with orphanages and medical institutions, and catering. Also, it is identified that humanitarian organizations worked based on special agreements, which prescribed the conditions for ensuring their right to free use of railways, motor, and horse-drawn transport, premises and warehouses, telegraph and telephone communications. The areas of their activity are designated; the features and main results of the work are studied. The authors conclude that foreign humanitarian organizations had made a great contribution to the cause of helping the starving, as a result of which, through joint efforts, it was possible to eliminate the consequences of hunger and save thousands of people from death

ХУДОЖНИК И ПОЛИТИКА: РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ И ГРАЖДАНСКАЯ ВОЙНА В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ И. А. ВЛАДИМИРОВА

The article is devoted to the work of the famous Russian artist I. A. Vladimirov. Being one of the classics of socialist realism, in 1917–1921 he created a series of drawings little-known in Soviet times, which showed extremely negative changes in the life of the country during the Revolutions and the Civil War. By analyzing various works of the artist and correlating his creativity with the milestones of his biography, the author shows the historical and artistic authenticity of his paintings. I. A. Vladimirov’s cooperation with the police and the Cheka at the beginning of Soviet regime a priory proves the artist’s good awareness of what was happening in the country and gives documentary value to his works. At the same time, being closely associated with Western illustrated publications (“The Graphic”, “L’Illustration”), as well as English and American charitable organizations (“Young Men’s Christian Association”, American Relief Administration), Vladimirov created many watercolors “to order”. Vladimirov’s paintings are certainly valuable as a historical source, but V. P. Bogdanov suggests dividing his works into those intended for the “domestic audience” and those designed for the English-speaking public. The works addressed to the Western viewer are exaggeratly grotesque. In order to achieve the desired effect, the artist uses the negative clichés developed by himself. It is these works, which most unattractively portray the Russian reality of the beginning of the Soviet power. As a result, they are still used as a tool in anti-Russian propaganda and information warfare. In turn, the images found in drawing for a Western audience, appeared periodically in Vladimirov’s works in the 1930s and 1940s. The work of I. A. Vladimirov is a vivid example of the influence of biographical facts and external conditions on the artist’s works.

When ‘Seeing Was Believing’

Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies observed and competed with each other for visibility, humanitarian cinema shaped visual advocacy, grounded in the idea that ‘seeing is believing’. Exploring the fragmented audiovisual archives, as well as magazines and promotional material, this paper explores the testimonial function of humanitarian films in the 1920s. It first shows that the immediacy of the cinema technology increased the immersive and affective experience of the viewers by using forensic evidence and images of the body in pain. It then analyses how these films compelled audiences to witness suffering and act through persuasion, suggestion, and emotions. Finally, it inquires into the use of eyewitness images and first-hand accounts during the screenings, to show how these movies operated within larger regimes of visibility, while making claims on behalf of distant beneficiaries.

ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ ПОЛЬСЬКО-АМЕРИКАНСЬКОГО КОМІТЕТУ ДОПОМОГИ ДІТЯМ ТА АМЕРИКАНСЬКОЇ АДМІНІСТРАЦІЇ ДОПОМОГИ (АРА) НА ТЕРИТОРІЇ ПОЛЬСЬКОЇ РЕСПУБЛІКИ У МІЖВОЄННИЙ ПЕРІОД

The end of the First World War was a consequence of a whole range of significant problems in the countries of Eastern Europe. These include the general poverty of the population, the decline of the rural industry and industrial production, the general political crisis that increased the popularity of radical communist movements, the change of geopolitical formation in Europe. The main factor that led to the destruction of the imperialist system was World War the first. On the ruins of empires, new independent countries are emerging, including the restored Republic of Poland or the Second Commonwealth. The whole list of problems that often reinforced each other was extremely difficult to overcome solely with the country inner capabilities and reserves. In fact, the period of the 20-30s of the twentieth century becomes the era of the expansion of the international philanthropic organizations activities, among which an important role was taken by American subsidiary organizations. These include the American Relief Administration (ARA), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and some religious organizations such as the American Mennonites and others. Quite often these organizations were united, sometimes acting separately, or transferring the relay activity from one to another. The involvement of American philanthropic organizations in dealing with the needy countries of Eastern Europe has become possible due to a number of factors. The following of them are the departure from the policy of isolationism, the rapid increase in the US labor productivity, the crisis of overproduction, the formation within the American society of a humanists and philanthropists layer, mainly among the richest and the most influential entrepreneurs (Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, Jacob Schiff, Herbert Hoover, etc.), who, having earned enormous wealth, created non-governmental charitable foundations with the aim of financing the philanthropic projects. Thus the activity of Herbert Hoover American humanitarian organization (the American Relief Administration (ARA)) which was started in 1919 in the US changed the general economic and social situation. Its main purpose was to provide food for Polish children needs. ARA launched a whole network of dining-rooms throughout Poland.

A Chronicle of the Pandemic: Hugh Gibson’s Notes on the “Spanish Flu” of 1918

A Chronicle of the Pandemic: Hugh Gibson’s Notes on the “Spanish Flu” of 1918 Hugh Gibson (1883–1954) was a young American diplomat who had a knack for landing in the thick of the action. During the pandemic of 1918, he found himself in Paris tasked with advising General John Pershing on diplomatic matters, straightening out the morass of American propaganda in Europe, and collaborating with military intelligence. To this was added the role of official US liaison to the Polish and Czech national committees. His multiple tasks were carried out against the backdrop of the dramatic last six months of the Great War. The Armistice of November 1918 arrived on the heels of the deadly second wave of the “Spanish Flu”. Gibson then turned his attention from military matters to humanitarian aid for all of Europe as diplomatic adviser to Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration. Throughout the tumultuous year from spring 1918 to spring 1919, Gibson experienced the Spanish Flu from multiple angles: military, diplomatic, international, refugee, care-giver, and a personal bout with the flu. Using excerpts from An American in Europe at War and Peace: Hugh Gibson’s Chronicles, 1918–1919 (edited by Vivian Reed and Jochen Böhler, DeGruyter Oldenbourg, Fall 2020), this article traces Gibson’s fascinating journey through a historic pandemic.

З думкою про допомогу: АРА на Півдні України у 1921-1923 рр.

Розкрито діяльність однієї з ключових міжнародних організацій допомоги у південноукраїнському регіоні – Американської адміністрації допомоги (АРА).
 Протягом квітня-червня 1922 р. АРА організувала мережу їдалень у Миколаївській та Одеській губерніях (820), де харчувалося 192774 дітей і 1045 дорослих. Також сухі пайки й обіди отримували діти та дорослі закритих установ (дитячих будинків, лікарень, санаторіїв, студентських їдалень тощо). Загалом отримували допомогу 427624 особи.
 Окрім харчування АРА розподіляла продуктові та речові посилки, надавала медичну допомогу (організація медичних пунктів, лазень, поставки медикаментів, лікування хвороб, профілактика захворювань, поширення медичної літератури тощо).
 АРА завершила свою роботу у червні 1923 р., а 15 липня 1923 р. було ліквідовано український осередок організації і 20 липня 1923 р. було закрито центральний офіс місії у Москві.

Urals Chekists and the American Relief Administration (1921–1923)

Urals Chekists and the American Relief Administration (1921–1923)

Humanitarian Aid in the “Bulwark Against Bolshevism”: The American Relief Administration and the Quest for Sovereignty in Post-World War I Romania

Humanitarian Aid in the “Bulwark Against Bolshevism”: The American Relief Administration and the Quest for Sovereignty in Post-World War I Romania

Giving Most and Giving Differently: Humanitarianism as Diplomacy Following Japan’s 1923 Earthquake*

In December 1923, the Japanese Emergency Earthquake Relief Bureau [Rinji shinsai kyūgo jimukyoku] (EERB) took an action that could have been diplomatically disastrous: It sold flour and wheat.1 These commodities were not ordinary bags of agricultural sustenance, but rather humanitarian relief supplies donated by the United States following Japan’s most deadly and destructive natural disaster of the modern era. Months earlier, knowledge that Soviet officials had sold grain overseas while receiving relief supplies from the American Relief Administration (ARA) so vexed Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover that he terminated assistance provided under the Russia Famine Relief Act of 1921. No such reprisal occurred against Japan. Rather, American officials both in Japan and the United States pre-emptively defended Japan’s decision to sell donated goods and suggested it was guided by “common sense.”2 Endorsing the sale of relief wheat and flour was not the only anomaly associated with one...

Загальні аспекти діяльності Американської адміністрації допомоги в Польській Республіці в контексті міжнародної допомоги (1919 р. – середина 20-х рр. ХХ ст.)

Загальні аспекти діяльності Американської адміністрації допомоги в Польській Республіці в контексті міжнародної допомоги (1919 р. – середина 20-х рр. ХХ ст.)

“Russia’s Misfortune Offers Humanitarians a Splendid Opportunity”: Jesuits, Communism, and the Russian Famine

Using archival documentation, this article discusses the beginning of the first grand international aid mission of the Catholic Church (1922–23), undertaken to assist the starving children of Bolshevik Russia. Under the auspices of the American Relief Administration (ara), the Papal Relief Mission to Russia fed approximately 158,000 persons a day. The pivotal figure between American Catholics and the Roman Curia, and subsequently between the Vatican and the Bolsheviks, was Edmund Aloysius Walsh, S.J., founder of the first us school of diplomacy, at Georgetown University. Walsh served as papal emissary in charge of this mission, which, among other duties, entailed liaising with the ara, keeping the Vatican informed, and negotiating with the Bolsheviks regarding the church’s position within a communist society. Walsh’s experience provides a firsthand view of the “Bolshevik world” and insight into the manner in which the Bolshevik Revolution was understood by the Vatican. The actions of the protagonists (Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, Jesuit superior general; Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, Vatican secretary of state; Mgr. Giuseppe Pizzardo, Vatican substitute secretary of state; Col. William Haskell, director of the ara’s Russian Relief Program; Mgr. Lorenzo Lauri, apostolic nuncio to Poland; and Walsh), are revealed through their own words, which show the difficulties encountered within both the Christian and Bolshevik spheres and clarify that common objectives were often shared only in appearance. Notwithstanding the good will that the mission’s success earned for the Vatican, the attempt to establish diplomatic relations was destined to fail, due in large part to the events narrated herein.

«FOOD AS A WEAPON»: ASSUMPTIONS AND OPINIONS OF THE AMERICAN PRESS ON THE POLITICAL PURPOSES OF THE AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION IN SOVIET RUSSIA

This article considers opinions of the various American newspapers about Russian mission of the American Relief Administration (1921 – 1923). Analysis of the materials of the American press enables to conclude that some of the American newspapers assumed that the American Relief Administration might organize anti-soviet activity in Russia. Attitude to this depended on political position of certain newspaper. According to this article three points of view were represented in the American press. Communists were convinced that the American Relief Administration intended to organize anti-soviet activity in Russia. Most of the liberals preferred to show understanding of communists’ suspicion to motives of the American Relief Administration. Most of the anti-bolshevik authors regarded positively to possible «anti-soviet activity». But their interpretation of «anti-soviet activity» distinguished from communists’ interpretation. In their opinion food relief could be used by two ways. Some of anti-bolshevik authors considered food relief as instrument of pressure. Others supposed that food relief could be peculiar agitation against soviet system.

The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924. By Bruno Cabanes (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2014) 390 pp. $85.00 cloth $29.99 paper

The Great War of 1914 to 1918 was not only the largest episode of mass killing in world history to that date but also the greatest humanitarian disaster. The war was responsible for the deaths of 10 million soldiers as well as the incapacitation, physical and mental, of a similar number. Its immediate sequelae—including the ethnic re-engineering of central and southeastern Europe, the reciprocal ethnic cleansing of Greece and Turkey, and the Russian civil war—generated an unprecedented flow of refugees and stateless persons. Our view of the Russian famine of 1921 is occluded by the greater tragedy of the Holodomor during the 1930s, but—with a death toll of at least 1.5 million—it was the worst episode of mass starvation in mainland Europe for a century.Cabanes sets out to fill a gap in this postwar story, in which humane impulses were channeled into ambitious, creative, and ad hoc forms of humanitarian action. The scale and diversity of these responses was such that the humanitarian effort is difficult to categorize. It was a quantum leap from pre-war transnational charity, in both scope and coordination, but it lacked the universal organizing framework of human rights that was to follow in the next war. Cabanes recounts those experiments in their own terms, not just as a prolegomena to the more solid instruments and norms that followed twenty-five years later. He chooses five different individuals and institutions with which to illuminate the diversity, tensions, and paradoxes of the humanitarian initiatives.Cabanes’ case study of René Cassin and the Confèrence Internationale des Mutilés et Anciens Combattants in the first chapter highlights the tensions inherent in the humanitarianism of the era. The postwar nationalism of veterans’ mobilization, which had its roots in the agitation for disabled soldiers’ rights during the war, sat uneasily alongside Cassin’s efforts to create a transnational organization, often contradicting and undermining his cosmopolitanism.Cabanes devotes his second chapter to the International Labour Office, headed by Albert Thomas, who sought to link social justice with international peace. He then turns to Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer and national hero, who became the world’s first High Commissioner for Refugees. His fourth chapter focuses on the professionalization of famine relief and the birth of emergency population nutrition with the American Relief Administration, led by Herbert Hoover. Finally, Cabanes retells the story of Eglantyne Jebb, who established the Save the Children Fund.The biographical focus of the five cases provides a helpful context for highlighting the complexities and contradictions of the humanitarian effort—for example, Hoover’s belief that humanitarian relief to Russia would hasten the collapse of Communism rather than consolidate it.Cabanes’ is a fascinating story, well told. Too often, the story of inter-war humanitarianism is told as a prolegomena to post–World War II institutions and principles. By bringing Cassin’s story to the fore, Cabanes avoids this trap. Notably, the salience of the issue of disabled veterans never again reached the heights of the 1920s. The shadow of the second world iteration of norms and mechanisms that followed World War II does not hang over the account.

An American enterprise? British participation in US food relief programmes (1914–1923)

This article examines a particularly fraught zone where the British and American conceptions of food aid and moral guidance conflicted – the former enemy nations of Austria and Germany. These countries were considered special cases for food relief, not only because the British and American public had little interest in feeding their former foes, but also because each was seen by aid officials as societies that might succumb to social revolution if food security was not established. While the Americans had established a massive child-feeding operation in Europe under the auspices of the American Relief Administration's European Children's Fund and with US government financing, Austria, and especially Germany, posed unique challenges, given the public relations problem in Allied nations with aid to former enemies. To meet these challenges, the Society of Friends (Quakers) became a major player in the food aid schemes in Austria and Germany because, as known pacifists, the Friends championed the non-partisan delivery of relief to war victims. In this article, I argue that in both Germany and Austria, conflicts developed between American and English Quaker societies animated by competing ideals: a British imperial, missionary model couched in internationalist language and an American model emphasizing efficiency, scientific management, and self-help framed with the Wilsonian vocabulary of freedom. In addition, with American public funds propping up many of the foreign aid missions, Hoover and the American Friends wanted recognition of the American nature of the work, while English Quakers sought to identify the work as Quaker international work.

Herbert Hoover and the Organization of the American Relief Effort in Poland (1919-1923)

Poland, recreated after the armistice of 1918, was confronted at its rebirth with four very severe challenges: welding together the separate sections of the dissected country, which for many decades had been under the rule of Prussia-Germany, Austria and Russia; creating a functioning administration and military force for the country; ensuring the recovery of agriculture, which, during World War I, had seriously declined; and restarting industries destroyed or closed during foreign military occupation. Even under the valuable leadership of the first Prime Minister of the new Polish Republic Ignacy Paderewski and Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the Poles could not accomplish the goal of rebuilding a strong Poland without outside help. The American Relief Administration (ARA), founded and led by Herbert Hoover, offered their help. The ARA, with its food aid and provision of economic assistance and expertise, played an important role in bringing about stability in the newly independent state of Poland. This paper examines the many steps Herbert Hoover had to take to arrange food relief in Poland and will outline the organization of the ARA, including the establishment of the Polish relief organization and the introduction of young Polish-American women, called the Grey Samaritans, into the field.