History World

Historyworld’s aim is to make world history more easily accessible through interactive narratives and timelines. Written by Bamber Gascoigne, it consists of about 300 narratives ( the alphabetical list runs from Aegean Civilization to Zoroastrianism) and some 10,000 events on searchable timelines, including the Second World War.

Eric Fraser (b.1902; d.1983)

Fraser was an English illustrator and designer who trained at Goldsmiths’ College of Art, London from 1919 to 1923. He quickly established himself as a professional illustrator, and his association with Radio Times was particularly renowned, covering the period 1926 through to the early 1970s. Fraser’s artistic work was also featured in magazines such as Vogue,Harper’s Bazaar, The Studio, and The Listener. Fraser’s early work was clearly influenced by cubism and futurism, whilst later work recalled ‘the strength and contrast of fine, early woodcut prints’. Fraser created Mr Therm in 1932, ‘a much-loved carton figure used by the British gas industry’ for over thirty years afterwards. During the 1930s and 40s he worked as a poster designer for LT, Shell, Guinness and the GPO. In the Second World War Fraser was personally commissioned to do work for the MOI by Edwin Embleton. Post-war he became more active as a book illustrator, working for publishers like the Folio Society, the Golden Cockerel Press and the Limited Editions Club. He illustrated Lord of the Rings in 1977. Papers from c.1915 to the 1980s are held at NAL.

Information collated from: Livingston, A., and Livingston, I., The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of Graphic Design and Designers, 1992, p.78; Anonymous, ‘GPO Follows up Appeal to Public’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 121, No. 1,579, August 26 1943, p.264; Newton, E., ‘The Poster in War-Time Britain’, Art and Industry, Vol.35, No.205, July 1943, p.4; Questionnaire submitted by Royall, K. to Embleton, E., Royall, K., ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of British Defence’, Unpublished M.A., University of Westminster, 1991; National Art Library, ‘AAD Holdings’,http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/aad/aadalpha.html, accessed August 28 2003

Harold Forster

Forster was responsible for pre-war Black Magic chocolate illustrations, and the famous ‘Keep Mum, She’s Not So Dumb’ poster. He designed full-colour lithographic posters, and was personally commissioned to do work for the MOI by Edwin Embleton.

Information collated from: Anonymous, ‘Salute the Soldier Posters “Best Yet”‘, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 1,599, January 13 1944, p.53; Anonymous, ‘”Olga” is Mascot in Anti-Rumour Campaign for Services’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1,462, May 29 1941, p.146; Anonymous, Image with caption, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 116, No. 1,518, June 25 1942, p.286; Questionnaire submitted by Royall, K. to Embleton, E., Royall, K., ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of British Defence’, Unpublished M.A., University of Westminster, 1991, p.123

Jonathan Foss

Jonathan Foss was a ‘young advertising designer’ who joined the staff of the Air Ministry Publicity Branch ‘just prior to the out-break of war as a “lay-out” man’, leaving in late 1943 to work for the London Press Exchange. Foss’s designs appear to particularly make use of ’sincere realism’ through photographic material, particularly with colour montages. Foss was particularly influenced by Cassandre, at one point his favourite poster designer. He designed about 60 posters for the R.A.F. of which ‘Volunteer for Flying Duties’ was the first major one. From 1952 to 1955 he worked for Unilver in Brussels. He returned to England to become the international art director for Colman, Prentis and Varley Ltd. He then worked for two advertising firms in New Zealand, before settling in Australia.

Information taken from: ‘W.A.A.F. Recruiting Posters’, Art and Industry, Vol.32, No.189, January 1942, pp.12-13; ‘A.T.C. Recruiting Campaign’, Advertiser’s Weekly, November 11 1943, p.136; Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981 (1972), p.29

Robert Fidler

Company artist for Bob Martin, Ltd., a factory in Southport, who provided paintings for the canteen walls, and adjusted some paintings as posters. Art and Industry noted that ‘dogs naturally play a prominent part in each of his pictures’.

Information collated from: Dodd, J.W., ‘Art in Modern Industry’, Art and Industry, Vol. 38, No. 228, June 1945, pp.185-186.

Propaganda

For many years people have discussed what propaganda is. See propaganda models that were defined for the PhD project, and some propaganda links.

Origins of Propaganda

The term propaganda originated from the ‘Congragatio de propaganda fide’ (congregation for propagating the faith), a Roman Catholic organisation founded in 1622 for the purposes of missionary work. By the end of the First World War, it had become an unsavoury term: the Americans believed that they had been ‘lured’ into the war through the use of British propaganda. The Nazis appeared to believe the same, as Goebbels had a great admiration for British propaganda, and modelled the German Propaganda Ministry upon it. Note that the British had a ‘Ministry of Information’, not a ‘Ministry of Propaganda’ – and a great deal of thought was put into naming the Ministry, with Persuasion not thought to be strong enough, and Propaganda thought to be too strong!

Defining Propaganda

The word ‘propaganda’ is defined as “The systematic propagation of nformation or ideas by an intrested party,  esp. in a tendentious way to encourage or instil a particular  attitude or response. Also, the ideas, doctrines, etc., disseminated thus; the vehicle of such propagation.” (OED Online, Accessed 11^th April 2000)

Encarta defines propaganda as the “dissemination of ideas and information for the purpose of inducing or intensifying specific attitudes and actions. Because propaganda is frequently accompanied by distortions of fact and by appeals to passion and prejudice, it is often thought to be invariably false or misleading. This view is relative, however. Although some propagandists may intentionally distort fact, others may present it as faithfully as objective observers. A lawyer’s brief is as much propaganda as a billboard advertisement. Education, whatever its objective, is a form of propaganda. The essential distinction lies in the intentions of the propagandist to persuade an audience to adopt the attitude or action he or she espouses.” [Encarta]

And of course, these days, no “description” would be complete without Wikipedia and Dictionary.com!

James Fitton (b.1899; d.1982)

Known as a painter and designer, Fitton was born in Oldham. His father was an iron plater and union leader, and his mother a mill weaver. He was educated at the Watersheddings Board School until 1913, having learnt to draw after losing time at school after a bungled operation which left him partly deaf. Fittons’ father was involved in the Fabians, and through this Fitton met James Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst. Fitton worked for six year sorting textile samples in Manchester, whilst attending Manchester Art School in the evenings. He was taught by Adolfe Vallette, one time assistant to Degas, and Sam Rabin and L.S. Lowry (with whom he drew the countryside) were fellow students.

Fitton went to London in 1921, where he was employed by the printer J. S. Riddell for eighteen months. Fitton learnt his trade on the job, although he left when offered the opportunity to design a large mural. Afterwards, one of his jobs involved designing a poster for the Russian trade delegation, which brought him under police observation just before the Arcos raid. Fitton designed oil paintings for film stills, then worked for two years as an illustrator on an adventure magazine, which gave him time to visit London museums. In 1935 he attended evening classes in lithography at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and ‘became absorbed in the world of young London artists’.

In 1928 he married Margaret Cook, a fellow student, and painter and illustrator. Moving near Dulwich, Fitton took a job with a small advertising agency, Vernon’s. In 1930 he was appointed Art Director of Vernon’s, a post he held for fifty years converting it into one of the most successful pre-war advertising agencies. The same year he also became a member of the New English Art Club, the London Group, and the Senefelder Club. Fitton, along with Misha Black, James Boswell, James Holland, Pearl Binder and Clifford Rowe were founders of the AIA in 1933. Those in the AIA were ‘appalled by mass unemployment, Nazi aggression, and the threat of war, and inspired to action by the graphics of Krokodil, Simplicissimus, and the drawings of Grosz’. The AIA produced cartoons, posters, banners, pamphlets, and exhibitions, and ‘by 1935 virtually all respected London artists had become members’. The revival of satirical drawing was initiated by cartoons drawn, from 1934, by ‘the three Jameses’ in the Left Review. This revival continued through the war, and ‘led to a new age of British caricature exemplified by Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman’. Fitton was therefore already well known before the war as a left-wing cartoonist, and had done designs for the Empire Marketing Board (EMB).

Fitton was not a modernist, but was sympathetic to advanced European Art, and was one of few British artists ‘who revolutionised commercial graphics by an infusion of modernism, and brought the art of the poster to a peak in the 1930s’. Fitton was commissioned by Frank Pick in 1937 to design two posters for London Transport and, in 1938, murals for the United Kingdom government pavilion at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. He undertook free-lance magazine and newspaper illustration work in the 1940s, and produced many designs for the MOI and MOF in the Second World War . He was also the chief assessor for the Ministry of Education diploma in design from 1940 to 1965 at the Royal Academy.

Information taken from: Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981, p.27; Campbell, p.155; and Gore, F., ‘Fitton, James’, National Biography, 1990. (Taken from the IHR Database.)

Related texts: John Sheeran, ‘James Fitton, an Appreciation’ in catalogue James Fitton RA 1899-1982 (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1986); introduction by
Sidney Hutchison in catalogue James Fitton RA 1899-1982 (Oldham Art Gallery, 1983).

Eileen Evans (Miss)

Eileen Evans (Miss) joined the Photographic Division of the Ministry of Information, as a filing clerk. In 1940 she was noticed by ‘Gibbs-Smith who very sensibly noticed that as an artist she was not being used to the best advantage on that particular type of work’, who put her in touch with Embleton, Edwin. She was transferred to the Studio, to work under Reginald Mount. In early 1943 Embleton called for her grade to be improved to Junior Assistant Specialist (JAS), as Mount’s ‘experience and flair for getting the best out of her has resulted in her developing into a really first-rate designer, and the value of the work she produces is miles above the grade she is in’.Evans worked with Mount, Reginald at the MOI, and they continued to work together post-war. Closely associated with the Central Office of Information (COI, which succeeded the MOI) in the 1950s and 1960s, the Mount/Evans Studio produced information graphics and public service notices for a wide variety of government agencies. Papers from c.1953 to 1981, covering joint graphic design work with Reginald Mount, are held at NAL.

Information collated from: PRO INF 1/86, ‘Memo from Embleton to Vaughan and Judd’, ‘Re-organisation of the Ministry of Information: General Production Division’, January 25 1943; Rennies Vintage Posters, ‘Rennies- Posters of Reginald Mount and Eileen Evans’, http://www.rennart.co.uk/mountevans.html, accessed August 28 2003; National Art Library, ‘AAD Holdings’, http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/aad/aadalpha.html, accessed August 28 2003

“A Great Degree of Value”

As you may remember, in October this year, I partook in a panel on “Why I study history?”, so, I was really interested to see the following story in History Today (a very readable magazine):

“John Tosh argues that historians should find ways to teach undergraduates the practical applications of their uniquely insightful discipline.

How many history graduates leave university believing that their hard-earned knowledge can be put to practical use? Those entering the teaching profession or the heritage industries will need little persuading. But what about history graduates who enter business or the public service, or who undertake training for other professions? They may be persuaded by the argument that history develops analytical and communication skills. But other disciplines make the same claim with equal validity. A degree in history may not be a dead end, but for very many students it leads nowhere beyond a leisure interest.

Students can hardly be blamed for underestimating the relevance of their discipline. For they get little encouragement from those who should know better. The reluctance of most academic historians to advocate the practical application of their discipline results in cohorts of students who have little or no idea of the value of the subject. Periodically government ministers and spokespeople for the profession engage in acrimonious argument about the purposes served by the study of history. But one seldom hears a ringing endorsement of the proposition that history provides much of the intellectual equipment needed by the well-informed, critically aware citizen. To know that the past can illuminate the contours of the present is to be better equipped to make intelligent judgments about critical public issues.

At present the structure of the university curriculum makes little allowance for perspectives of this kind. Most students begin their studies with a module on the nature of the discipline, which usually gives some attention to the social role of historical knowledge. This is certainly an advance on the situation 50 years ago when history was taught in an unreflexive manner. But for most students, evaluating the possible applications of historical knowledge stops there. They are likely to encounter E.H. Carr’s definition of history as ‘an unending dialogue between past and present’, but to apply this to their understanding of the past rather than the present.

The time-honoured climax of the history degree is the ‘special subject’ in which any contemporary resonance is completely submerged by immersion in the primary sources; the dissertation involves more of the same. On some courses students may have the opportunity to study the impact of past masters of the craft on their contemporaries (Gibbon and Macaulay being prime candidates), but they are seldom encouraged to make a comparable evaluation of the major historians at work today.

My proposal is that, in order to maximise the practical utility of the subject, university teachers should make a space in which we can discuss with our finalists the bearing which their studies may have on their engagement as citizens. Studying history for three years imparts not only a knowledge of particular periods and places in the past, but the ability to think historically: to take the measure of the gulf between past and present, to recognise trajectories whose direction and dynamic may not be immediately obvious and to distinguish between what is enduring and what is transient in our present circumstances. What better preparation for life beyond university than a recognition that these principles illumine the present as well as the past?

Teachers and students of history will always feel more at ease dealing in concrete cases rather than generalisations. We now have a major resource of such concrete cases in the History and Policy website (www.historyandpolicy.org), where the application of historical research to current politics is demonstrated across the spectrum of social, economic and foreign policy. Examination questions could reflect this emphasis.

The student specialising in international relations might tackle the question: ‘Why have makers of foreign policy so often resorted to historical analogy in order to understand the present?’Students more drawn to social history might be asked to ‘evaluate the view that key features of the British welfare state today can only be understood in the light of the pre-20th century Poor Law’. Government and business leaders continue to judge academic subjects by their ability to deliver ‘transferable skills’, by which they usually mean the generic skills of analysis and communication. The fallacy lies in that slippage from ‘transferable’ to ‘generic’. Why is the argument confined to skills which are common to most disciplines? Just as valuable are those skills which are largely the property of one discipline. The next time a government minister demands that universities should focus on transferable skills, we should gently point out that historical perspective is a transferable skill; it is essential to the informed citizen and it is more carefully cultivated in university history departments than anywhere else. Our graduates should know this too. Potentially they are in a privileged position ‘to test modern experiment by historical experience’( as A.F. Pollard put it) and to contribute their insights to public debate.

John Tosh is Professor of History at Roehampton University, London. The fifth edition of his book, The Pursuit of History, is published by Pearson Education this month.”

R.W.Elgar (Mr)

Elgar designed savings posters in the Second World War, and was responsible for the panels at the base of Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square, during Warships Weeks. He was also responsible for displays in early 1944 on Nelson’s Column. His poster designs for the ‘Salute the Soldier’ campaign were chosen because they were ‘not too warlike’.

Information collated from: Anonymous, ‘Services’ Savings Poster’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 118, No. 1,535, October 22 1942, p.70; Anonymous, ‘Salute the Soldier Posters “Best Yet”‘, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 1,599, January 13 1944, p.53