Giving Compass' Take:

• Alexandra Monday discusses famed French humanitarian Albert Kahn and his attempts to bring a wider understanding of the world through color photography in the early 20th century.

• The influence of art comes through in this remembrance of Kahn's efforts, but it's also a good illustration of how philanthropy is at its most powerful when there's a human face to it, in all its glory.

• A more modern version of Kahn? This Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer documented refugees for 10 years.

In an attempt to show the beauty of human life around the globe as well as creating a deeper sense of compassion and understanding across cultural barriers Albert Kahn, a wealthy banker in Paris, sent photographers to over 50 countries to capture life on earth.

Albert Kahn was a pacifist and a humanitarian with an urge to find new ways to prevent conflict between nations. A quest he started long before the invention of portable color photography. In 1898 he founded Bourses de Voyage Autour du Monde  —  a program that awarded travel grants to young academics. He believed the participants would use their experiences of diverse cultures to send out a more progressive view of what it is to be a human being. He strongly believed this sharing of knowledge could be a real force for human god.

In 1907 the Lumiére brothers invented the autochrome. This new technology, made mainly from potato starch, made it possible to produce color photography with a standard glass-plate camera. For the first time in history color photography was portable. For Kahn this presented unlimited possibilities and was the beginning of the project that came to be known as Albert Kahn's Archives of the Planet. He now had a great new educational tool to help him promote his convictions. The following twenty-two years he hired a large number of photographers and sent them out into the world. The project resulted in an archive of over 72.000 photographs and 120 hours of film.

Read the full article about Albert Kahn and color snapshots of the early 20th century by Alexandra Monday at Third Monday.