European Reform Movements and the Making of the International Congress, 1840–1860

Abstract

In historical research on internationalism and the international sphere, the rise of the international congress during the nineteenth century has long played a prominent role. This article investigates the making of the international congress as a phenomenon by comparing three early series of meetingsanti-slavery conventions, peace congresses and philanthropic congresses during the 1840 s and 1850 sas communicative events. The analysis shows that their staging was influenced by the fact that these meetings were organised to mobilise reform movements, and that they relied on a public sphere where elite groups, gathered in the metropoles of Europe, could expect that their speeches would reach geographically dispersed audiences through print media. A general conclusion is that these meetings pioneered a new way of being internationalcalled 'representative internationality' in the articlethrough how they were arranged as independent actors beyond local contexts that could both 'speak for' and 'speak to' different collectives.

The art of gathering: histories of international scientific conferences

“…Many of these movements made explicit references to science. 32 The sexual reform conferences after the First World War, discussed by Laura Forster in this issue, resembled other association conferences both in their ambition to enrol science as an ally for a social cause and in their social make-up, involving large gatherings of urban middle-class crowds, by now often with women in prominent roles working on reformist issues. Forster coins the term 'manifesto conference' for what they set out to do, namely publicize an agenda and build a political cause in alliance with scientific expertise.…”