Palestine Memories:
Palestine in 1900
ABOUT THIS SITE
This website features photographs of Palestine taken in or about 1899. It provides a window into Palestinian life nearly a century and a quarter ago. In other words, almost half a century before the upheaval that transformed the entire region, and gave birth to the ‘Israeli/Palestinian issue’ and the ‘Middle East problem’ we still grapple with today. The conflict that ensued is, as much as anything, rooted in history and about history – varying interpretations of history, and even contradictory narratives of history. Everyone involved in the conflict has been accused at various times of rewriting history to suit their own narrative. And, as time moves on, it often seems the competing narratives become more divorced from each other and from any real version of history.
The photographs on this site are part of a collection titled
Traveling in the Holy Land: Palestine Seen Through the Stereoscope in 1900 AD
You can learn more about the collection and why it exists here. As a testimony of the time in which they were taken, the photographs in this collection are not without problems of their own. We have no corroborating information as to how they were taken, what changes were made to the found reality of the place for the purposes of the photographs, or even how selective the photographers were in deciding what to capture.
Nevertheless, collectively they offer a consistent view of what life was like in Palestine in the year 1900, and we can have reasonable confidence that they depict Palestine largely as the photographers found it.
View of Gaza in 1899
Wedding at Ramallah, circa 1899
And what is the picture they present?
Palestine in 1900 was a distant province of the Ottoman Empire. It suffered from onerous taxation, corruption, and centuries of misrule. Large areas were empty or poorly exploited. What industry existed was still based around small workshops and hand labor. However, the region was not devoid of people – it was emphatically not ‘a land without people’. Life in many areas was difficult, and survival was precarious, but this was not unique to Palestine. Many parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas were also sparsely populated and impoverished during this era. Like other regions and countries, Palestine had a life and a vibrant society with its own culture, traditions, language, and history.
The purpose of this site is to present a visual record of life in Palestine in the period before the turmoil that erupted fifty years later. This collection of photographic images presents this record in a clear and straightforward manner. It does not aim to prove or disprove any particular argument in the ongoing conflict in the region. Instead, it simply provides a historical record of what was, before ‘history’ became merely another weapon in a struggle for conquest or resistance.
For historical context, it’s worth noting that these photos were taken just a few years after the Zionist Conference took place in Basel, Switzerland, and long before a Zionist consensus developed on Palestine as an eventual Jewish state. It was also decades before Zionism became a dominant force in Jewish communities in Europe and the US. Other crucial events were also far in the future: the Sykes-Picot agreement, which divided the Levant into French and British spheres of influence was 17 years away, and the Balfour Declaration, which promised British support for Zionist aims only came a year after that.
