Susannah Brooks
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Susannah BrooksDoctoral Candidate
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Doctoral Project
American Disaster Relief and Development in Republican China
The 1920s were a golden age during which Americans sought to improve Chinese-American relations under the guise of disaster relief. Businessmen, diplomats, missionaries, philanthropists, educators and scientists came together to attack the infrastructural problems they believed were preventing China from modernization and thus economic and political participation in the wider world. The use of disaster relief to change China demonstrated the American belief that they uniquely could fix the world. This story is a transnational history at the nexus between histories of humanitarianism and diplomacy. It adds to a growing body of interwar humanitarian histories and shows that humanitarian action was also about making larger, long-term infrastructural and developmental changes in foreign countries. These strategies in turn impacted political relations between countries.
A rich variety of sources including diplomatic communications, personal diaries, institutional records, published relief reports, and historical newspapers and magazines inform the writing of this project. Balancing the “official record” against the more personal and private reflections of these actors unfolds a wider story of propagandist narratives versus the more honest reality of these Americans’ work in China. How did the reported “truth” used in existing histories based on published relief reports differ from the actual importance and impact of these projects in China? What did these Americans hope to achieve in China? What image did they want to present to the world? This research challenges older, less critical histories of American humanitarian relief in 1920s China and answers more current criticisms which center the essential but often ignored role of Chinese relief during these disasters. This project tells a more balanced story of what these Americans wanted in China from their humanitarian relief work and why they invested so much in their efforts.
Research Interests
- Nineteenth and Twentieth Century U.S. History
- Humanitarian History
- History of U.S. Foreign Relations
- Immigration History
Employment
- July 2014 – October 2015
Research Assistant to Prof. Dr. Sabine Dabringhaus,
Professorship for East Asian History, Department of History,
Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany - October 2013 – March 2015
Teaching Assistant to Dr. Simone M. Müller,
Department of History,
Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany - October 2013 – June 2014
Student Assistant
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Freiburg, Germany - October 2012 – September 2013
Research Assistant to Visiting Fellow Prof. Dr. John Horne,
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies School of History, Freiburg, Germany - February 2012 – April 2016
Freelance English Teacher, Academic Editor (English), and Translator (German to English),
Freiburg, Germany - January 2009 – May 2010
Elementary School Teacher,
Joseph A. Craig Elementary School, Recovery School District, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Education
- Since March 2016
Doctor of Philosophy in Modern History,
Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany
Maternity Leave: April – October 2016 - 2012 – 2015
Master of Arts in Comparative Modern History (Vergleichende Geschichte der Neuzeit)
Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany - 2009 – 2010
Teaching Certificate, Elementary Education (Grades K-8),
Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program, The New Teacher Project - 2004 – 2007
Bachelor of Arts in History; Minor in German
The University of Texas at Austin, United States of America
Scholarships and Grants
- March 2016 – May 2019
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DfG, German Research Foundation) PhD Scholarship for '"Silent Armies of Relief and Science": American Disaster Relief and Knowledge Transfer in China during the Interwar Period'
Seminars and Workshops
- 26 April 2019 – 28 April 2019
Rachel Carson Center, Studienhaus-Stiftung, Schönwag, Germany
Oberseminar with Prof. Dr. Christof Mauch and Dr. Simone M. Müller
"Disaster Relief and Development in 1920s China" - 2 May 2018 – 4 May 2018
Middelburg, The Netherlands
RIAS International PhD Seminar
"Rationality versus Compassion: Moving Americans to Aid China in Disaster" - 24 November 2017 – 25 November 2017
Freiburg, Germany
9th Annual Freiburg-Queen Mary Doctoral Colloquium
"Relief to China: Changing Practices of American Non-Governmental Aid and Development in China in Times of Disaster during the Interwar Period"