A True Picture of Famine and Revival

The American Relief Administration Russian operational records (hereafter ARA Russia) contain thousands of photographs documenting the catastrophic famine in Soviet Russia in 1921–22 and the massive relief mission organized under Herbert Hoover’s leadership, which lasted into the summer of 1923. The photographs in the ARA Russia collection are mostly the work of an American named Floyd Traynham (1896–1957), who served as the organization’s official photographer and newsreel cameraman in Soviet Russia. Traynham’s photos were featured in American newspaper coverage of the famine and the American relief operations, while his motion picture films were incorporated into the newsreels shown in movie theaters across the United States.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Traynham had been for some years a staff photographer of The Atlanta Journal. The newspaper noted his departure for Soviet Russia in a story titled “Floyd A. Traynham Will Go to Russia With Hoover Forces,” published on January 7, 1922, the day he sailed from New York.

Mr. Traynham when connected with The Journal rapidly distinguished himself by his readiness and ability to handle any kind of assignment, especially one calling for resourcefulness and daring. He liked flying assignments best of all, perhaps; and soon took up the movie camera as suited for his talents beyond the “single shooter.”¹

Traynham was recruited for this extraordinary assignment by a fellow Southerner, Lupton Wilkinson, who was employed on the ARA’s publicity staff. At the time, Traynham was working for Kinograms, a New York–based newsreel company. During his two extended visits to Soviet Russia, in 1922 and 1923, he recorded scenes of famine and relief against the backdrop of daily life in a society struggling to emerge from years of relentless upheaval. In Soviet Russia, Traynham was the most traveled American among the members of the relief mission. His “graphic picturization” (in the parlance of the day) of the famine relief operations was a publicity boon for the ARA, contributing to public awareness of and support for the mission.²

In August 1922, the ARA’s New York office produced a two-reel film about the mission, “America’s Gift to Famine-Stricken Russia,” compiled from Traynham’s footage. While the compilation film was never theatrically screened, the footage it contained had been sold to the newsreel companies and was shown in an estimated 1,800 movie theaters in the spring and summer of 1922.³ The lone surviving copy of the film was donated to the Library of Congress by the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) in Philadelphia in 1963. Most of Traynham’s other motion picture film shot in Soviet Russia, which was moved to the vaults of the MGM studios in Culver City for safekeeping in the late 1920s, did not survive, apparently a casualty of the disposal of flammable nitrate film. The entire body of Traynham’s photographic work in Soviet Russia survives in the ARA Russia collection at the Hoover Library & Archives.

Traynham wrote a compelling description of conditions in Ufa during and after the famine. It was published in the A.R.A. Bulletin under the title “Ufa Then and Now” in September 1923, two months after the mission had ended. He presented a vivid contrast between the situation he witnessed and photographed in winter 1922, in the abyss of the famine, and the strikingly improved conditions he encountered one year later. Traynham’s little essay shows that his talents were not limited to his prowess behind the camera. It is worth quoting at length.

I first went to Ufa in February, 1922. Before leaving Moscow I had been told of the horrors to expect where the famine was bad, but having been a news camera man for some time I felt that I had seen enough horrors to be hardened for whatever was before me. This proved to be wrong. The first picture I made there, I remember, was of one of the kitchens. While making an exterior shot of the building I saw two men fall on the street within twenty-five yards of where I was standing. For a Southerner, it was terribly cold; about fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. These men were starved, and to fall exhausted in the snow meant death in a few moments. With no vitality left, they would have frozen within a very few minutes.

A Ford truck had been placed at my disposal by the District Supervisor at Ufa and into this we put the two exhausted men and had the chauffeur take them to a hospital. One died on the way and the other shortly after arriving at the hospital. After that, to see people fall on the streets became a rather common sight. The strange thing to one new in the [famine] zone was that no one would give a helping hand to those who fell. In such extreme cold they would perish in a few moments. Then I visited my first child[ren’s] home. It was not an A.R.A. institution but rather a Soviet receiving home for children who had been abandoned.

We were escorted into the office by the physician in charge. He requested us to put on aprons similar to the ones worn by operating surgeons. Then he started to show us through the place. I will never forget the horror of it. We found ourselves in a large room with perhaps two hundred starving children. The doctor started talking. About all he said was, ‘Here is a dead one, and here’s another. Look, that one is dying now.’ Without exaggeration a child must have been dying every two minutes. I saw several that were dead and had not been moved from their beds. The emaciated little bodies, their pitiful faces, their pathetic crying—hardened or not, it was too much for me. I could go no further. I told the others I would wait outside.

I walked to the door to find one of the sleds arriving, and I could not help but think of the dog wagons in small towns. Huddled together in a little straw were perhaps a dozen babies. Their ages ranged from about two years to ten. All were barefooted and bareheaded. Their little ears were blood red. Each of them had on only a thin garment. With a fur lined aviator’s suit, I was cold, so you can imagine how they must have felt. Some were too weak to walk and as they were carried in I saw their bare legs—just bone covered by skin. Never had I seen such a sight before and I wondered how life could remain in bodies such as theirs.

I had determined to get away from it all for a few moments at least, so I went to the edge of the street. There I found three little barefooted children crying. Like the others they had only one thin garment. I looked at their bare feet in the ice. Don’t forget that it was far below zero. I gave them a few roubles. One of the interpreters told me that it would do them no good as there was nothing to purchase. Then I went after them and with a little persuasion I was able to get them in the home we had just visited. The next day I went with Harold Blandy, who later died of typhus in Ufa, to the cemetery where the dead children from the above institution were being buried. The place was too desolate for words. Mass graves were dug which held two hundred of the little bodies. Thirty-seven had already been filled. Several graves had been dug in advance. A line of sleds about ten minutes apart was bringing the bodies. No service—no one to mourn them—no clothes, no casket—just taken by the feet and thrown in the huge hole while the man who did the burying counted them. Without doubt it was a true picture of FAMINE. Horribly emaciated skeletons, only the size of their faces normal.