Category: Learning in Focus

Learning in Focus

  • Personal Experiences of D-Day: Told through the words of the veterans by Jessica Harper and Katy Hodges

    Personal Experiences of D-Day: Told through the words of the veterans by Jessica Harper and Katy Hodges

    Jessica Harper and Katy Hodges, third year history students at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on the research they conducted as part of a final year group research project. Along with fellow final year students Hannah Coulouras and Phillip Gerrish, Jessica and Katy looked into veterans’ experiences of D-Day in June 1944. As well as presenting their findings as part of the unit’s assessment, the students also gave a public presentation at Portsmouth City Museum. The final year group research unit is co-ordinated by Dr Robert James, Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural History at Portsmouth.

    Personal Experiences of D-Day: Told Through the Words of the Veterans

    As part of our final year research project we worked with the D-Day Museum, looking at the personal experiences of the veterans involved. The D-Day Museum holds a wealth of material on the campaign – we didn’t realise how much until we started looking through it – but we decided to focus on the sources that gave a personal perspective, such as letters, diaries, and interviews. We studied four different source types, comparing and contrasting them in order to assess issues such as change over time and national differences. We had the privilege of sharing our research with the university and the wider public, in the form of a presentation at Portsmouth’s City Museum, with the aim of provoking further research into the veterans’ personal experiences. These experiences can be put in conjunction with other historical writing on D-Day, which is principally coming from a military perspective, in order to create a ‘whole’ history of the event.

    The first type of source we assessed was the letters and diaries written during 1944, surrounding the build up and duration of D-Day. To physically hold these contemporary artefacts, which are accessible in the Museum’s archive, made the experiences expressed in the letters and diaries feel more relatable and allowed us to make a connection with the veterans who wrote them. These personal sources reveal the great excitement and enthusiasm felt by the men in the lead-up to D-Day, but also hint at the nervousness they felt. For example, one combatant wrote to his wife requesting that she went to church to pray ‘for serenity of mind to face whatever lay ahead’. [1]

    The interviews conducted by Cornelius Ryan in 1958 were the second type of source that we analysed. Ryan interviewed a range of people involved in D-Day, from both the allied and enemy forces. We decided to look into the German perspective of the D-Day landings. This gave us a fresh insight into the German experiences of the war, which have not been studied extensively in Britain. It is also a multi-layered source as Ryan took the interviews and then summarised them, resulting in the sources being reliant on Ryan’s personal interpretation. This, then, makes these sources incredibly unique, providing a new outlook on the German experiences. The sources revealed the great relief felt by the German combatants that the invasion had finally come to a head. ‘Now, let’s get it over with’, were the remarks made by one German soldier at the start of the invasion. [2]

    The third type of source we examined was the memoirs of the 1990s and early 2000s, produced by Tony Chapman on behalf of the Landing Craft Association (LCA). These sources are useful as while the veterans – who demonstrated their trust in Chapman, an archivist/historian and member of the LCA, by referring to him as ‘shipmate’ – are able to recollect their experiences felt at the time of D-Day, they also provide a retrospective view. The memoirs and their experiences can then be compared in order to build interlinking stories which connect and develop an under-researched history.

    Finally, we evaluated interviews that were conducted in 2014, created as part of the “Normandy Veterans 70 Years On” project. This supplied a source that was based on the memories of the veterans, and also one that was impacted by hindsight. Therefore, the experiences retold were those that had stayed with the veterans throughout the 70-year gap and which were most significant to them, as individuals. These sources are available on the Legasee website (http://www.legasee.org.uk/), making them easily accessible for anyone with an interest in the campaign.

    We were able to find similarities and differences between the sources which enabled us to unearth various themes. These included British vs. German experiences, humour vs. trauma, and excitement vs. guilt. Through studying these themes, the issue of the importance of memory was highlighted. The humour and excitement was particularly emphasised in the 1944 sources, demonstrating how the veterans were making light of a confusing situation. Yet, later sources have illustrated how memory can be a fragile concept to work with. This does not mean that these sources are less valuable. They depict how hindsight has allowed these men to reflect on their feelings and how this shaped their experiences, not just during the D-Day invasions, but throughout the rest of their lives. One of the most poignant recollections came from Douglas Turtle. He recalled how bodies were ‘flying all over the place. Heads and shoulders and arms and legs, all over the place. It brings it all back, it’s terrible. Seeing all these men killed, what for, what for?’. [3]

    Working in conjunction with the D-Day Museum has been incredibly enjoyable and useful for our studies. It has provided us with four different source types which were easily interlinkable and interesting to analyse. The public presentation at Portsmouth City Museum allowed us to expand on our findings and research further into the personal experiences of the veterans. It has been a great experience to present our hard work and provide the public with a fresh insight into D-Day, with the hope that we were able to provoke their thoughts about not only the military side of the campaign, but also the individual impact of D-Day on the veterans themselves.

    Hannah Coulouras, Jessica Harper, Phillip Gerrish and Katy Hodges presenting their findings to visitors at Portsmouth City Museum.
    Hannah Coulouras, Jessica Harper, Phillip Gerrish and Katy Hodges presenting their findings to visitors at Portsmouth City Museum.

    Notes

    [1]  H540/1990. Diana Holdsworth, Ramsbury, Wiltshire. Letter written to wife, 4 June 1944. D-Day Museum archive.

    [2]  Lt Carl Saul, Cornelius Ryan interviews, 1958. D-Day Museum archive.

    [3]  Douglas Turtle, interview held on Legasee website, http://www.legasee.org.uk/, last accessed 25 May 2017.

  • Using Visual Sources: Edward Armitage’s Retribution (1858)

    Using Visual Sources: Edward Armitage’s Retribution (1858)

    Rozene Smith, a second year history student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on how historians can use Retribution (1858) to reflect on representations of the British Empire for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit.  The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth.

    Studying a “Museum of Empire” unearths a reality of the British Empire as a cornucopia of peoples and cultures, and an ‘archive’ equally monumental and multifarious.[1] W. J. T. Mitchell championed the ‘pictorial turn’ and the resurgent ubiquity of images in what became an increasingly visual-oriented culture.[2] The work in question is that of Edward Armitage, student of l’École des Beaux-Arts under historical artist Paul Delaroche, who upon returning to London in 1843 upheld French rationales of academic art.[3] His Retribution invokes public enmity concerning the massacre of British women and children at Bibighar in Cawnpore during the 1857 Indian Mutiny, a catalyst for an equally cruel and indiscriminate British vengeance.[4] Public opinion often advocated the ‘spirit of righteous revenge’ that Armitage’s Retribution intends to embody.[5] Despite this artistic partiality, historians are yet impeded in acknowledging the value of visual sources, particularly in appraisal of their subjectivity and how their utilisation may further comprehension of the past.[6] This analysis proposes advantages that this source presents to the historical community, through analysis of content and purpose both as a non-commercial attempt at restoring Armitage’s career and as public propaganda;[7] iconological substance and the “Othering” and “special vulnerability” to be found within;[8] and the benefits presented to historical investigation by the implementation of visual sources.[9] Ultimately, the hesitant approach to visual sources and their analysis necessitates a comprehensive knowledge of related materials and a consistent criticism of context and personal agenda, if the source is ever to be employed as a thoroughfare for historical exploration.

    Retribution, 1858 (oil on canvas) by Armitage, Edward (1817-96); Courtesy Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery) / Bridgeman Images Best wishes Adrian Gibbs Bridgeman Images

    Images, in Peter Burke’s view, are extensions of the context of their production, and can thus be used to elucidate social constructs and the political and economic power of art as a market commodity.[10] Contrasting with the Crimean War, few commissioned artists were present in India during the 1857 Rebellion.[11] Many took to the subject nonetheless, drawing inspiration from the demands for retaliation that dominated contemporary newspaper reports.[12] Armitage was a primary exponent of public art in Britain. His Retribution, one of the most remarkable ‘public’ artworks of the revolt, was an allegory of this commonly justified revenge, its symbolic nature placing distance between itself and historical analysis of accuracy or authenticity.[13] The Daily News described the painting as more suitable for the public space than a domestic setting, with its large, prominent figures, raw colours, and simplified forms.[14] Indeed, Retribution was originally a conceptual fresco for the new Leeds town hall and was donated shortly after its completion in 1858.[15] The painting served two purposes: to re-establish Armitage’s reputation as an artist of national subjects, and to propagate public anger and legitimise the atrocities committed by the British following the Bibighar Massacre.

    Iconology is often employed in understanding artistic symbolism, due to its emphasis on ‘underlying principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, period, class, or religious or philosophical persuasion’.[16] Images offer indispensable evidence for historians by unearthing cultural associations as historical evidence.[17] In her study of Retribution, Alison Smith wrote that the Bengal Tiger, a symbol of the bloodthirsty Sepoy, is on the verge of defeat by a furiously focused Britannia.[18] The allegorical nature of the piece avoids graphic detail: the dead woman protecting her infant is not mauled, and the child crouched fearfully behind them appears entirely safe.[19] The cross emblazoned on Britannia’s sword invokes Christian might, and detritus on the ground is the only other embodiment of the ‘carnage of war’.[20] Images of vulnerable white women in the hands of Sepoy rebels resonated in public imagination, birthing a powerful trope in imperial iconography: the sanctity of white womanhood and threat of interracial rape and violence.[21] Such crude stereotypes yet serve their purpose in highlighting distinctions by which the British could ‘Other’ the Sepoy.[22] Yet, the dangers of assuming, as iconologist thought often does, that images express the ‘spirit of the age’ are often stressed, notably by Ernst Gombrich in his criticisms of Arnold Hauser and Erwin Panofsky.[23] Furthermore, Sarah Barber argued, the idea that art can capture the Zeitgeist is a fundamentally Eurocentric approach given Europe’s monopoly on popular art.[24] It is ultimately unwise to assume cultural homogeneity of an age from artwork, but it can provide more nuanced analyses of contemporary engendering of female vulnerability, and global perceptions of the British Empire, in its might, superiority, and anxieties over its subjects.

    The utility of visual images has been much debated since the arrival of Mitchell’s ‘pictorial turn’.[25] He espoused the longstanding dominance of literature’s subsidence to visual cultures, highlighting necessities among historians to rethink all issues of visual sources.[26] Peter Claus suggested that to use visual sources appropriately, historical provenance and context must be established beyond doubt for them to enhance historical understanding and,[27] as Francis Haskell posed, the ‘historical imagination’, which both creates and reflects historical reality.[28] There is yet opposition to the use of visual sources: Burke argued that our perception of art is a “painted opinion”, a collection of rhetorical devices intended to coerce, incite or indoctrinate.[29] One could surmise that visual sources may be used in historical study, to either underline pre-established arguments with more conventional historical sources or as evidence open to historical analysis.[30] While art remains an intellectual product and thus cannot be considered objective, and it is true that our analysis techniques are primitive in comparison with those we bring to bear on textual evidence, images can shed new light on historical episodes when wielded skilfully.

    The implementation of visual sources as historical evidence relies on historians’ treatment of the source.[31] Although the painting was foremost an avenue for Armitage’s professional resurgence, it inadvertently offers an exemplary propagandist product, epitomising public outrage toward the Bibighar Massacre.[32] However unwise to presume the mid-nineteenth century zeitgeist from Armitage’s Retribution alone, one can obtain an intimate understanding of the “Othering” and special vulnerability afforded to British women occurrent in this era, through the iconology of art.[33] Retribution is a product of imagination, however, and cannot be deemed truly objective—some Pyrrhonism must be maintained.[34] Similarly, historians’ techniques for analysing visual sources are underdeveloped against those of more traditional sources.[35] Ultimately, the historian must immerse themselves in surrounding material, and remain always critical of context and artists’ personal agenda—only then can the source be used to inform historical argument together with conventional historical sources or viewed as evidence open to analysis.[36] A torrent of imperialist art punctuated nineteenth century British society that today allows democratic equality previously disfigured by racial hierarchy and imperial domination.[37] The validity of visual content as historical evidence aside, Retribution could pave the way for new contexts of appreciation and, potentially, reparation.

     

    Rozene Smith is a second-year History student at the University of Portsmouth who aims to specialise in historical international relations and their present-day applications to global politics.

     

    (We would like to pay special thanks to Leeds Art Gallery and Bridgeman images for supplying a high res version of the artwork for this blog post).

     

    Notes

    [1] Alison Smith, “Introduction: The Museum of Empire,” in Artist and Empire ed. Alison Smith, David Blaney Brown and Carol Jacobi. (London: Tate Enterprises, 2016), 10.

    [2]  Neil Curtis, “’As if’: Situating the Pictorial Turn,” in The Pictorial Turn, ed. Neil Curtis. (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), 3.

    [3] Leeds Art Gallery Online. “Retribution.” http://www.leedsartgallery.co.uk/gallery/listings/l0009.php, last accessed 5th February 2017.

    [4] Robert Johnson, British Imperialism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 34.

    [5] Alison Smith, “Imperial Heroics,” in Artist and Empire ed. Alison Smith, David Blaney Brown and Carol Jacobi. (London: Tate Enterprises, 2016), 105.

    [6] Peter Claus and John Marriott, History: An Introduction to theory, method and Practice (Essex: Pearson Education, 2012), 263.

    [7] Joan W. M. Hichberger, Images of the Army: The Military in British Art, 1815-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 62.

    [8] Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 34.

    [9] Claus and Marriott, History, 265.

    [10] Burke, Eyewitnessing, 12.

    [11] Hichberger, Images of the Army, 62

    [12] Peter Harrington, British Artists and War: The Face of Battle in Paintings and Prints, 1700–1914

    (London: Greenhill books, 1993), 144.

    [13] Smith, “Imperial Heroics”, 105.

    [14] Smith, “Imperial Heroics”, 105.

    [15] Hichberger, Images of the Army, 63.

    [16] Sol Cohen, “An Innocent Eye: The “Pictorial Turn,” Film Studies, and History,” History of Education Quarterly 43, no. 2 (2003): 258.

    [17] Claus and Marriott, History, 275.

    [18] Smith, “Imperial Heroics”, 105.

    [19] Smith, “Imperial Heroics”, 105.

    [20] Smith, “Imperial Heroics”, 105.

    [21] Gautam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2005), 127.

    [22] Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism In Britain and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 64.

    [23] Ernst Hans Gombrich, The preference for the primitive: episodes in the history of Western taste and art (London: Phaidon Press, 2002), 155.

    [24] Sarah Barber, “Introduction,” in History Beyond the Text: A Students Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources ed. Sarah Barber and Corinna M. Peniston-Bird. (Oxford: Routledge: 2009), 17.

    [25] Curtis, “’As if’: Situating the Pictorial Turn”, 3.

    [26] W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995), 11.

    [27] Claus and Marriott, History, 275.

    [28] Francis Haskell, History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (London: Yale University Press, 1995), 26.  

    [29] Burke, Eyewitnessing, 122.

    [30] Claus and Marriott, History, 262.

    [31] Claus and Marriott, History, 275.

    [32] Hichberger, Images of the Army, 62.

    [33] Sarah Barber, “Introduction,” 17.

    [34] Haskell, History and its Images, 26.

    [35] Curtis, “’As if’: Situating the Pictorial Turn,” 3.

    [36] Jonathan Willis and Laura Sangha, Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources (Oxford: Routledge, 2016), 265.

    [37] Smith, “Introduction: The Museum of Empire,” 10.

  • Using Official Sources: The Chadwick Report (1843)

    Using Official Sources: The Chadwick Report (1843)

    Rozene Smith, a second year history student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on how historians can use The Chadwick Report (1843) to understand 19th century social reform for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit.  The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth.

    The nineteenth century witnessed an obsessive fixation on empirical and factual data, culminating in a fetishisation of valuable official documents.[1] Consecutive parliamentary acts passed in this period secured centralised funding for official state record-keeping and began the process of establishing a governmentally-sanctioned Public Record Office.[2] Between 1832 and 1846, over one hundred Royal and Parliamentary commissions were introduced; ushering in an age of investigation and analysis.[3] This blog entry considers a document that was penned by Edwin Chadwick—a sanitary reformer, lawyer, economist, statistician, and a force of change in nineteenth century Britain.[4] Over the course of his career he backed the Poor Law revisions of 1834, Health Reforms of the 1840s-50s and railroad regulations of the 1860s.[5] The extract examines mortality rates across the spectrum of social class, with the intention of investigating the extent to which they were impacted by disease epidemics throughout this period.[6] These efforts were directed with particular intensity to the unsanitary living conditions in Marylebone, Stepney, and Newington.[7] Many historians, however, encounter obstacles in consideration of the value of official sources, specifically in assessing the validity and subjectivity of their claims.[8] The purpose of this blog is to determine the extract’s historical value: firstly, by appraising its value to closely-related major historical events of the period, such as the Public Health Act of 1848; and secondly, by evaluating the extent of potential bias within the extract. Ultimately, the sense of doubt surrounding official sources, particularly in this extract, pales in comparison to the new perspectives and understandings it offers to modern historians of the methodology of nineteenth century social reform.

    The most profound and lasting liaisons between medicine and state were forged in the Industrial Revolution and the dynamic social changes it wrought, such as rapid urbanisation and its associated health and sanitation concerns.[9] Such symmetry between medicine and politics is perhaps most succinctly summarised by social reformer Jeremy Bentham, who argued that “the art of legislation is but the art of healing practised upon a large scale”.[10] With his famed 1842 ‘Sanitary Report’, Chadwick had somewhat roused the political arena from its laissez-faire attitude with regards to sanitation of the poor and their interment, with Lord Howick in particular learning in “astonishment and despair” the state of British towns.[11] Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary of the time, was reluctant to act upon Chadwick’s findings, but even so organised the Health of Towns Commission to examine how best to finance and legislate Chadwick’s proposals.[12] Meanwhile, he requested that Chadwick concern himself with reporting on burial practices within the capital, an endeavour that produced the Interment Report which, consisting of a powerful exposure of social injustice and revolutionary administrative proposal, proved extremely unpopular amongst Dissenters, undertakers, and cemetery companies who faced great financial losses.[13] The enormous rise in population and mortality, along with the overcrowding of graveyards, had begun to weigh heavily on administrators, as did the poor standards of sanitation that followed closely behind.[14] The insufficiency of residential areas in London to support the growing living population mirrored the overcrowding of the ground for the dead, drawing parallels with Chadwick’s original report and thus bolstering its credibility.[15] Its reception was far from warm, and soon after its publication Graham, refusing to take such drastic steps without public opinion behind him, silenced the report before it could have any significant impact on nineteenth century British society, much less the instatement of the Public Health Act in 1848.[16]

    Chadwick, E. Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain: A Supplementary Report on the Results of a Special Inquiry into the Practice of Interment in Towns, made at the Request of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1843.

    The report’s supplementary nature indicates its intent to compensate for shortcomings in the ‘Sanitary Report’. In addition to its overt function of analysing mortality rates among different social classes, the Interment Report boldly illustrates the effect of disease and poor standards of sanitation on these figures with emphasis on several notably unsanitary districts of London. In doing so, the extract exemplifies the harsh dichotomy of mortality rates amongst the gentry opposed to those of lower classes: to demonstrate, the total number of deaths resulting from epidemic among the poorest citizens rose as high as twenty-eight, eclipsing the nobility’s mere three. In tallying figures of mortality within these districts, neatly divided by class and cause of death, Chadwick supplies the audience with a wealth of easily measurable quantitative data.[17] Quantitative research, such as statistics, affords the historian a broader scope of examination, and in contrast to qualitative research, enables them to apply precise analyses and evaluation over a wide range of issues—in this case, deaths in different classes throughout various districts of London.[18] This is not to say that this source should be taken entirely at face value; Raphael Samuel indicates that as it is a “still life picture”, some aspects of the inquiry may have been exaggerated for increased political impact, or subtly obscured.[19] Additionally, while the royally commissioned status of this report suggests its historical value equates that of any document of the ‘official mind’, Lawrence Goldwin argues that the ‘sanitary idea’ did not begin to pervade the ‘official mind’ until the 1860s.[20] Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher also assert of many issues with the ‘official mind’, that many documents omit important information through unconscious assumptions and shared understandings between peers that obviate written documentation.[21] While the data itself had been retrieved from registrars, we must not forget that Chadwick himself had an agenda, one he had been lobbying for over a decade.[22] Regardless of the existence of the ‘sanitary idea’ within the ‘official mind’ at the time of the Interment Report’s publication, it is entirely possible that Chadwick may have subtly exaggerated or obscured data in his bid for social reform.

    Fundamentally, the efficacy of official sources of this nature lies with the historian themselves. Although not particularly prominent at the time, as evidenced by its meagre influential success, the ‘Internment Report’ can instead provide a font of valuable information about the period.[23] In particular, the Interment Report enables the examination of birth and mortality rates, and its use of quantitative research to depict these figures allows the historian to view research on a wider scale and apply much more precise analyses to their data.[24] As is ever the case with sources, one must remain sceptical: Chadwick’s agenda and the experiences of his previous affiliations in social reform are clear throughout his Interment Report, and so it cannot truthfully be deemed objective in spite of its distance from the ‘official mind’ of the British government. Elton argues, however, that the historian may circumvent bias through a critical approach to their sources, including a thorough examination of its authenticity, applicability, and any related material and literature.[25] The nineteenth century gave rise to a nation of widespread health reform, pioneered by the unforeseen hero of industrial society, the medical man.”[26] With this idea in mind—despite its obvious flaws—it may yet promise modern historians a new perspective and a deeper understanding of the methodology of the great social reformers of the Industrial Revolution.

     

    Rozene Smith is a second-year History student at the University of Portsmouth who aims to specialise in historical international relations and their present-day applications to global politics.

     

    NOTES

    [1] E. H. Carr, What is History? (London: Macmillan, 1961), 16.

    [2] P. Claus and J. Marriott, History: An Introduction to theory, method and practise (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2012), 394.

    [3] R. Rees, Poverty and Public Health 1815-1948 (Oxford: Heinemann, 2001), 178.

    [4] Rees, Poverty and Public Health, 133.

    [5] A. Crowther, “Review, Public Health and Social Justice in the Ages of Chadwick: Britain 1800-1854, by C. Hamlin,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 1 (2000): 280.

    [6] D. P. Clark, Germs, Genes, and Civilisations: How epidemics shaped who we are today (New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2010): 69.

    [7] E. Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain: A Supplementary Report on the Results of a Special Inquiry into the Practice of Interment in Towns, made at the Request of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department (London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1843), 259.

    [8] N. Cox, “Public Records”, in Contemporary History: Practise and Method ed. A. Seldon. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 70.

    [9] D. Porter and R. Porter, Doctors, Politics and Society: Historical Essays (London: Rodopi, 1993), 1.

    [10] J. Bentham, quoted in M. Mack, Jeremy Bentham: An odyssey of ideas 1748-92 (London: Heinemann, 1962), 264.

    [11] R. A. Lewis, Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement 1832-1854 (London: University of Birmingham, 1959), 119.

    [12] Rees, Poverty and Public Health, 138.

    [13] Lewis, Edwin Chadwick, 156.

    [14] Lewis, Edwin Chadwick, 127.

    [15] Lewis, Edwin Chadwick, 128.

    [16] Lewis, Edwin Chadwick, 157.

    [17] C. Erickson, “Quantitative History,” The American Historical Review 80, no. 2 (1975): 363.

    [18] K. H. Jarausch, “Promises of Quantitative Research in Central European History,” Central European History 11, no. 3 (1978): 289.

    [19] R. Samuel, “On the Methods of History Workshop: A Reply,” History Workshop Journal, 9 (1980): 171.

    [20] L. Goldman, Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association 1857–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 176.

    [21] R. Ronaldson, J. Gallagher and A. Denny, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1962), 19-20.

    [22] Rees, Poverty and Public Health, 143.

    [23] Lewis, Edwin Chadwick, 127.

    [24] Erickson, “Quantitative History,” 363.

    [25] Rees, Poverty and Public Health, 135.

    [26] Porter and Porter,

    Doctors, Politics and Society, 3.

     

  • Using Official sources – The Merchant Ship Movement Card of SS Athenia

    Using Official sources – The Merchant Ship Movement Card of SS Athenia

    Anna-Lena Schneider, second year history student at Portsmouth, wrote the following article on the use of merchant ship cards to shed light on the circumstances behind the sinking of merchant ships during World War One for the Introduction to Historical Research Module.  The module is coordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth.

    Using Official sources: the merchant ship movement card of SS Athenia

    When thinking of official sources, one usually refers to the very basic formats of those, such as acts, identification documents, or taxation forms. However, there are less commonly used types of official sources historians can draw upon their research, such as merchant ship movement cards. Originally used as a type of taxation form, these records include a ship’s owner, tonnage, route, cargo, and cause of sinking, and therefore provide valuable information, which still need to be questioned. William Kelleher Storey, Professor of History at Millsaps College, argues that official documents “reveal some things, but remain silent on others [1].” In the following article I will discuss this statement by analysing the ship card of the cruise liner SS Athenia, through which I will outline and explain the advantages and limitations of that source and official sources in general, as well as the historical context of the source.

    Merchant ship movement card (catalogue reference: BT 389)
    Merchant ship movement card (catalogue reference: BT 389)

    Ship card, SS Athenia, National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/merchant-shipping-movement-cards-1939-1945/

     

     

     

    On 3 September 1939, SS Athenia was sunk by the German submarine U-30 [2]. Just like the sinking of RMS Lusitania in the First World War, this attack was brought into direct connection with the unrestricted submarine warfare [3]. Immediate responses by the Allies – predominately Britain – were inevitable consequences, which would change the course of naval warfare in the Atlantic. The use of convoy systems — a large group of ships escorted by destroyers – became a vital tactic used by Allied naval operators to protect their vessels from the German U-Boats [4]. These convoys proved themselves efficient, as German U-Boats could not sink all the ships, and brought themselves into great danger of being spotted and sunk by the destroyers.

    The merchant ship movement card that is used here reveals information about Athenia’s last voyage. The advantage of it is the information about the ship itself, but also the further consequences of the loss of the ship. For example, the ship’s card records that Athenia was sunk, and therefore it is useful to historians, who collect the numbers of British or Allied vessels that were sunk during WWII. It also gives a clear account of Athenia’s final route, and therefore a historian can track the ship’s journey. As Athenia was eventually sunk, the Admiralty now knew that German submarines were operating in that area, and a historian can further explore what measures were taken to avoid these attacks, e.g. route changes, use of convoys, escorts, etc. Thus, this source does not only provide good information in regards to Athenia’s final voyage, but also leads up to discover the consequences of her sinking.

    Yet, despite the advantages of information given, official sources can be misleading as they may withhold information [5]. As mentioned previously, the sinking of Athenia and Lusitania have several things in common: both British ships, sunk by German submarines, and both their records did not match the accounts of the submarines that sunk them. In the case of Lusitania, a second, bigger explosion caused a century long debate whether the ship had ammunition on board or not [6]. Thus, official sources must be questioned, especially when it is in the context of war, as they may be manipulated as a means of war propaganda.

    As historians we have to evaluate sources to uncover their usefulness. Official sources, especially the ones of war that are likely to be manipulated for propaganda, propose a threat to truthful delivery and reproduction of an event. Butler and Gorst advocate including secondary readings as well as other primary sources on the same event in order to avoid producing “‘semi-official’” history [7]. Therefore one must always question an official source in its context, while also asking for what purpose it may have been manipulated or changed. In order to do so, other primary (or secondary) sources must be considered, which in the case of Athenia would be the official accounts of the submarine U-30 and the German government. As it turned out, U-30 thought Athenia to be an auxiliary cruiser, and therefore a military target [8]. Athenia’s card, however, does not have any notes on weapons or ammunition as cargo, as it claims to have only passengers on board the ship. The accounts do not match, which means that one of the accounts is manipulated. Again, this shows similarities to the case of Lusitania: the official records of the passenger liner did not note any ammunition on it, but the log of U-20, as well as descriptions of the second explosion, suggested otherwise. Thus, one official source is giving false information. One of the main reasons for that is, especially during wartime, the strategy of war propaganda. For instance, some historians argue that Lusitania’s sinking was used as war propaganda, in order to bring America into the war against Germany [9]. Thus, the manipulation of the information on the ship cards may have been done as a means of war propaganda. On the contrary, the accounts of the submarines could have been manipulated, in order to minimize or even avoid the consequences of the sinking. Another rather unlikely scenario would have been that of an honest mistake, as the environment of war can be very hectic and mistakes can occur. However, this one would be least likely to uncover.

    In conclusion, Kelleher Storey’s statement proves itself true, at least in the cases of Athenia and Lusitania. The official sources of these events withhold information, as they do not match with one another. This does not, however, minimize their usefulness. The ship card of Athenia makes a useful contribution to a historian’s research, as it gives good information about the ship’s cargo, route, and fate. The key is to bring that information into context by examining it. The important thing about Athenia’s ship card, and official sources in general, is to bring them into context—that is, using other types of sources to answer the same question to view the similarities and differences. In this case study, this includes examining U-30’s log, in order to get the context of the sinking. As they do not match they need to be put into the wider context, which emphasizes the reactions of the British and German government. In doing so they provide vital insight into the course of naval warfare in the Atlantic, and eventually World War II itself. Thus, even when being manipulated as a means of war propaganda, these official sources are not less useful, as they reveal themselves as part of war strategy, which when put into context, helps to uncover the further course of the war.

     

     

    Anna-Lena Schneider is a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth and works as a guide at the National Museum of the Royal Navy. She is also a member of the German U-boat Archive. Her interests include the history of the great passenger liners from 1900-1950 and the German Navy of both World Wars.

     

    References

    [1] William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford Press, 2016), 33.

    [2] Jürgen Rohwer, War at Sea: 1939-1945 (London: Chatham Publishing, 1996), 32.

    [3] Ibid.

    [4] Ibid.

    [5] Storey, Writing History, 33.

    [6] Liz Mechem, Disasters at Sea: A Visual History of Infamous Shipwrecks (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2014), 117.

    [7] L.J. Butler and Anthony Gorst, Modern British History: A Guide to Study and Research, ed. L.J. Butler and Anthony Gorst (London: I.B. Tauris, 1997), 46.

    [8] Rohwer, War at Sea, 32.

    [9] John Protasio, The Day The World Was Shocked: The Lusitania Disaster and Its Influence on the Course of World War 1 (Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate Publishers, 2011), 173, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01619a&AN=up.1200550&site=eds-live.

  • Using Oral Sources; Recovering the History of the Roma Holocaust

    Using Oral Sources; Recovering the History of the Roma Holocaust

    Aron Fridvalszky, second year history student at Portsmouth, wrote the following article on the Hungarian Roma holocaust for the Introduction to Historical Research Module.  The module is coordinated by Dr Jessica Moody, Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage at Portsmouth.

    Using Oral Sources: Recovering the history of the Hungarian Roma Holocaust

    In a speech in 2014, the Minister of Human Capacities of Hungary, Zoltán Balog claimed that none of the Romany people were deported from Hungary during the Holocaust [1]. Challenging this, the Hungarian Roma Press Centre published extracts from six interviews with Gipsy Holocaust survivors, citing these from a book, Porrajmos, which includes recollections of the survivors. In addition to the tangible function of the interviews to repudiate such immensely flippant allegations as Balog’s, they represent valuable data for oral historians. Considering the Roma Holocaust, an event of which official data and records could either be destroyed or blurred by the Hungarian and German authorities of the regime, the participants’ oral testimonies can be extremely useful in researching the topic.

    The methodology of oral history has opened up new perspectives, especially from the viewpoints of groups who were traditionally ignored by the conventional discipline. However, critics have argued that since oral testimonies, as primary sources, rely on memory, they are not trust-worthy origin of information. Other historians objected to the strong subjectivity of the recollections, which, according to them, is substandard compared to the fetishized neutrality of written official sources. [2]. However, memory lies in the centre of interest within the oral history field. As Portelli argues, memory is “not a passive depository of facts, but an active process of creation of meanings.” [3] Lynn Abrams similarly clarifies that a memory is not a simple calling back of past processes and events, it’s rather remembering: recalling stories, pictures, experiences, the analysing of these and arranging them in a narrative. In other words, memories are “not pure, they are contingent.” [4]

    When Michael Stewart was gathering information during the 1980s for his fieldwork in Hungary on Roma memory of the Holocaust, he found that many horrifying memories of the survivors were compressed into images, which had mostly been kept buried in their remembrance throughout the years after the Second World War. His impression of the recollections was that these shattered memories, although illuminated occasionally, lacked a gradual narrative of remembering. [5] In the extracted interviews, we can also observe shared, recurrent images of fragmented memory: the women, mostly because they were young at that certain moment, can recall dynamic, but individual images of the process of them being taken, the journey in the cattle wagon or the camp in Komárom. The mention of Komárom is particularly important, because according to Szabolcs Szita, who has researched the labour camp there, there are no official records surviving about the internment camp, ergo our most valuable sources are the testimonies of those who were there. [6]

    It is important to acknowledge that memory, which emerges during an interview, tells the oral historian about not only the individual but the larger social sphere of the person as well: their community, or nation. Memories are produced within a wider social context, thus we can see them as socially shared experiences; they are part of a common remembrance. [7] Paul Thompson argues that the information which the interview evidence gives us is filtered through social expectations. According to Thompson, the evidence of relatively close or present events is situated between the factual behaviour and the social norms of the present time. However, if the oral historian wants to gather information about an event further back in time, there is a possibility that the evidence is distorted, because of the changes in norms and values during the time span. [8] It was interesting to see in Stewart’s work, how he put the emphasis on the lack of a shared remembrance among the Romany people about the Holocaust, due largely to the Hungarian socio-sphere. In his summary of Gypsy folk heritage of the Holocaust, Károly Bari points out how Lager songs about the concentration camps, of which formula was adapted from the traditional Romany dirge, miss detailed elements like the tortures, as if memories were compressed into an amorphous lyrical form of bitterness. Bari argues that, besides the fact that the sufferings of the survivors were indescribable, the passages transformed from the dirges to the Lager songs had a function of depicting inexpressible feelings of pain “in such a way as to make them acceptable to the conventions of the community.” [9] This also shows that an oral historian should take communal filters into account when analysing an oral source.

    In a country like Hungary, which still tends to gloss over its active contribution to a mass genocide in relatively recent history, or even partly deny it, as it we can see it in Balog’s statement, these oral testimonies have a vital importance not only for the oral historians, but to help remembering for the wider social scope.

    Further Information

    For more information, see Pharrajimos, edited by Ágnes Daróczi and János Bársony. It’s a remarkable collection of essays about the Roma Holocaust in Hungary, the articles provide information on different aspects of the topic and it also contains interviews with the survivors. If you are planning to visit Budapest and are interested in remembrance, you might want to visit the Roma Holocaust Museum. The museum itself is a valuable source of information and it also offers permanent as well as seasonal exhibitions.

    Aron Fridvalszky is a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth

    References

    [1] See http://nol.hu/belfold/balog-ilyen-meg-egyszer-nem-tortenhet-meg-1477905; interview with Balog here http://nava.hu/id/1971370

    [2] Lynn Abrams. Oral History Theory. Routledge, 2010 p. 5

    [3] A. Portelli. ‘What Makes Oral History Different?’ in A. Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. New York: State University of New York Press, 1991 p. 52

    [4] Abrams. Oral History Theory. p. 79

    [5] Michael Stewart. ‘Remembering without Commemoration: The Mnemonics and Politics of Holocaust Memories among European Roma’ in The Journal of Anthropological Institute, vol. 10, issue 3. 2004 p. 564

    [6] Szabolcs Szita. ’One of the Roma Killing Fields: Komáromi Csillagerőd, Autumn 1944’ in Pharrajimos: The Fate of the Roma During the Holocaust, ed. by János Bársony, Ágnes Daróczi. International Debate Education Association, 2007 p. 102

    [7] K. Plummer. Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to Critical Humanism. London, 2001 p. 235

    [8] P. Thompson. The Voice of the Past. Oxford, 2000 p. 128

    [9] Károly Bari. ‘The Holocaust in Gypsy Folk Poetry’ in Pharrajimos: The Fate of the Roma During the Holocaust. ed. by János Bársony, Ágnes Daróczi. International Debate Education Association, 2007 p. 118