About
This website is a digital exhibit of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, created by Christine Latham and Ben Sladin as a research project for our third-year capstone subject Making History at Melbourne University.
The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was convened to finalise the unfinished business of the Great War that had been held in abeyance since the armistice was signed in 11 November 1918. In her work “Paris 1919 – Six Months that Changed the World”, Margaret Macmillan describes the function of the conference as: “Paris was at once the world’s government, its court of appeal and its parliament, the focus of its fears and hopes.” (1)
The world had come to Paris and with it came the world media, newspaper and radio journalist, writers and historians, photographers and film makers. It was the first mass media event of the modern era.
It is this world media event that provided the inspiration for a media focused exhibit.
The Exhibit is designed to provide viewers access to the documents, artifacts, photographs and stories of Paris 1919. It is presented as a 21st century news website. The aim is to estimate how today’s news presentation techniques and technologies manage the story of Paris 1919. the focus on visual news, the use of social media, the provision of unedited source documents and most importantly the stated perspective of a particular perspective and audience.
Additionally, could presenting the story of Paris 1919 in a modern format open a wider audience for the history of the event.
The exhibit focus is on smaller nations how they entered the conference with hope of justice and freedom. Why did they need a voice in the peace? How did the “big powers” respond to these smaller voices?
Two case studies have been selected to highlight the impact of the conference on smaller nations Armenia and Korea. Both ran active campaigns to influence decisions by appealing to the media. Both came to Paris with claims to independence both failed to achieve their heartfelt aims.