Chair
Jakob Kihlberg
Public Meetings in European Illustrated News Magazines during the 1840s
Abstract
During the 1830s and 1840s the public meeting gained prominence in the English-speaking world as a way to advocate reform causes, such as anti-slavery, temperance and free trade. Reform meetings were often organized as gatherings of representatives of towns or associations, and they had their own protocols for how proceedings were conducted. Meetings of this kind often attracted large audiences and they were a popular topic in newspaper reporting; the staging also often provided »spectacular« qualities that made them suitable as subjects for the emerging pictorial press.
In this presentation I will look at how the public meeting to advocate reform was transferred between countries in Europe through the first generation of illustrated news magazines, primarily the Illustrated London News, L’Illustration and the Illustrirte Zeitung, during the 1840s. I will focus on how wood engravings of public meetings travelled transnationally and especially on how they were resituated and reused. The analysis pays attention to the way the printed pictures were transformed by the change of context in terms of both accompanying letter press and page layout. On a general level, the analysis concerns how pictures of meetings acquired new symbolic meanings when they were transferred from one country to another. A hypothesis that I will explore in the talk is that these engravings, when they were dislodged from their original temporal and geographical contexts, came to represent, not so much specific events as generic images of political participation in modern society.
Jakob Kihlberg
Jakob Kihlberg works as a researcher at the Department of History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala university, Sweden.
Wednesday, 16th June 2021 at 15.15 CEST (UTC+2)
Bruna Oliveira Santiago
The Portuguese-speaking Press from the Digital Humanities Point of View: using QGIS and GEPHI to track the Nineteenth Century Illustrated Press
Abstract
As a paramount part of the nineteenth century cultural scenario, the illustrated press is a phenomenon that needs more examination to clarify the steps of the production process. It is already known that the illustrated press and its images were implicated in a complex network of agents and a vast geography, nevertheless concerning the Portuguese press there is not much information. The places where the periodicals circulated were not restrict to the places of production, as for instance three Portuguese illustrated periodicals printed in France during the second half of the nineteenth century: Os Dois Mundos: Illustração para Portugal e Brazil (1877-1882), A Illustração, Revista Quinzenal para Portugal e Brazil (1884-1892) and A Revista, Illustração Luso-Brazileira (1893). Although the production settled in Paris, they circulated both in Portugal and Brazil, creating a transatlantic network. In addition, there were many people involved in the periodical production. While the Geographic Information System (GIS) helps to trace the trajectory of the periodicals from production to distribution, the Social Network Analysis demonstrates the vast network of agents that had participated in the periodical production and the relation between them. This presentation intends to display a methodological possibility considering the digital humanities as a valuable allied to explore the illustrated press in a new perspective.
This video was removed in compliance with the author’s preferences.
Bruna Oliveira Santiago
Bruna Santiago is currently a PhD student in Contemporary History at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (Institute of Contemporary History – IHC) at Nova University, Lisbon, Portugal.
Wednesday, 16th June 2021 at 15.15 CEST (UTC+2)
Marguérite Corporaal
Transferring Connemara: European Illustrated Periodicals as Transnational Agents of Regional Remediation, 1870–95
Abstract
Research by, amongst others, Sinnema (1998), Martin (2006) and Smits (2020), has demonstrated the impact of illustrated periodicals during the nineteenth century on the construction of national identities. Illustrated magazines across Europe additionally played a fundamental role in remediating regions and their cultures. The transeuropean and transatlantic networks through which texts and illustrations were transferred (Shattock 2017; Schelstraete & van Remoortel 2019) meant that regions were also reconceptualized across national borders, elsewhere in Europe or in North America. European illustrated periodicals thus constituted »spaces of encounter« (Brake & Codell, 2005: 2) that not only crossed boundaries of gender and class, but, as this paper will argue, regional and transnational borders as well. This paper will analyze illustrated periodicals as transnational spaces of remediation, reproduction and reception of the region, thereby aiming to contribute to the current transnational turn in periodical studies as well as to shift existing paradigms that identify nineteenth-century regions with nationalisation (Donovan 2010) or support of nation-building (Augusteijn & Storm 2012: 6). It will do so by focusing on representations of Connemara—the western part of Co. Galway, Ireland— in illustrated periodicals such as The Graphic, Le Monde Illustré, and Hollandsche Illustratie, during an era when rural regions in the west of Ireland were marked by agrarian unrest, modernization, emigration, and were at the same time perceived by Celtic Revivalists as sites which crystallized authentic ›Irishness‹ (Castle 2001; Felton 2007).
Furthermore, this paper will pay specific attention to how these images of Connemara were reframed textually, when engravings and woodcuts were exchanged between magazines, thereby mapping out networks of cultural transfer (Stockhurst 2010). In uncovering these processes of transfer, this paper will engage with theoretical frameworks on the dynamics between illustrations and texts (Sinnema 1998, De Moor & Brake 2009).
Marguérite Corporaal
Marguérite Corporaal is Full Professor of Irish Literature in Transnational Contexts at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Wednesday, 16th June 2021 at 15.15 CEST (UTC+2)
Discussion
You are invited to discuss the papers in this section in advance of the live Q&A Session using the comment function below. Please make sure to indicate which paper you wish to comment on.
Nice PhD work you are undertaking, Bruna. I find interesting the production links you presented showing the physical making up of the periodicals that range across London, Coimbra and Paris and cover print, paper and production, as well as the relationships you are discovering between the relevant Portuguese and linked French magazine work. It may be that what links some illustrators together might be commissioning editors who might have worked at these periodicals and shared contacts, or might have moved between periodicals during that period? Or perhaps they shared the same printers who might have recommended key known illustrators in the trade? I hope you are able to puzzle out the solutions in further research and archival digging. Bon chance.
David Finkelstein
Thanks a lot for taking the time to watch and comment on my paper, I appreciate your remarks 🙂 Indeed I’m trying to shed light on the production process from this viewpoint. This hypothesis you mentioned about the commissioning editors makes sense since the contacts are essential to the periodicals millieu. I think the network analysis may help me to follow this lead. Also the printers have an essential role, as many magazines were printed in the same address. Reading the periodicals between the lines can reveal the close existing relations with foreign press. I am noticing as well that image piracy has a greater importance than I first thought. There is an important study carried on by a brazilian historian, Tania Regina de Luca, about “A Illustração”, in which she goes through the correspondence between editors and finds out that some images or the right to use them were purchased. (In case you read portuguese, here you have the reference: Luca, T. (2018). A Ilustração (1884-1892): circulação de textos e imagens entre Paris, Lisboa e Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: UNESP.). Best regards, Bruna
Thanks Bruna. You may be interested in some of the chapters featured in the book I edited recently, The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press, Vol 2, 1800-1900, published by Edinburgh University Press. While not covering Portuguese or Brazilian journals per se, there are several chapters looking at transnational overseas newspapers, image and text reproductions, and the transmission of news items (and images) via the practice of ‘scissor and paste’ or ‘exchange’ journalism, where editors snipped out items from other newspapers and added into their own productions where size and interest demanded.
Thank you very much, David. I didn’t know this reference, it seems extremely useful. Even if it is not about the luso-brazilian context, I’m interested in transnational networks and material reproductions in general. I will certainly look for this book!
What a well-researched and interesting paper, Jakob! I really enjoyed the points you made about political iconography. as a transnational register of representation. A specific question I had: were meetings of Abolitions societies or visits like the one paid by Frederick Douglass to Ireland reported and portrayed in similar ways as the examples you provided (such as one of the monster meetings of Daniel O’Connell)? Or do we see differences in depicting crowds here throughout the European press?
Many thanks for your kind remarks Marguérite! And an interesting question! I haven’t really researched images of anti-slavery agitation systematically, but my impression is that the illustrated magazines were rather reticent in publishing images of such meetings (even though they were of course widely reported in the daily press at the time), at least during the 1840s. But I have found a few exceptions, like an interesting image of the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1843 in London, depicted in the Pictorial Times. When it comes to Frederick Douglass, I have just noted one image of his public appearances and it is from a temperance meeting in which he took part in Covent Garden, published in the Illustrated London News. Why anti-slavery meetings or speaking tours by former slaves where not depicted more often really seems to be an interesting topic for further discussion
A question für Marguérite: How would you commentate the ‘realism’ in the different medias ‘photography’ and ‘sketch’. Do they provide the same kind of ‘information’ and ‘image’-making?
That’s a very good point indeed, Hedwig. Photographs (such as the ones printed in The Irish Tourist) were clearly interpreted at the time as presenting a most authentic impression of a regional scene elsewhere. This becomes clear from how such photographs reportages were presented but also from, for example, reviews of ‘holiday editions’ of local colour fiction by Irish and Scottish authors, published by Dodd, Mead & Co in 1897-98, that included photographs made by American ethnographer Clifton Johnson on the spot. We of course recognize how stylized and constructed these photographs were in themselves; but my impression is that at the time audiences looked upon them as providing reliable access to a reality elsewhere. In the decades before, engravings that were made by local artists witnessing scenes would also be credited with such ‘realism’ (I think of James Mahoney’s series about famine-stricken Cork for the Illustrated London News).
Thank you very much, Jakob, for giving this interesting paper! I liked very much your interpretation of “L’Illustration”‘s reinterpretation of the British may-meeting … especially as you pointed out the relevance of the magazine page as a meaning-making composition of heterogeneous materials. May be there’s a similar tendency in the French adaptation of the Irish gathering—I still have to think about it and will tell you tomorrow.
Thank you very much for the comment! I think you are absolutely right to highlight page layout as a crucial feature, and as you know I am very much indebted to your own research in thinking about that aspect. Unfortunately I didn’t really have time to explore such questions to the extent that I would have wanted in my talk, but it would be great if we could discuss interpretative possibilities in that regard further tomorrow!
I really enjoyed your paper, Bruna, thank you! One question: In terms of the pictures’ authorship, you are concentrating on the artists’ signatures. How about a possibly collective authorship? This is the normal case in the era of wood engravings, when drawers, engravers and printers are the ‘authors’ of illustrations. But, I presume, concerning the pictures you are working on other printing techniques are relevant? And how about the magazine makers as hidden authors of pictures? At least in “L’Illustration” (1861) I found an engraving where I might be able to argue that the image composition was dictated by the editor-im-chief. And: Is there, beside prince Bismarck on one if the title pages, no German influence on Portuguese illustrated magazines?
Thanks a lot for the comment and question, Andreas! Yes, I concentrate my analysis on the visual content. But I considered also the written content related to the images cause it gave me many details concerning the production. You are right, the collective authorship is something that I could identify many times. Not only because the engravings had at least two authors (illustrator and engraver), but some images were engraved in co-authorship and the initials of the engravers were there. Surprisingly, most of the signatures are visible for those 3 magazines I mentioned on my paper. As far as I know, in general, the pictures were wood-engravings (even when they were photography-based) and as we approach the end of the century it is more common to have chemical process like etching. When it was the case, the signature was not by an specific author, but “SGAP” (Société Générale d’Applications Photographiques). I guess my next challenge will be try to find documents related to this society. Regarding the German influence, I believe it could happen in an indirect way. As Thomas Smits (2020) pointed out, images in the news context came basically from the three main periodicals in the nineteenth century (Illustrated London News, L’Illustration and Illustrirte Zeitung). To give you an example, I could identify one direct quote to german images in only one edition of A Illustração in 1885. The other examples related to Germany in this magazine had to do with famous people (for instance Bismarck as you saw on that cover). Well, sorry for the long answer! I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to address this during the Q&A. I’m looking forward to the discussion tomorrow!
Thank you very much. A short answer (which is a question): No halftone pictures in Portuguese illustrated magazines, even if the were printed in Paris which is (as I see it) in some respect the capital of the world of illustrations in the second half of the 19th century? And another question: Did you find any Portuguese trace of ‘Über Land und Meer’? At the moment, my research concetrates on this periodical, and I’m collecting informations of all kind.
You’re welcome. Yes! I forgot to mention that portuguese press introduced halftone in 1885, but its use expanded only ten years later (in my research I go until 1893). About ‘Über Land und Meer’, I have not yet found anything related to it. Now that I’m aware of your research interest, I tell you if I came across this reference at any time in the future.
@Bruna Santiago Great presentation of a project that seems very interesting! Watching your talk, I was wondering about the same question that Andreas raised about how you can identify authorship (especially on such a large scale!). I was also very intrigued by your description of the organisation of the production process and especially the outsourcing to other countries: How did this effect the time of publication of news in these magazines, where they delayed? And did this pose a problem for the editors, or was speed not very important to the ambition of these magazines?
Jakob, thank you very much for your remarks! At the beginning I was worried about that also, because I knew it would possibly be difficult to identify authorship. Fortunately most of the signatures were visible and legible. Of course some of them were absent or illegible and then impossible to identify. But I can say that up until now, for this three periodicals, images are mostly signed. I still have nine more magazines to analyse, and I really think I may not be that lucky. About the time of publication, it is very interesting that even if they publish some news, they were not that up to date. Delays could happen and the director of A Illustração would prevent readers with explanations, for instance in 1884 and 1886 during the cholera pandemic when ships had to do a mandatory quarantine. Another example concerns the political situation in Brazil. There is a text published on november 20th 1889 wondering about the future of the monarchy, nevertheless Brazil was already a republic since november 15th. In my opinion, speed was not a central question, although is clear that the director tried to explain the reasons for the delays. These magazines were not only based on news images, they contained also art images, landscapes, portraits. See you in the Q&A session tomorrow, I hope we can have a great discussion!
There are special cases in Germany (“Über Land und Meer”, 1860s) where the magazine makers did NOT use stereotypes (which obviously would have been available) but re-engraved a foreign illustration (from the ILN, by inserting German signatures and clayming authorship) so that the semi-pirated picture fitted into the ‘format’ (size, meaning, intention …) of their own periodical. Jakob presented a similar case; the Irish meeting was NOT reproduced in ‘L’Illustration’ by purchasing a stereotype (like the buttons on the same page), but by re-engraving the picture. By this means, the image composition was slightly changed: the standard with the letters “REPEAL” is moved in direction of the image’s center, and the speaker is (re)moved from the midddle more to the right—so that his striving for an Irish independency, as I read-view it, is ‘repealed’. Another case of changing the meaning of an ILN-picture by reproducing it, like in the case of the may-meeting.
Andreas, I really appreciate this example you presented from “Über Land und Meer”. Thank you so much for that! After reading this, I just realized that authorship go much further beyond a signature or an information gave by editors in the periodicals. I certainly have to pay more attention to that. Nevertheless is seems that in the luso-brazilian case that they profited from agreements with international periodicals to use their images/matrices rather than re-engraving. The engravings and its signatures matched perfectly with the foreign ones as far as I could see. But I also can be wrong about this initial hypothesis. I’m trying to discover more about the connections between editors to find out more concrete evidences concerning the production process. Besides I want to find out if there are reasons why they had agreements specifically with a given periodical. Up until now it is visible that they use the very same image (from Le Monde Illustré or The Graphic, for example). Reading the magazines I noted that “Os Dois Mundos” does not mention a relation with Graphic, despite the clear existing influence. On the other hand, “A Illustração” clearly states many times on its pages its deep ties to Le Monde Illustré. And “A Revista” has a more luso-brazilan approach, trying to promote portuguese and brazilian artists, even though they printed abroad.
@Marguérite Corporaal Thank you Marguérite for a very stimulating talk! I found especially interesting your description of how a transnational sense of affiliation and solidarity could be produced through the reuse of the images you discuss. One specific question I have is whether the connection between the images and specific regions, as opposed to nations or other collectives, was always clear and stable? Especially when they were reused in foreign magazines, one might perhaps suspect that their signification could change if editors were not too familiar with Irish geography or intent on reporting on “Ireland” as a general symbol of poverty, oppression etc. Did such redescriptions of the images as representations of more general collectives ever occur?
Yes, Jakob, this did indeed happen very often. A well-known example is an illustration of cottage interior in Kildare, printed in Illustrated London news in April 1870, was reprinted as “Une Chaumère Près de Belfast” in L’Univers Illustré in August 1872. The ‘relocation’ to a different region served to discuss sectarian unrest in the Northern provinces of Ireland at the time. What is indeed also important to note is that regions were in themselves far from stable categories. Labels such as Connemara, Co. Galway and West of Ireland would co-exist and be used almost randomly, pointing to the different scales on which regions would be perceived, both from an ‘insider’ and outsider perspective.
That sounds like a wonderful project, Bruna! I’ve used Pajek for network analysis and, when I asked recently another scholar since I wanted to get back into it, he told me he preferred Cytoscape to Gephi because it’s easier to extract the exact view of the network he wants. Cytoscape is also open source. If you knew about the software, why did you choose Gephi over it?
Let me know if you want to get into mapping areas rather than just points, on QGIS or on R. I used to map election results in another life, =P
Re-reading myself, just wanted to make it clear that I’m first asking whether or not you’ve heard of Cytoscape, and if so why you didn’t choose to use it, =P
Hi Marie! Thanks a bunch for your remarks and questions! I have to confess that I didn’t know about the existence of Cytoscape. I will definitely seek more information about it. Maybe if I knew Cytoscape before, I could used it instead of Gephi. As I’m at the beginning of the research, I have time to rethink the methodological tools. So thanks for introducing me to this new perspective.
Yes, sure! In a close future I intend to map areas rather than just points on QGIS (for the maps this software is the best option I know so far. If you have another good tip, let me know). For my research I would like to track the address changes inside the cities to understand if these changes have something to tell me about the periodical production. We can talk more about your mapping experience if you want, so I can learn new QGIS habilities.
Yes, let’s talk some more! Email me so we can set up a time to meet!
Thank you very much, Marguérite, for your instructing paper! At the beginning of your presentation you stated that illustrated magazines produce meaning by combining words and pictures. Could you give an example from your great material where a (trans-)regionalistic meaning emerges from combining pictures with words, seen and read as layouted and printed letterpress, on a page or a double-page spread?
Thanks for this very interesting question, Andreas! I’m afraid I haven’t come across a concrete example yet where a (reprinted) illustration from the foreign press was positioned in lay-out next to an image about a region at home as the means to strengthen a transregional analogy. I hope to find examples in the course of my project. So far, I have only seen comparisons made in the text surrounding the reprinted illustration(s). What is quite striking is that foreign newspapers would often print one of a series of various images from a source title. Thus, Biesiada Literacka (5 March 1880) only reprinted one image- centralised on the second page of the article- from series of three of engravings made by a local artist in Co. Mayo, as they had appeared in The Graphic on 28 February of that year (and in The Graphic the text basically appears in a small block halfway the page, and the images – on top and below- draw the readers’ attention). That obviously has to do with the costs of reusing stereotypes. However, what is specifically interesting about this example is that The Graphic describes the man in the high hat as the local artist holding a conversation with the local farmers, whereas Biesiada Literacka suggests this is a scene in which the tenants talk to their landlord. The Polish editors may not have been able to understand the original English text well, or perhaps sought to emphasise the land issues in Mayo (and Galicia) by changing the identity of the depicted gentleman.