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Leeds Thesis Template The Lost American Tradition: American Foreign Public Engagement & the Origins of American Public Diplomacy, 1776 - 1948 Caitlin Elizabeth Schindler Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Media and Communications December 2014 - ii - The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Caitlin E. Schindler to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2014 The University of Leeds and Caitlin E. Schindler - iii - Acknowledgements Though I arrived in Leeds in the fall of 2011 to begin my research, this project is really the product of more than three years of work. Thus, I would like to acknowledge all the people who helped me along the way to the final completion of my research. There are many friends, colleagues, professors, and family members I would like to thank in writing, so all who read this know that while this work is my own; I never would have successfully completed this without their help along the way. I extend my deepest gratitude: …to Dr. Janice Brown, who always knew I could do better, and demanded that I should. … to Dr. Earl Tilford, who helped me enjoy Clausewitz and Sun Tzu and made me laugh all through Russian History. … to Brian Kelley for your amazing courage in adversity and for being an incredible hero, you will never be forgotten. …to Dr. J. Michael Waller for your anecdotes about propaganda and for inspiring me with the idea for this research. …to Dr. Robin Brown and Professor Gary Rawnsley for encouraging me to keep my research scope and helping me find a way to actually do it. …to Simon Popple for your insightful suggestions, tremendous kindness, and for your willingness to step-in part way. …to Professor Nicholas Cull for your constant encouragement and faith in my work. …to my friends and colleagues at the School of Media & Communications: Noon, Ella, Yang, Ray, Mandy, Toussaint, Christiaan, Carlo, Molly, Ana, Luca, Andreas, Cristina, Yi, Stuart, and Kheira. …to Adam for getting me through the dark bits and being a dear friend, you’ll always be in my heart. …to Meredith for teasing me often, even over 5,000 miles away, and for always making me laugh, even at myself. …to Claire for setting an example for me in her own pursuit of her dreams and for the random trips to consume frozen delicacies during my archival research. …to Dad for always being your daughters’ cheerleader, for being my sounding board, and for being the best dad anyone could hope to have. …to Mom for teaching me to never back down from challenge, for encouraging your daughters to challenge the status quo, and for being the best mom anyone could hope to have. - iv - Abstract Most of the existing literature on American public diplomacy focuses on both historic and present-day use. Literature by academics and practitioners, as well as government reports and studies done by think tanks, all repeatedly highlight the same problems affecting public diplomacy of the United States (from the end of World War II through today): an absence of strategy - what public diplomacy should do and how; as well as clearly defining the role of public diplomacy in American statecraft; and uneven and ineffective implementation. Interestingly, some of the literature on public diplomacy recognizes the practice to date back before the twentieth century, yet there are no studies examining public diplomacy practice prior to the twentieth century. This study offers a new approach to evaluating and understanding the use of public diplomacy in American statecraft by broadening the understanding and interpretation of diplomacy. The aim of this research is to understand how past uses and techniques of foreign public engagement evolved into modern public diplomacy as a tool of American statecraft. The study explores six historic cases where the United States’ government or private American citizens actively engaged with foreign publics, starting with the American Revolution in 1776 through the passage of the Smith- Mundt Bill of 1948. Each case looks specifically at the role foreign public engagement plays in American statecraft, while also identifying trends in American foreign public engagement and making connections between past practice of foreign public engagement and public diplomacy, and analysing how trends and past practice or experience influenced modern American public diplomacy. - v - Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Table of Contents v List of Abbreviations vi List of Figures viii Preface ix Chapter 1 Past is Prologue 1 Chapter 2 America’s First Public Diplomat 25 Chapter 3 The Importance of Non-Important Foreign Public Engagement 55 Chapter 4 Blurred Lines: Private & Government Foreign Public Engagement 93 Chapter 5 America’s First Public Diplomacy Agency? 125 Chapter 6 Foreign Public Engagement in Perpetuity 157 Chapter 7 American Foreign Public Engagement in Chaos & Ambiguity 192 Chapter 8 Foreign Public Engagement: An American Tradition in Context 240 Bibliography 274 - vi - List of Abbreviations ABCFM American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ALP Abraham Lincoln Papers ANRC American National Red Cross ARC American Red Cross BFP Benjamin Franklin Papers CBP Clara Barton Papers CCRC Central Cuban Relief Committee CEIP Carnegie Endowment for International Peace CDF Central Decimal File CIAA Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs COI Coordinator of Information CPI Committee on Public Information CSC Committee of Secret Correspondence DCR Division of Cultural Relations DoS Department of State EO Executive Order FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States IIE Institute of International Education JCC Journals of the Continental Congress JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff LoC Library of Congress ND No Date OCCCAR Office of the Coordinator of Commercial & Cultural Relations between the American Republics OEM Office of Emergency Management OFF Office of Facts and Figures OGR Office of Government Reports OIC Office of Information and Cultural Affairs - vii - OIE Office of Information and Exchange OSS Office of Strategic Service OWI Office of War Information PAU Pan American Union RG Record Group USIA United States Information Agency USIS United States Information Service WWI World War I WWII World War II YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association - viii - List of Figures Figure 1.1 ............................................................................................................. 1 Figure 4.1 ......................................................................................................... 123 Figure 5.1 . ........................................................................................................ 155 Figure 6.1 . ........................................................................................................ 188 Figure 7.1 ......................................................................................................... 204 Figure 7.2 ......................................................................................................... 237 Figure 8.1 ......................................................................................................... 246 Figure 8.2 ......................................................................................................... 260 Figure 8.3 ......................................................................................................... 269 - ix - Preface “Very few Americans have an adequate idea of the historical role America has played [sic]…The penetration of American missionaries in the Balkans during the early part of the 19th century will some day be considered the brightest pages in the annals of the peninsula…The significance of their activities in the Near East…is much greater than it seems to many…” - American Influences in Bulgaria, Professor Constantine Stephanove1 In Farmington, Connecticut on September 5, 1810, a coalition of churches, ministers, and parishioners formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). The formation of the organization was a by-product of the Second Great Awakening, a spiritual revival in the United States which called upon Christians to not only work toward their own salvation, but also the salvation of others (Morone 2003; Oren 2007). In order to bring about peace on earth, the ABCFM determined there was an urgent need to return people to Christianity, to ensure their salvation. In 1818, the ABCFM decided to send missionaries to the Ottoman Empire to restore the Jews to Palestine (Kieser 2010; Oren 2007). Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons volunteered to be the first missionaries to travel to the Ottoman Empire, arriving in Smyrna (Izmir) in 1819. For the first year or so, they were instructed to travel throughout the Empire, gathering information about the people and the environment and to learn languages before beginning any specific mission work (Grabill 1971). Following the success of the American Revolution, the people of the United States and their leaders desired to shrink away from Old World entanglements and to enjoy independence. Yet this was a luxury the US could not afford. For at least the next forty years, the US’s relationship
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