Humanity and the Public Sphere: Rescue between Image and Autonomy

Abstract

The public played a constitutive role in the establishment of lifeboat institutions during the nineteenth century. August von Kotzebue’s drama Das Strandrecht (The law of wreck; 1808), William Hillary’s An Appeal to the British Nation, on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution, for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1823), and similar appeals preceding the establishment of the German Society for the Rescue of Lives from Shipwrecks (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger) in 1865 demonstrate the role the threat of damage to the national image played in the absence of rescue efforts. Concurrently, the portrayal of the rescuer was popularized within the context of an aesthetic of the sublime, which may also have engendered conflicts with state interests.