Ideas crossing the Atlantic

During the last ten years the members of the interdisciplinary North Atlantic Triangle commission have explored the close transatlantic links between Europeans and North Americans and the exchange of people and ideas in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. They have in particular documented the networks established especially in the years between the two World Wars, and have underlined the importance of these relationships for the refugees from Nazi Germany, including Austria after the Anschluss, who sought a safe haven in the USA.

The database established by the commission shows the ties of friendship between many American foreign correspondents simultaneously stationed in Vienna and visiting writers as well as numerous physicians attending courses arranged by the American Medical Association in Vienna, on the one hand, and members of the Austrian social and cultural elite, on the other. The database demonstrates the fact that the proximity of their residences in Vienna facilitated contacts and interaction, as is visualized with the help of the Geographic Information System. Later these networks facilitated the search for safety in North America, where the refugees needed affidavits supplied by their American friends to find support and employment. This happened especially close to the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts and particularly in some academic fields, and in the realms of music and the theater.

Search in the database will permit interested users to identify key agents in the transatlantic cultural exchange, especially between the 1920s and 1960s, and to trace their careers. It will allow users to recognize the role of encounters for scores of individuals in Central Europe and in the USA and Canada, whose autobiographies and correspondence reflect these ties. It will also enable users to assess the impact of transatlantic interaction on the genesis of non-fictional and fictional texts, on plays and musical compositions, and on the evolution of (shared) philosophical and political ideas. It will also help to identify the consequences of these exchanges for the perception of the societies on the other side of the Atlantic, and for the development of various institutions. The database will also illustrate the fortunes and activities of the (relatively few) returnees among the emigrants, and show the effect and significance of the exchanges across the North Atlantic, all so far documented in the ten volumes published by the commission since 2012.The database will aid the users in their attempts to comprehend the historical shifts in the relationship between the countries of Europe and North America.