“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

Abstract

This article synthesizes results from historical newspaper analysis and archival research with standpoint epistemology to explore the dynamics of transnational eyewitnessing illustrated by Leonora Raines, a Paris-based American journalist who reported the Great War (1914-1918) for the metropolitan New York Sun. Few World War I military-press histories have explored how female reporters engaged in transnational journalism, harnessing their role as an “outsider within” to produce cross-border stories for audiences dependent on foreign news. Analysis of Raines’ 126 articles, her scrapbook, and records from U.S. and German archives reveal her interactions with foreign sources, military censors, and propaganda across France, the Western Front, and Germany.