Introduction

The archives, records and material culture of voluntary organisations are vital assets. They can play an essential role in helping researchers to understand the roles of voluntary organisations in society, as well as remaining important sources of institutional identity, corporate memory and accountability for charities themselves. Archival research enables greater awareness of the significance of voluntary action to society in the UK and elsewhere. We can't fully understand modern societies, and, in the case of this chapter specifically, modern Britain, without acknowledging the ongoing part played by the charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that helped to forge the public health, education and social care systems, form cultural, leisure and sporting lives and shape relations with the wider world. Voluntary organisations’ archives are particularly valuable because they often contain the histories of marginalised and vulnerable individuals or communities whose lives may not have been recorded elsewhere or whose voices may go unheard.

The history of voluntary action, humanitarianism and philanthropy is now a flourishing field of scholarship, and there is an encouraging trend for researchers outside the discipline of history to turn to archival evidence when researching voluntary action, including in geography, social policy and sociology, media and cultural studies and international development. Indeed, archives are not solely about ‘things already past’ but will capture stories ‘of the present and the future’ (TNA, 2017: 8). The International Council on Archives (2004: 8) describes the preservation of NGO and charity archives as a ‘public service designed to meet the known and unknown needs’ of people today and in the future. Less scholarly attention has been paid to the source base that underpins this research, although studies have focused on the vulnerability of in-house charity archive services (Newton, 2004; McMurray, 2014); the challenges of records management in charities (Dawson et al, 2004); cataloguing and user engagement (Mills, 2013a); and third-party deposit of archives (Oppenheimer, 2020). This chapter draws on my experience of research using voluntary organisations’ records and material culture across several historical and interdisciplinary research projects (see Brewis, 2014; Gotz et al, 2020; Brewis et al, 2021a).

This chapter takes a long view of the evolution of appeals for emergency aid. Our case studies of Ireland, Soviet Russia, and Ethiopia illustrate the trajectory of humanitarian fundraising over time. The chapter provides new empirical research on appeals for aid in each case, while identifying key distinctions as well as striking similarities and continuities in discourse and practice. In each case, transnational aid mobilisation gained momentum when the disaster received media attention after the crisis had escalated. The socio-political context differed, as Soviet Russia and Ethiopia were ruled by regimes hostile to the West, making transnational aid a delicate matter, while Ireland was part of the British Empire. While Irish and Russian representatives appealed directly to donors, Ethiopian victims depended on brokers abroad to make the calls for aid. However, humanitarian actors were also forced to complement their support for distant sufferers with ancillary campaigns for the local charity market.

This chapter presents an overview of the history of humanitarian efforts as seen according to a new periodisation scheme, which identifies three main phases of engagement. These are the laissez-faire 'ad hoc humanitarianism' of the nineteenth century, the 'organised humanitarianism' associated with Taylorism and mass society (c. 1900–70), and the 'expressive humanitarianism' characterising the period since 1968. We combine this with background information on the context of the three case studies: relief efforts during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s; the famine that ravaged Soviet Russia and the Ukraine in 1921–3; and the devastating famine in Ethiopia of the mid-1980s.

This chapter explores the social origins of famine and outlines the book's fresh moral economic perspective on humanitarian aid – it updates and reconfigures moral economy as a tool for understanding prioritisations of transnational charity. The chapter draws on scholar-activists including Peter Singer, Amartya Sen, and E. P. Thompson, among others.

The Introduction outlines how this book takes a fresh look at humanitarian action over two centuries through the concept of moral economy. The book employs a theoretical outlook that reflects the emerging academic interest in histories of morality, the cross-disciplinary rise of a ‘moral economy’ discourse beyond the confines of E. P. Thompson’s framing, and the growing field of humanitarian studies. The integrated moral economy perspective draws on philosophical, humanitarian, and medical ethics, especially the problems of triage. We present three empirical studies which provide insights into the history of three humanitarian causes.

This chapter shows how humanitarian agencies account for the aid they provide, acknowledging donors, creating aid narratives, and seeking to legitimise their allocation decisions. Three case studies of Ireland, Soviet Russia, and Ethiopia illustrate the variety of aid documentation over time and across organisations. Broader issues of governance, legitimacy, and equity often remained secondary to the idea of efficiency. Thus, humanitarian records present the entangled moral and economic choices made, while rarely addressing the dilemmas faced. The moral demand for accountability was primarily ascribed to donors. Transnational famine relief throughout the 1840s, 1920s, and 1980s placed great emphasis on reports. Accounting practices were directed at satisfying the demands of the givers, but at the same time consumed resources that could have helped the needy.

The Conclusion argues that the historical parallels we identify in Irish, Russian, and Ethiopian famine relief are neither incidental nor trivial. Their understanding may be improved if one views humanitarian efforts as an outcome of moral economic considerations, and this approach is consistent with the recent recognition of the links between humanitarianism and capitalism. Our moral economy approach sees practice as central to humanitarian history. This should be a transdisciplinary endeavour, informed by a wide range of debates and observations, including donor psychology, humanitarian logistics, and critical accounting. Our perspective, with a focus on fundraising appeals, allocation, and accounting, is of relevance to current humanitarian policy and practice, which is briefly sketched, and we hope it will inspire future research and practice.

This chapter examines relief operations, showing the difficulties humanitarian workers face from headquarters or encounter in the field as their efforts are either facilitated or constrained by economic, moral, or political considerations. Allocating aid in Ireland, Soviet Russia, and Ethiopia posed major moral, economic, and logistic challenges to the voluntary organisations involved. We identify commonalities over time, moments of change, and present a nuanced understanding of aid. Soup kitchens and camps operating under trying conditions may dominate the public imagination of famine relief, but the reality over two centuries has involved a great deal of routine bureaucratic administration: calculations of dry rations and scientific calorie counting; compiling and checking lists of recipients; mapping networks of distribution points and arranging transport; negotiating with other organisations, governments, and local partners; and monitoring, evaluating, and writing project reports.