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Representing Spain: cultural image and geographic knowledge in National Geographic’s articles on Spain (1888–1936)

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Abstract

This article analyzes the vision of Spain conveyed by National Geographic Magazine (NGM) in the period from 1888 to 1936. It is part of a broader line of research into the way geographical magazines aimed at general readers shape popular geographical imaginations. The article has two main objectives. On the one hand, it examines the connections between the type of representations typically found in NGM and the cultural stereotypes that existed about Spain in the United States at the time, notions mainly rooted in the North American tradition of travel writing, as well as in US Hispanism. On the other hand, the article analyzes the image of Spain disseminated in NGM against the backdrop of the geo-historical, political, and socio-economic context of the country in this period, a particularly important analytical step given the profound differences between Spain and the US at the time. Special attention is paid to NGM’s editorial style (much more close to travel journalism than to academic geography descriptions of the country), as well as to the influence of Romantic paradigm and the importance given to Spain’s regional diversity in the image conveyed by the magazine.

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Notes

  1. “Evolution of National Geographic Magazine”. Document published in May 2012, available online at http://press.nationalgeographic.com/files/2012/05/NGM-History-10-12.pdf.

  2. In other words, we have excluded from our analysis articles referring to the colonial territories (in the Caribbean, Pacific, or Africa) belonging to Spain at any point in the period, as well as those on territories which, while closely related to Spain, were politically independent (Andorra) or in dispute (Gibraltar). In total, the 23 articles analyzed comprise 482 pages, including 9 maps and 584 photographs.

  3. As far as we know, the following are the only studies to treat specific dimensions of the image of Spain in the NGM: Farkas (2010) analyzes three articles published in a special issue on Spain in 1929; Ortiz-Echagüe and Montero (2011) devote a few pages to the famous photographer José Ortiz-Echagüe’s contributions to NGM; Bas (2011) discusses Gervais de Courtellemont’s pictures of Galicia; López-Ontiveros (1988, 60–63) examines NGM’s portrayal of Andalusia from 1924 to 1975.

  4. We understand the concept of “geographical imagination” in a broad sense, following the definition given by Schwartz and Ryan (2003, 6), as “the mechanism by which people come to know the World and situate themselves in space and time. It consists, in essence, of a chain of practices and processes by which geographical information is gathered, geographical facts are ordered and imaginative geographies are constructed”.

  5. In this respect, see the review contribution by López-Ontiveros (2006). García-Álvarez and Marías-Martínez’s article constitutes an exception and a precedent for the line of enquiry we propose, insofar as it analyzes the way the Revista Geográfica Española (1938–1977), which saw itself as a kind of Spanish equivalent of the NGM, helped form popular geographical imaginations, and the distance separating these from Spanish academic geography (García-Álvarez and Marías-Martínez 2013).

  6. This is the case of the Philippines (Tuason 1999), Cuba (Schulten 2001), Puerto Rico (Perivolaris 2007), and the Dominican Republic (Muñoz 2008).

  7. See for example the works by Lutz and Collins (1993), on the image of Third World countries; Steet (2000) on the Arab world; Nordstrom (1992), on Samoa; and Nygren (2006), on Tropical America.

  8. We have only found one study of the representation of a Western country (other than the United States) in NGM which, as such, could potentially offer more easily comparable methodological and empirical points of reference with the Spanish case. This is Beaudreau’s (2002) work on Canada.

  9. On this point see Johnston (2009a, b), in which the author traces changes in the definitions of geography in NGM.

  10. These seven principles are as follows: “(1) The first principle is absolute accuracy. Nothing must be printed which is not strictly according to fact (…); (2) Abundance of beautiful, instructive and artistic illustrations; (3) Everything printed…must have permanent value, and be so planned that each magazine will be as valuable and pertinent one year or five or ten years after publication as it is on the day of publication; (4) All personalities and notes of a trivial character are avoided; (5) Nothing of partisan or controversial nature is printed; (6) Only what is of a kindly nature is printed about any country or people, everything unpleasant or unduly critical being avoided; (7) The content of each number is planned with a view of being timely. Whenever any part of the world becomes prominent to public interest, by reason of war, earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc., the members of the National Geographic Society have come to know that in the next issue of their magazine they will obtain the last geographic, historical and economic information about that region, presented in an interesting and absolutely non partisan manner, and accompanied by photographs which in number and excellence can be equalled by no other publication” (Grosvenor 1915, 319).

  11. In addition to this, specialized research on NGM, including Lutz and Collins (1993) and Hawkins (2010), has also highlighted that the magazine was sometimes used as a sort of tourist guide for trips it reviewed.

  12. Along the same line, see Tuason (1999), on the Philippines; and Perivolaris (2007), on Puerto Rico.

  13. The Bulletin of the American Geographical Society (from 1916 the Geographical Review) published just two articles on Spain in the period 1888-1936, both in 1936 and written by the British geographer E.H.G. Dobby (and devoted respectively to Galicia and agrarian problems in Spain), although it did include many more short notices and book reviews on Spanish themes. Founded in 1925 at Clark University, Economic Geography also published just two articles on Spain in this period, one in 1929 (on the olive industry, written by William Bull) and the other in 1936 (on the grape industry, by W.O. and E. Blanchard). The Annals of the Association of American Geographers (which first appeared in 1911) did not publish a single article on Spain before 1936.

  14. For the population, employment and GDP figures we have essentially followed Méndez and Molinero (1993, 17–34).

  15. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab16.txt.

  16. Clawson et al. (2007, 145). For the evolution of the structure of the active population in the US see also the historical series published in http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/beniger/beniger-table.html.

  17. For the US figures, see Steckel (2010) and for Spain, Vilanova and Moreno (1992).

  18. Until the end of 1936, and excluding short news items, continental France, for example, was the subject of 19 feature articles (without counting those relating to World War One, which cannot properly be considered travel pieces); Great Britain of another 19 (13 on England, 4 on Scotland, and 1 each on Wales and Northern Ireland), the first published in 1914; Italy of 15 (the first in 1909), and Germany of 10 (the first in 1914).

  19. Although this article examines several important aspects of the pictorial representation of Spain in NGM photos were not included due to the prohibitively high licensing fees NGM charges for editorial use of its images.

  20. In this regard, the only exception is the article published by David Fairchild, who refers in passing to Alexander Von Humboldt’s visit to the Canary Islands (Fairchild 1930, 613). The vast majority of the very few references to sources and authorities on the image and reality of Spain are drawn from literature and art, and especially from among the great figures of the Golden Age (Cervantes and Don Quixote above all) and the foreign Romantics who visited Spain (especially Washington Irving).

  21. In the chapter on the Iberian Peninsula Newbigin (1932) basically follows the “plan à tiroirs” favored by regional textbooks of the time: a structured and systematic juxtaposition of sections on the human and physical geography of the area in question, often accompanied by a description of its principal regional divisions.

  22. As can be seen in Table 1, Courtellemont published four feature articles on Spain (Courtellemont 1924, 1928, 1929, 1931) which included a total of 119 photographs (99 of which were autochromes). Tobien (1930) provided the illustrations for various articles on the Canary Islands (62 photographs, 39 autochromes). Together they were responsible for 181 (31 %) of the 584 photographs of Spain published in NGM in this period.

  23. After Andalusia, the following were the regions which featured most prominently in the NGM in this period: the Canary Islands (11 % of all pages, 14 % of all photographs), Catalonia (10.3 % of pages, 10.5 % of photographs), the Balearics Islands (9.2 % of pages, 9.6 % of photographs), New Castile (8.5 % of pages, 12.1 % of photographs, most of which were of Madrid) and the Basque Country (7 % of pages, 5.3 % of photographs).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Research Project CCG10-UC3M/HUM-5564, funded by the Carlos III University of Madrid and the Community of Madrid. Thanks are due to the two anonymous reviewers of the original manuscript, as well as to Dr. Daniel Sui, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities: History, Geography and Art, Carlos III University of Madrid, Calle Madrid 126, Edificio 14, 28903, Getafe, Spain

    Jacobo García-Álvarez

  2. Department of Geography, Autonomous University of Barcelona, B9/1084-0034, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Paloma Puente-Lozano

  3. Department of Geography, University of Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade, 1, 15703, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Juan-Manuel Trillo-Santamaría

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  1. Jacobo García-Álvarez
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Correspondence to Jacobo García-Álvarez.

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García-Álvarez, J., Puente-Lozano, P. & Trillo-Santamaría, JM. Representing Spain: cultural image and geographic knowledge in National Geographic’s articles on Spain (1888–1936). GeoJournal 79, 539–556 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-013-9510-1

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