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Postcards from West Africa and the Presentation TO SEE IS TO KNOW: POSTCARDS FROM FRENCH WEST AFRICA AND THE PRESENTATION OF COLONIAL PROGRESS, 1900-1918 by JULIANNE BORETSKY Under the Direction of Joshua Cole ABSTRACT This study examined French colonial postcards at the turn of the twentieth century. The postcards provided the French with a vivid illustration of the progress of the “civilizing mission” of Europeans abroad. Europeans generally believed Africans were less civilized and needed European guidance to advance. These ideas dominated academia and permeated French popular culture. Africans entertained Parisians on stage, in ethnographic exhibitions, and at universal expositions. These exhibits displayed foreign people and featured their exotic qualities. Anthropology emerged as a science and began using photography to document cultures. Postcard photographers imitated anthropological photographers to increase the commercial appeal of their work, thus reinforcing common stereotypes. Postcards also showed the possibilities for urban renewal in Africa in an age of urban decline in Europe. Africans who viewed the postcards remembered the French presence and control in the region. The postcards ultimately served as a means of clarifying power relationships in Africa. INDEX WORDS: Postcards, Africa, Colonialism, Photography, French popular culture, Colonial Railroads, Colonial Architecture TO SEE IS TO KNOW: POSTCARDS FROM FRENCH WEST AFRICA AND THE PRESENTATION OF COLONIAL PROGRESS, 1900-1918 by JULIANNE BORETSKY B.A., The University of Southern Mississippi, 1999 B.A., The University of Southern Mississippi, 2001 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2003 © 2003 JuliAnne Boretsky All Rights Reserved TO SEE IS TO KNOW: POSTCARDS FROM FRENCH WEST AFRICA AND THE PRESENTATION OF COLONIAL PROGRESS, 1900-1918 by JULIANNE BORETSKY Major Professor: Joshua Cole Committee: Laura Mason Mamadou Diawara Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...........................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 RACIAL THEORIES AND FRENCH POPULAR CULTURE .......................................13 2 ANTHROPOLOGY, PHOTOGRAPHY, AND COLONIAL POSTCARDS...................32 3 POSTCARDS OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE DEMONSTRATION OF POWER AND URBAN POTENTIAL.............................................................................................47 4 COLONIAL POWER STRUCTURES IN POSTCARDS OF THE AFRICAN RAILROAD.......................................................................................................................59 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................76 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................85 APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................90 iv LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Postcards..........................................................................................................................10 v INTRODUCTION Postcards today are ubiquitous items that can be found anywhere, from metropolitan airports to rural stores. Immediately popular since their invention in the late nineteenth century they have been a constant presence ever since. Illustrations on both contemporary and early postcards depict images such as landscapes, landmarks, and attractions. They can represent almost anything, from commercial opportunities to political agendas for a particular region. This was particularly true of postcard images of European colonial possessions. Turn-of-the-century postcards from the French colonies in West Africa illustrated life in the colonies in addition to showing the viewer the economic potential of the region. Supporters of French colonial policy fervently believed in the mission civilisatrice, which asserted that the French had a duty to introduce rationality and republicanism in their colonial populations.1 The success of these policies depended upon their ability to create European infrastructures for the colonies. James C. Scott argued that states created internal order by implementing rational systems to organize the population and their resources. They accomplished this through the creation of regional maps, cadastral surveys, transportation networks, and engineering projects.2 The rationality the French wanted to instill in Africans through the civilizing mission also came through in their project to render the colony a legible and comprehensible entity. The French agenda in West Africa called for the creation of the same systems of organization. However, the distance between France and its colonial possessions made it difficult to educate the metropolitan population about France’s colonial accomplishments. The state along with the other groups working in the colonies had to find a means of publicizing their 1 project in Africa. Various forms of media, such as travel literature and guidebooks, quickly became vehicles for the dissemination of the colonial project, but postcards from the colonies quickly became the ideal medium for the translation of colonial achievements for the French population. While the French solidified their colonial position, changes in metropolitan France began to allow mass participation in the colonial project. According to historian William Schneider this participation came as the result of greater involvement in the French government. This occurred largely through the extension of suffrage and the popular election of representatives to the Chamber of Deputies. The popular classes also learned of colonial activities by gaining access to information that had not been available before. The late nineteenth century saw, mainly through compulsory education, the creation of a large audience for new mass media, especially the mass circulation newspapers.3 Schneider stated that, from 1870 to 1900, information about Africa came to the French through three sources: newspapers, the illustrated press, and the display of Africans in France. He argued that the newspapers offered the “broadest and most consistent description” of events from the African territories. Le Petit Journal and Le Petit Parisien, two early mass circulation newspapers, covered the creation of France’s colonial empire and their coverage increased as colonial activity increased. The metropolitan interest in images of Africans culminated in the ethnographic exhibitions available to the French after 1875. These exhibits allowed the French to see newspaper scenes depicted in person, thus adding a measure of reality to the images imported by the newspapers. 4 While European powers worked to consolidate their colonial possessions, the postcard emerged as a cheap means of correspondence. Postcards were first suggested by Emmanuel 2 Herrmann, an Austrian economics professor. He proposed the new medium as a time saving device to substitute for short letters. He thought these short notes could be sent on small open cards at a cheaper postage rate. Herrmann convinced the Austrian government of this, and in October 1869 the first postcards went into production. 5 Postcard production spread throughout the world by the mid 1870s.6 By the 1889 Exhibition in Paris the postcard was a fixture in European life. Postcards of the Eiffel Tower were some of the most popular souvenirs at the 1889 Universal Exposition.7 By the 1890s postcards were widely available throughout continental Europe. The postcards appealed to tourists looking for a souvenir of their travels abroad. Although travel was still largely limited to elites, it was becoming more accessible to the middle classes. Postcards gave these new travelers a means to share their journeys with their friends and family at home.8 Postcards became such a popular commodity that the period from 1895 to the end of the Great War is now considered the golden age of the postcard. The popularity of postcards extended to postcards depicting images from European colonial possessions as well. While exact production statistics are unknown, historian David Prochaska estimated that postcard manufacturers in colonial West Africa produced, at a minimum, 7,210 different postcards between 1901 and 1918, 930 between 1919 and 1939, and 600 between 1945 and 1963.9 In the case of colonial Senegal, according to postcard expert Philippe David, three main groups of people purchased these postcards in the years before World War I. First among these groups were French civilians and military personnel in the colonies. The second group consisted of the colonial bourgeoisie, while the final and most rare group to purchase postcards was literate, vacationing colonial servants who sent postcards to their employers.10 3 These postcards from French West Africa held a curious place in the French culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These images, sent back to France from the colonies, provided a link between French colonial activities and French popular culture. The images from the colonies served as a means of reinforcing the notions the French held
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