Dublin Core
Title
Soup Kitchen for Refugees
Subject
War Relief
Description
On the back of this picture, the photographer left the simple description, "Soup kitchen for refugees." During WWI, the term "soup kitchen" could refer either to this kind of communal place or to mobile kitchens sent to the war front.
Corinna Haven Smith and her husband, Joseph Lindon Smith, took multiple trips to Europe during the war as members of the Franco-American Committee for the Protection of the Children of the Frontier. She worked primarily with refugees and documented the people she encountered through hundreds of photographs. She also gave lectures in the US about her experiences and later published a book, Rising Above the Ruins in France (1920), as an account of her return to France after the Armistice.
This picture is particularly interesting as soup kitchens were just starting to come into their own in the modern sense of the term. Various civilians established soup kitchens where they were needed, feeding whoever came to them at a time when mutual support overrode concerns about personal responsibility. Although attitudes have shifted in cycles over the past century about the role such places serve in society, their presence has remained an ongoing reminder of questions about ethical obligations to people in need.
Corinna Haven Smith and her husband, Joseph Lindon Smith, took multiple trips to Europe during the war as members of the Franco-American Committee for the Protection of the Children of the Frontier. She worked primarily with refugees and documented the people she encountered through hundreds of photographs. She also gave lectures in the US about her experiences and later published a book, Rising Above the Ruins in France (1920), as an account of her return to France after the Armistice.
This picture is particularly interesting as soup kitchens were just starting to come into their own in the modern sense of the term. Various civilians established soup kitchens where they were needed, feeding whoever came to them at a time when mutual support overrode concerns about personal responsibility. Although attitudes have shifted in cycles over the past century about the role such places serve in society, their presence has remained an ongoing reminder of questions about ethical obligations to people in need.
Creator
Corinna Haven Smith
Joseph Lindon Smith
Source
McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa. 2933 E. 6th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3123
Date
1917-1921
Format
Photograph Black/white, 11.9 x 16.9 cm
Language
English
Identifier
2009.038.2.30
Coverage
France
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Photograph (Black/White)
Physical Dimensions
11.9 x 16.9 cm