THE BIG POND FUND (1949)

In December ’46 the Philcon undertook the sponsorship of “The Big Pond Fund.” This idea was Forrest Ackerman’s, to raise a fund to bring a British fan to the U.S. to make the Philcon a truly “world” convention. Rothman verified that British fandom supported the proposal (Ted Carnell was the favorite choice to make the trip) and put Ackerman in charge of the Fund. Ackerman flooded fandom with requests for donations and organized numerous raffles of rare s-f items to raise money.

By May publicity was centering on all the s-f notables who had been invited to attend, and their replies, favorable or unfavorable. Rothman also talked frankly about the Big Pond Fund. Donations had reached $53.00, which was much less than had been hoped for, although Ted Carnell was trying to raise enough money of his own that the Fund could still make the difference. In the event that it did not work out, the Fund would be continued through the Philcon and passed on to 1948’s Worldcon in the hope that an extra year of fund-raising would bring it to fruition. Fandom, which had initially dismissed the Fund as totally impractical, began to think it might be brought off after all if organized in such a realistic manner. Even Fantasy-Times applauded this sign of positive growth of the Worldcon....

Saturday, August 30th dawned with a heavy summer thundershower. Few paid it any attention....

Rothman called the Con to order promptly at 1:00 p.m. He read a brief welcoming address, thanking the fans and pros who had contributed labor, publicity, and auction material to make the Philcon a success....

Forrest Ackerman closed the introductions by reading a message from Ted Carnell, explaining how travel restrictions and lack of funds had prevented his attendance, and giving the best wishes of British fandom to the Worldcon. Ackerman was conducting a Big Pond raffle at the Philcon, to continue raising money for another try at bringing Carnell over the next year.

The Big Pond Fund, which the Philcon had passed on to Torcon, had been dropped by that convenThe Big Pond Fund, which the Philcon had passed on to Torcon, had been dropped by that convention. Forry Ackerman doggedly carried it on through his Fantasy Foundation with mail auctions of duplicate books to raise the needed transportation revenue. Also, by this time Edward J. “Ted” Carnell was more than just any foreign fan [but the editor of] British prozine, New Worlds. During this time Carnell had also become the British representative for all the U.S. semipro s-f publishers. This growing prominence during 1947-48, coupled with the news that he was British fandom’s unanimous choice to represent them at the World Convention, focused serious attention on the Fund. During 1948 it began to come alive. It did not succeed in time for Carnell to come to the Torcon, but shortly after it reached the level that guaranteed his appearance at the 1949 Worldcon. The Cinvention reaccepted the Fund as Worldcon business and urged American fandom to come and help give Carnell a warm welcome.

However, while Ted may not have written a report he did take photographs. Pete Weston recently acquired copies of his photo album so we're now at least able to provide a pictorial account of his trip. Almost certainly, several of these photos were taken by someone other than Ted - fans of the time had a tradition of swapping copies of photos around - but there was no record of who took what with the album, alas. (N.B. These photos are not public domain and are presented here subject to the usual constraints of copyright.)

• More photos

I was able to place the photos in what I believe is a plausible sequence by taking a timeline from the extremely informative report on the convention by Fred Patten on the Cincinnati Fantasy Group website.

Saturday afternoon Saturday evening Sunday Monday Chicago and Indian Lake Program Book

The SF & SF report FANTASY TIMES report day 1, day 2, day 3 FANTASY NEWS report SPACEWARP report BLOOMINGTON NEWSLETTER The Cinvention Memory Book

CINVENTION, the 7th annual Worlcon, was held in the Hotel Metropole in downtown Cincinnati. Here's how Ted's trip was reported in the UK in the Science Fantasy Society's fanzine SCIENCE FICTION NEWS #4:

Preliminary reports of the 7th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, indicate that a good time was had by all the 240-odd fans who assembled there between Sept. 3rd and 5th. Proceeds from the ‘Big Pond Fund’ contributed to by many US and British fans (including the proceeds from London’s ’48 ‘Whitcon’) enabled British fans to have a representative there in the person of Ted Carnell, editor of ‘New Worlds’ and active supporter of s-f for 12 years. Part of the proceedings were televised, and viewers got an eyeful according to Ted’s description. A New York model, dressed (or undressed) in the fashion of a Bergey cover girl (TWS and STS) opened the show: after screening her from head to foot, the TV camera swung off (probably to the viewers’ regret) to a view of each s-f magazine, finishing with the cover of ‘New Worlds’, and from there to our own Ted, who recounted the story of ‘Our Struggle’ - a story for which we thought Wally Gillings held all the copyrights.

The SFS Committee sent a cable of good wishes to the Cinvention, but Australian fans went one better and actually telephoned through for about 15 minutes.

And so to the convention:

1. Saturday 3rd September: Afternoon

The audience, Al Prime in foreground.

The con hall.

Tanner then introduced Lloyd A. Eshbach for his Guest of Honour address, "SF Comes of Age".

Lloyd Eshbach

Next up was Lester del Rey. Substituting for other pros who had been unable to attend, he gave a talk on "Sex and SF".

After del Rey, Ray Palmer spoke about his resignation from Ziff-Davis, the Shaver mystery, and the imminent launch of his new prozine, OTHER WORLDS. At the con he would hire Cincinnati group member Bea Mahaffey as his editorial assistant and soon afterwards she would move to Chicago to take up her post. This would lead in turn to her involvement in running CHICON, the 1952 Worlcon, in that city and to meeting Walt Willis, which would lead in turn to her visit to the UK and her appearance at the 1953 UK national convention, CORONCON...

This ended the afternoon session, after which fans would have gone out to dinner and otherwise socialised prior to the start of the evening session.