Cold War enthusiasts flocked to a lecture on propaganda organized by Carleton at the Ottawa City Archives.
This is the second time the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has hosted a “CU in the City” event. Once a year, they hold lectures off campus in the hopes of involving the greater Ottawa community with Carleton.
History professor James Opp spoke about renowned Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh. Karsh was famous for his portraits of public figures, including former British prime minister Winston Churchill and actor Humphrey Bogart.
“He photographed every president, from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton. He had a huge amount of access to people. And he did do photographs of Brezhnev, Fidel Castro, not to mention the Hollywood celebrities that we normally associate with Karsh,” Opp said.
What is less known is Karsh’s work for major companies, Opp said.
Karsh produced a magazine advertisement campaign for aircraft manufacturer Canadair in 1958. The campaign consisted of eight full-page ads to warn Canadians about communism.
Opp said the ads ran in popular magazines like Maclean’s and Reader’s Digest. They were designed to make Canadians fear communism in Canada.
One showed a teacher helping a child with the caption “Communism and Twisted Education.” Another showed a communist trying to recruit a man in the park.
Opp said these ads were encouraging Canadians to look for communists among them.
“Look for it at the park, look for it in the schools,” he said.
If someone was interested in the ad and wanted to share it, they could write to the publishing company, and they would send a reprint. Over 5,000 people sent in requests to Reader’s Digest for a copy of one particular ad.
“It’s hard to understand what is going on in those requests. Is it because they really wanted to spread the news of anti-communism or were they more interested in copies of Karsh’s ads because they liked Karsh, because they wanted to see the master at work?” Opp said.
Arts and social sciences dean John Osborne said the event aimed to get Carleton involved with the greater community.
“This is a side of Karsh we don’t know about, at least I didn’t know about at all. I just thought he was a portrait photographer, so I was really fascinated to see this aspect,” Osborne said.
Recent Carleton civil engineering graduate Maksim Apelfead said he went to the talk because he loves photography.
“It wasn’t what I was expecting,” he said. “But it was really interesting to get the perspective of photography from a Cold War mentality.”
