This NER publicity image shows Jackie Coogan with a map of the Near East — the destination of his 1924 Children's Crusade rather than the route of his American tour. Coogan points to Cyprus, somewhere in the region of NER's relief operations. Publicity images like this one were used to make the geography of giving concrete for American audiences: the milk, flour, and clothing collected during the Crusade were not bound for an abstract "overseas" but for specific places in the eastern Mediterranean — orphanages, refugee camps, supply depots — that donors could now locate on a map.
The Children's Crusade itself was a 10,000-mile cross-country tour visiting 25 American cities; admission to a Coogan movie that summer was a can of condensed milk. The campaign culminated on September 6, 1924, when Coogan departed New York Harbor aboard the SS Leviathan with more than $1 million in donated cargo — the "Million Dollar Milk Ship." His subsequent European tour included a visit to NER's Zappeion Orphanage in Athens.
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