Witnesses to the locust invasion that befell Jerusalem and the nearby Syrian region in 1915 agreed that they had seen nothing to equal it in their life-times. It was truly a natural disaster of biblical proportions.
Members and employees of the American Colony were active in complying with official eradication efforts during the plague. They cooperated with provincial Ottoman authorities who marshaled organized resistance to the locusts at the command of Djemal (Jamal) Pasha, head of the Fourth Army on the Palestine Front and military governor of Ottoman Syria, and volunteered their labor to help fight off the gregarious pests and limit their numbers and advances.
The American Colony also played an important historic role in documenting the 1915 invasion as a major social and economic event, as well as one of scientific interest. At the behest of Djemal (Jamal) Pasha, Lewis Larsson, the head of the American Colony Photo Department, worked with the assistance of Lars Lind and John D. Whiting to record the 1915 destruction. Larsson photographed the various methods that American Colony members and other Jerusalemites used to try to control the onslaught. He undertook a series of carefully staged studio “insect portraits” in which American Colony photographers captured details of the physical nature of individual locusts and their various stages of molting. And he supervised the compilation of selected images of the plague into photographic albums created by the American Colony photo service. These albums contained hand-tinted photographic prints that graphically captured the story of the invasion, conveyed in dramatic fashion.
Documenting the Invasion
Copies of the photograph albums documenting the locust plague of 1915 that were created by the American Colony Photo Department were retained by American Colony members as visual reminders of the incredible phenomenon they had all experienced. The albums, each uniquely and aesthetically hand-tinted, were also made available for commercial sale through American Colony venues. The American Colony images attracted international attention.
Individual prints documenting the plague created by Lewis Larsson for the American Colony Photo Department were among the twenty-five photographic illustrations featured in an article entitled “Jerusalem’s Locust Plague” that John D. Whiting published in the December 1915 (volume 28) issue of The National Geographic Magazine. The images used in the article either matched or were similar to those appearing in the albums. In the article, Whiting described the natural history of the locusts and the particular course and consequences of their destruction. He included anecdotes about his own family and friends of the American Colony, and reported local reactions to the invasion. He described the mechanics of eradication efforts. He also addressed larger philosophical issues, including the moral lessons drawn by witnesses regarding divine power and notions of fate and destiny. He made allusions to the similarities between the 1915 plague and descriptions of locusts in the ancient sayings of Mohammed and in books of the Bible, including the books of Joel and Exodus. And he addressed the economic impact and the very real needs that Jerusalemites faced in the aftermath of the locusts’ visit.
