Medicine Archives

Statue of a Peasant Woman in the Museum Gardens (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

The Cairo Agricultural Museum complex, located right off of Salah Salem street in the neighborhood of Dokki, is a gem of object collections and archival holdings hidden in plain sight. Its under-utilized collections will be of interest to historians and social scientists working on agriculture, food, natural history, political economy, rural Egyptian history, and public works from the Pharaonic period until present day. The museum is also a rare find for scholars interested in material culture and museum studies in modern Egypt. Its exhibits stand as an archive in and of themselves. They provide material testament to developments in the natural sciences, anthropology, food science, visual culture, and curatorial practices as many of the collections and dioramas remain untouched since the first half of the twentieth century.

History

In 1930, King Fouad of Egypt established the Agricultural Museum in the Cairo suburb of Dokki in the palace of Princess Fatima, the daughter of the great Khedive Ismail. It is one of the first agricultural museums in the world—second only to the Royal Agricultural Museum in Budapest. The museum was officially inaugurated by King Farouk in 1938 when he selected the venue to host 18th International Cotton Congress. The Agriculture Museum was preceded by an array of agricultural expositions organized by the Khedival Agricultural Society (later Royal Agricultural Society), an organization determined to improve agricultural methods in Egypt, and “the lot of the fellah.” The society created a small agricultural museum in 1920. This initial collection was ultimately modified into a cotton museum, which later became a part of the “Fouad I Agricultural Museum” when it opened to the public (el Shakry, 2007).

The Museum’s initial collections consisted of an array of objects donated from scientific institutions throughout Egypt, including the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Agricultural Society, and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Hungarian artists oversaw the creation and curation of the museum’s first displays (Davies 2014). With its holdings “lying halfway between a museum of natural history and a purely agricultural museum,” the Egyptian government mobilized the museum as cultural and educational space for the public until the 1960s (Ghawas, 1972). For the next thirty odd years, the museum was essentially left for dead. Most of its artifacts and object collections were relocated to storage, and the exhibition halls were transformed into makeshift government offices, presumably for Ministry of Agriculture staff. In the 1990s, restoration projects began in earnest. As they were completed, sections of the museum were slowly reopened to the public beginning with the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture and the Cotton Museum in 1996. Currently, the museum complex is composed of seven exhibition halls (the museum pamphlet refers to these entities as small museums, or mutahif), a library, research laboratories, greenhouses, and a cinema. The grounds surrounding the museum have been maintained as a beautiful garden space, with two Pharaonic-style gardens located near the entrance to the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture.

Collections

As mentioned above the Cairo Agricultural Museum boasts seven exhibition halls which depict varying topics in natural history and agricultural science. The majority of the museum’s labels are in Arabic, however some exhibits provide English translations.

1. Scientific Collections

Whale Skeleton in the Scientific Collections Hall (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

The Scientific Collections Hall is the oldest in the museum. The first floor is dedicated to ethnographic materials that depict the social and economic lives of the Egyptian fellahin. The most stunning exhibits of this building are the large, life-size dioramas of a rural wedding procession, and a village souk complete with a community forn, a café with galabiyya-wearing men laughing while smoking shisha, and even a female fortune teller reading shells. There are also rooms specializing in rural handicrafts, “habits and customs,” and the High Dam. The second floor houses a large natural history collection of taxidermy animals native to Egypt and Sudan, with rooms specializing in the life-cycles of domestic farm animals, insects and crop pests, as well as a room of popular Egyptian products and manufactured food goods from the 1940s and 1950s.

Diorama of an Upper Egyptian Village Market in the Scientific Collections Hall (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

2. Botanical Revolution Hall
This hall, also referred to as the “Plant Kingdom Museum,” was established in 1935. Its
exhibits depict Egypt’s field crops, horticultural and garden plants, and popular agricultural machinery. The first floor specializes in grain crops such as wheat, barley, corn, and rice, and also has a room on onions and garlic. The second floor specializes in fiber crops, and rooms on fruits, vegetables, legumes, and more.

3. The Cotton Museum
In many aspects the original collection of the Agricultural Museum, the Royal Agricultural Society organized the Cotton Museum in 1920, and opened it to the public in 1926. The collections in their most recent state were inaugurated in the Cairo Agricultural Museum in 1996 on Eid el Fellah (a feast day commemorating the victories of the peasantry and the implementation of Nasserist agricultural reforms after the 1952 revolution). The collections explore the importance of the cotton crop over the long duree of Egyptian history in its many forms from field to finished product, and include rare cotton the seeds and fibers from varying species of cotton crop grown around the world.

4. Ancient Egyptian Agriculture
This collection highlights role of the Nile River and the importance of agriculture in the economic, social, and spiritual realms of Pharaonic civilization. Many of these collections were acquired between 1932 and 1938 as donations from the Egyptian Museum and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Cappers and Hamdy (20007) provide original catalogue entries for specimen in this collection as well as some in the “Greek, Coptic, and Islamic” collections below.

5. Agriculture in Greek, Roman, Coptic, and Islamic Periods
These collections represent the second stage of development in early Egyptian agriculture
from 332 BC, when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, until the rule of Mohammed
(Mehmet) Ali Pasha in 1805. However, the majority of materials are concentrated in the Greek and Roman periods. They highlight the role of plants in society (from popular field crops to medicine), the raising of livestock, and the social lives of the peasant classes at in these periods.

A Poster Advising Consumers to Boil Milk to Prevent the Spread of Disease (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

6. The Syrian Hall
This exhibit, inaugurated on July 31, 1961 commemorates Egypt and Syria’s short-lived union in the form of the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961. Its contents include information on trade between the two countries, and provide a collection of Syrian handicrafts, produce, and rural life.

7. The Egypt-China Friendship Exhibition
Opened in 2013, this exhibit is composed mostly of art and ceramics donated from China
to illustrate the thriving political relationship between Egypt and China.

8. Library
The museum’s library is a quaint two-floor building with an array of books, periodicals, and maps ranging from the mid-nineteenth century until the early 2000s. The subjects of the collection focus on a variety of agriculture and “agriculture-adjacent” materials such as botany, horticulture, public works, livestock, geography, and the social and economic aspects of rural life. Some examples of publications held in the library include volumes of Mémoires Présentés à l’Institut d’Egypte from the 1880s until the 1930s, yearly reports from the Department of Public Works from the 1880s onwards, and a Ministry of Agriculture periodical entitled Zamīl al-Fallāḥ published in the 1930s. Certain publications of the Ministry of Agriculture can also be found here, however most of those materials are held in the library of the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Library (both located down the street from the Agricultural Museum.) As far as I know, this collection has not been catalogued and I was only able to conduct a cursory survey of the holdings during my research there. Future researchers may find more than detailed in this review.

Research Experience

The Agricultural Museum and Library is easily accessible to researchers. Those that speak Arabic will have an easier time of things, although many of the museum and library staff know some level of English. As of 2016, the entry fee to the main collection halls, library, and gardens was 5 LE, with an extra fee to enter the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture. However, researchers must note that depending on the day, and maybe even the hour, particular halls or exhibitions may be locked and/or closed to visitors. Generally, the main exhibits in the natural history, or scientific collections, and the library are always open to the public.
The library, located near the research laboratories a ways off from the main buildings, is a charming and pleasant workspace. More often than not, researchers will have the reading room to themselves, sharing the space with only a handful of library staff. Madame Azza is the main librarian. After signing your name in a logbook, Madame Azza will ask you what kinds of materials you are interested in. You can give her specific texts or vague subject and she will bring the exact text, or texts that might interest you out to the reading room for you. If you are lucky, she may allow you to wonder through the upstairs stacks yourself. This is the area where most of the old periodicals, governmental reports, and “rare books” from 1880 until 1950 are housed.

Model of Honeycombs in a Beehive (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

Currently, there is neither known catalogue for the ethnographic and natural history collections, nor the holdings in the library. I was also not able to find information on the provenance of the museum’s collections. However, as of June 25 2017 the Egyptian Central Department of Archaeological Acquisitions examined and registered over 1,000 of the Agricultural museum’s ancient animal and geological artifacts. There may be a way to access the catalogue or reports from this investigation. Those wishing to work with certain objects or collections should get in touch with the museum staff directly. Although the museum’s pamphlet provides a phone number and an email address for researchers to direct their inquiries, it is recommended that scholars make requests in person to the museum staff who may put you in touch with the museum director. It is advised that researchers provide a statement in Arabic addressing their academic affiliation, research interests, and the collections they are interested in working with.

Unlike other archives in Egypt, such as Dar al-Watha’iq al-Qawmiyya (The Egyptian National Archives) and Dar al-Kutub (The Egyptian National Library) where photographs of materials are forbidden, or in the Egyptian Geographical Society’s Ethnographic Museum where photographs of the exhibits can be taken for a fee, the Cairo Museum of Agriculture allows researchers to take pictures of materials in both the library and the museum for free.

Transportation

The Cairo Agricultural Museum is located in the neighborhood of Dokki. The museum is an easy 25 minute walk from the Behouth (Dokki) or the Opera (Zamalek) metro stations. Given the museum’s location right off of Salah Salem, it is easily accessible via taxi, Uber, or Kareem as well. Researchers can simply direct them to “al-mathaf al-zara’i” or “wizarat al-zira’a.” There are a handful of restaurants, cafes, and kushks located near the museum, particularly in the directions of the Dokki Shooting Club (Nadi Es-Sid) and Mohandessin.

Contact Information (according to museum pamphlet):

Telephone: +2(02)33372933 and +2(02)37616874
Website: www.agrimuseum.gov.eg
Email: agri.museum@yahoo.com
Hours: Sunday through Friday 9AM-2PM; The museum is occasionally closed for maintenance and hours are liable to change.

Resources and Links

Here is a link to the Cairo Agricultural Museum Pamphlet and a link to the Cairo Museum of Agriculture Booklet.

The most in-depth descriptions of the museum, its history, and its exhibitions can be found in
Al-Mathaf Al-Zira’i Kama ’Arfithu (elKhattab, 2003), located in the museum’s library collection, Guide du Musée Agricole Fouad I , and the Bulletin of the Royal Agricultural Society.

Additionally, some of the most useful sources that cover the history of the museum, as well as its current state and collections are below. (I have also included limited secondary literature regarding the general history of agriculture in twentieth century Egypt as it pertains to the history of organizations such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Fellah Department in the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Royal Agricultural Society):

Davies, Claire. “The Anatomy of Melancholy: Cairo’s Lost Agriculture Museum.” Bidoun, no. 14 Objects: A Treasury of Bidounish Wonders (Spring/Summer 2008). https://bidoun.org/articles/the-anatomy-of-melancholy.

El Shakry, Omnia S. The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007, pp 125-126.

Ghawas, M. H. El. “The Agricultural Museum, Dokki.” Museum International 24, no. 3 (January 12, 1972): 174–76.

Hassan, Fayza. “The Forgotten Museums of Egypt.” Museum International 57, no. 1/2 (May 2005): 42-48.

Johnson, Amy J. Reconstructing Rural Egypt: Ahmed Hussein and the History of Egyptian Development. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004.

Meyer, Sara-Duana. “The Dimly Lit Marvels of Cairo’s Agricultural Museum.” Mada Masr (blog).. https://www.madamasr.com/en/2015/05/14/feature/culture/the-dimly-lit-marvels-of-cairos-agricultural-museum/.

Rivlin, Helen Anne B. The Agricultural Policy of Muhammad ’Ali in Egypt. Y First edition edition. Harvard University Press, 1961.

The most information regarding the museums collections focuses mainly on the Ancient Egypt collections. The texts below produce in depth information about their research experience at the museum, detailed information about the objects examined, and attempt to catalogue them and/or cite a catalogue given to them during their research:

Bober, Phyllis Pray. Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy. University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Cappers, R.T.J, and R. Hamdy. “Ancient Egyptian Plant Remains in the Agricultural Museum (Dokki, Cairo).” In Fields of Change Progress in African Archaeobotany, 165–214. Groningen Archaeological Studies 5. Barkhuis, 2007.

Crane, Eva. The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Taylor & Francis, 1999.

Darby, William Jefferson, Paul Ghalioungui, and Louis Grivetti. Food: The Gift of Osiris. Academic Press, 1977.Ikram, Salima. Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt. Peeters Publishers, 1995.

Taylor M. Moore is a PhD Candidate in Modern Middle Eastern History at Rutgers University. Her dissertation explores the entangled histories of magic, medicine, and museums in early twentieth century Egypt.

February 2, 2014August 20, 2020

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (Jerusalem)

Written by Anat Mooreville

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, known as the JDC or the Joint, is an international Jewish philanthropic organization started after the First World War to assist Jewish refugees in Eastern Europe and Palestine. With records of activities in over ninety countries dating from 1914 to the present, the JDC Archives are a significant resource to understand not only American Jewish relief efforts abroad, but also Jewish social, cultural, political, and economic conditions around the world. For the Middle East, the JDC Archives include records created primarily between 1940-1977 from Aden, Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey. Middle East specialists will find this archive particularly useful for conducting research on Jewish history in the Middle East and North Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. The archive has two locations—Jerusalem and New York City.

An OSE trachoma treatent center in Casablanca c. 1954 — A sample photograph from the JDC archives: an OSE trachoma treatment center in Casablanca c. 1954

Collection

The JDC Archives are located in two centers, one at the JDC’s New York City headquarters and the other in Jerusalem in the Givat Sha’ul neighborhood. These centers are not equal in size and scope. The Jerusalem archive is the larger and more comprehensive of the two; in fact, all the records of the New York archive are available in Jerusalem in microfilm format.

The archive in Jerusalem houses the records of JDC field offices throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, along with the records of JDC operations in Israel. The bulk of the Middle Eastern and North African records of the JDC are part of the Geneva Files (1945-1977), which were subsequently shipped to the JDC Archives in Jerusalem after the Geneva Office—opened in 1957 as the European headquarters of the organization—was closed in 1977.

Although this review focuses on the Jerusalem archives, I will briefly outline what is available in the New York collection. The New York archive houses American headquarters communications with governments, national and international agencies, and JDC field offices. The bulk of the archival record concerns relief, rescue and support activities in Europe between 1914 and 1945. Later materials concern JDC activities in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and JDC activities in Eastern Europe during the Communist period. For the Middle East historian, the New York archives detail the medical, educational, vocational and relief activities in Palestine starting in 1914 through the Second World War. These include institutions established to help the disabled and orphans. A detailed list of these files are available online through the finding aids (search by country). They also contain information on refugee and aid activities in North Africa during the Second World War.

The JDC Archives includes over three miles of text documents, 100,000 photographs, a research library of more than 6,000 books, 1,100 audio recordings including oral histories, and a collection of 2,500 videos, covering 90 countries throughout the twentieth century. Many of the collections are arranged chronologically, others by subject or office of origin (e.g., Geneva, Rome, Istanbul). At the same time, the JDC is an active Jewish humanitarian assistance organization. All JDC historical records older than thirty-five years are open to the public with the exclusion of materials containing information that the JDC believes would adversely affect its ongoing work.

For the period following the founding of the State of Israel, the JDC Archives in Jerusalem contain files related to Malben (נֶחֱשָׁלִים בְּעוֹלִים לְטִפּוּל מוֹסְדוֹת “Institutions for the Care of Disabled Immigrants”), the social service organization created jointly by the JDC, the Jewish Agency, and the Israeli government in 1949. Malben provided institutional care and social services; established hospitals, clinics and old-age homes; trained nurses and rehabilitation workers; and fostered the development of private and public organizations in Israel for the care of the disabled. Files also document missions and programs to help settle Jews from North Africa and the Middle East in Israel. For example, the JDC organized Operation Magic Carpet, which evacuated about 48,000 Jews from Yemen to the newly established State of Israel and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, which brought approximately 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel.

Records related to the Middle East and North Africa document the JDC’s medical, educational, and vocational support in these regions from the late 1940s through the 1970s. These social efforts were wide-ranging and expansive. In North Africa, JDC initiated public health programs with OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants) to combat diseases such as tuberculosis and trachoma. The JDC frequently offered assistance to local Jewish educational organizations such as Ozar Hatorah and Alliance Israelite Universelle. Numerous country reports document local demographic, economic, political, and social conditions from the perspective of the JDC’s staff.

The photography collection of the Middle East and North Africa is quite large and can be fully searched by title, description, date, subject, location, photographer, and other fields on the JDC Archives’ online catalog. To see the range of photographs available, we recommend the galleries on Algeria in the 1960s, Tunisia in 1950s, and early Palestine.

A sampling of the range of materials available in the JDC archives include correspondence, committee and board meeting minutes, field reports from worldwide staff, financial statements; memoranda, lists of aid recipients and supplementary allocations, program descriptions, passenger lists, cables, supply lists, restitution laws and statutes, summaries of statistical reports, personnel files, legal files, case files, conference proceedings, lists of names, audits, brochures, press releases, pamphlets, and news clippings.

Research Experience

The JDC Archives is in the process of digitizing its collections. While the photo database is fully available online, other text resources are only partially available. The online catalog is a good place to begin your search, and some documents can be accessed through the website directly, but keep in mind it is in no way exhaustive, especially for Middle Eastern material. There is a very brief finding aid for the Geneva Office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1945-1954 records, but it does not detail the Middle East/North Africa collection. The records of the Istanbul office (1943-47) or the Geneva office (1955-1978) are not available online. You can learn more about how to search the online database by viewing the archive’s video tutorials or reading its guide. The JDC Archives staff has access to a more comprehensive online catalog that is password protected.

To access the full catalog of the JDC Archives in Jerusalem, one must first e-mail Shachar Beer to make an appointment to visit. Only one or two researchers are allowed at a time, as the archive is located in one of the working offices of the JDC. On your first visit, Mr. Beer will give you a stack of binders that contain the full catalog. Unfortunately, they are not arranged by country, and it is advisable to spend the first day examining all the binders for relevant material and noting the title and file code that you wish to order during subsequent visits. Researchers should note that since March 2013 the archive has been in the midst of reclassifying its files and consequently the code which appears on the physical file may differ from its new classification. You therefore may not be able to order material on your first day. Material can only be ordered once a day and is limited to five or six boxes (more if the material is microfilmed). These should be ordered in the morning or emailed to Mr. Beer before your visit. The time of retrieval of material is not routine, but it usually arrives from the warehouse before 11:00. Once requested, it usually takes about thirty minutes to an hour for material to be prepared for the researcher. One should also coordinate with Mr. Beer the time of arrival to the archives in the morning, which can be as early as 9:00 or as late as 11:00, depending on his schedule.

Since the JDC Archive in Jerusalem only accommodates one or two researchers per day, I would recommend allotting at least a few days for research to get the most of out of your scheduled visits. It takes some time to become familiar with the full holdings because they are not online, and one can only see a limited number of files per day.

There is one microfilm machine, as well as a spare office and a conference room in which Mr. Beer directs researchers to work with original files. The catalog does not indicate whether the file exists in microfilm or only as an original. Since the archives are in the office of a working NGO, it is mainly full of JDC staff, the archivist, and perhaps one other researcher.

Access

In order to visit the archives, one must fill out an application located online. Once permission is received (usually less than a week), you need to email Mr. Beer to schedule an appointment.

Although the stated hours of the Jerusalem Archive are Sunday-Thursday 9:00-15:00, the actual hours depend on the appointment times scheduled with Mr. Beer. Generally, researchers may work at the archive until the JDC office closes around 16:00.

Reproductions

Reproduction services (photocopy and microfilm printing) are not available. You are allowed to use a digital camera to photograph files and microfilms. There is a one shekel fee for each photograph. Researchers tally their own photographs and report them to Mr. Beer at the end of each session. In some cases, Mr. Beer will waive the fee for photographs of microfilm material.

Transportation and Food

The archive is located in the industrial park neighborhood of Givat Sha’ul in West Jerusalem. It is not easily accessible from downtown Jerusalem. Buses 33 and 67 stop outside the archive, and it is about a ten minute walk from the Kiryat Moshe light rail station.

There are many chain restaurants and cafes in the archive building and nearby that cater to the business crowd. There is free coffee and tea in the archive itself. You can also bring your own lunch and eat it in the archive.

Miscellaneous:

The JDC Archives offers a fellowship to conduct research in either the New York or Jerusalem Archives. Check the website for details and application.

Future Plans and Rumors

The archive is in the midst of digitizing its collection, so the state of the online catalog and available digitized files is constantly changing.

Contact information

JDC Archives

Beit Hadefus Street 11, Lobby 2, Floor 3

02-653-6403

General information: Archives@jdc.org.il

Archivist: Shachar Beer <ShacharB@jdc.org.il>

Resources and Links

The online catalog is sophisticated and contains 900,000 digitized pages. However, it is not complete, especially in regards to Middle Eastern and North African materials.

The archives website is quite expansive and details the history of the JDC, the archives, and contains various finding aids and resources on how to search the archive.

**Information about the history and holdings of the collection comes from the JDC Archives website.

Anat Mooreville is a doctoral candidate in the UCLA History Department where she studies twentieth-century Jewish and Middle Eastern medical history.

Cite this: Anat Mooreville, “The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (Jerusalem), HAZINE, 2 Feb 2014, https://hazine.info/2014/02/02/jdc/

November 13, 2013August 20, 2020

Red Crescent Archives (Turkey)

by Chris Gratien and Seçil Yılmaz

The Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay, formerly Hilâl-i Ahmer) is a charity organization founded during the late Ottoman period on the model of the Red Cross societies. Its activities in the areas of medicine, care for prisoners of war, and other social services, particularly during the World War I period and the early years of the Turkish Republic, make the archives of this organization a vital resource for historians interested in medicine, public health, war, and charity alike during this formative period. Recently, its archives in Ankara have been made public through a searchable online catalog, opening an exciting new field of research for Ottoman and Turkish historians.

History

The Ottoman Red Crescent was founded in 1868 partly in response to the experience of the Crimean War, in which disease overshadowed battle as the main cause of death and suffering among Ottoman soldiers. It was the first Red Crescent society of its kind and one of the most important charity organizations in the Muslim world. Its role in battlefield care made it integral to late Ottoman war efforts. The Red Crescent also played a critical role in the development of the young Turkish Republic’s health institutions.

In 2006, a major overhaul of these archives was initiated to make them available to researchers. This includes a cataloging effort similar to the organization of the Ottoman State Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), wherein each document is cataloged, described, and shortly thereafter digitized. Most of the documents pertaining to the 1868-1911 period have been cataloged and efforts continue for later periods.

Red Crescent Relief Efforts in Jerusalem c1917 (source: US Library of Congress)

Collection

The Red Crescent archives contain a variety of documents pertaining to health and health services in the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey. For the Ottoman period (including World War I), these documents almost exclusively concern budget and funding issues along with services pertaining to war, particularly the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War (93 Harbi), the Italian invasion of Libya, the Balkan Wars, and of course, the First World War. There is very little overlap between the collections of the Ottoman archives and the Red Crescent.

In addition to offering a glimpse at late Ottoman medical institutions, social historians of the Ottoman Empire will also be drawn to documentation regarding Ottoman prisoners of war, which includes letters about and by Ottoman soldiers. The Red Crescent boasts over 300,000 POW cards from all sides of the conflict containing the names and origins of prisoners, their place of capture, and sometimes other biographical or health information. The collection also contain letters and requests from prisoners of war during the conflict. In this regard, researchers of other regions such as Europe or South Asia will find these archives useful as the Red Crescent was the intermediary between the Allies and Allied prisoners held in Ottoman territories.

During the Republican period and even during the War of Independence, the Red Crescent took on an increasingly national character and expanded its function to issues of health in the cities and countryside. Though it has not been well-studied, the contents of the collection indicate that the Red Crescent was part and parcel of early Republican health services in rural settings, where relatively few institutions had been established by the Ottoman state. Here, there is somewhat more overlap with the collections of the Başbakanlık Republican Archives, though the Red Crescent may prove to be much richer than the former in the area of health as its catalog grows.

In addition to archival documents, there is also a decent collection of visual materials such as photographs and postcards.

The collections include several varieties of documents, including hospital reports, health statistics, personal letters, account books, and reports by health inspectors. Due to the organization of the digital catalog, researchers cannot access files or folders in their sequential order. The archive’s online search function only provides individual files with no connection to surrounding material. In order to identify documents of a particular variety or source, researchers will need to identify particular boxes of interest or the names of particular officials or organizations associated with the research topic and search using these terms (more on this below).

The contents of the Red Crescent’s collections are largely unexplored by researchers and not fully known to the organization itself. According to the archive’s website, there are some 1500 boxes and 550 bound notebooks in Ottoman and French from the period beginning with the organizations founding until the language reforms in 1928. However, it is our experience that the contents are a bit more varied than this. For example, this sample document that we have provided originates from the Egyptian Red Crescent and is entirely in Arabic.

Researchers will need a command of modern Turkish to be effective, though of course, most of the documents from the Ottoman period are in Ottoman Turkish.

Stacks — The original documents are stored at the archives, but researchers will not be issued original documents. Rather, researchers must consult materials in the digital environment unless they have not been digitized. (Source: kizilay.org)

The Research Experience:

For researchers, the main question regarding the Red Crescent archives is whether or not to go to the physical archives itself. The archive is located in the Etimesgut neighborhood of the Ankara suburbs, and while researchers are free to work there, there is no proper workspace. Moreover, researchers will be expected to order documents through the website and receive photocopies by mail regardless of whether they go there or not. Thus, it is possible for the entire process to be handled through correspondence. Here, we will make the argument for a visit to the archives in person and explain in which situations this is necessary.

Since this archive is relatively hard to use and access, a trip to Red Crescent Archives is probably not worth your time unless you are working on specific issues related to health, medicine, prisoners, or war, though it is always worth searching the catalog to see what might be available remotely.

There are several factors that will encourage committed scholars to make a visit arising from the limitations of the catalog. Many of the descriptions are short or obscure. Some, for example, only mention the individual who composed them, making them utterly impossible to find via keyword search unless one knows to search for that individual. Moreover, the one sentence description may prove inadequate in determining whether or not to purchase the fairly pricy photocopies (more on this below). Going to the archive in person will allow you to see entire folders (which represent the original file boxes) of the documents, which usually have a shared theme or point of origin. This also enables you to get a closer look at the actual contents of documents before ordering them and gives you access to some paper documents that have not yet been digitized. If you are already in Turkey, a visit to the archive will ultimately save you a great deal of time and money, and it will surely yield better research results.

Kızılay Kütüpanesi — Red Crescent Library and Museum (from kızılay.org)

Access

The archive is open weekdays from 9:00 to 18:00 and closes for a one-hour lunch break at noon. Researchers are asked to contact the archivists before coming, as completing the application and request process by email will expedite the research process (information here). A passport is sufficient to gain access, but bring a second form of ID to leave with the guards. Laptops are forbidden as is photography. Spoken Turkish is absolutely essential to use the archive effectively, even though some documents pertaining to foreign POWs will be in English and French. The staff is extremely friendly and helpful, and you will likely be the only researcher there on any given day. Wheelchair access may be an issue as the reading room is on the second floor.

Reproductions

The archive’s reproduction fees are relatively expensive, as revenue generated from photocopies are considered a donation to the society. Photocopies cost 50 kuruş per pose, while scans of all documents cost 10 TL per pose. The archive does not fulfill reproduction requests on site, so researchers must provide a mailing address in order to receive copies or scans. Requests are fulfilled promptly and copies are generally obtained within one or two weeks.

Transportation and Food

Although there is a neighborhood in the heart of Ankara named Kızılay, researchers will be disappointed to find the site of the Red Crescent archives is in a much more remote location in Etimesgut, a northern suburb of Ankara accessible mainly by minibus. It occupies two buildings at the back of a large site operated by the Red Crescent, so it will be normal to be a little disoriented during the first visit. There is essentially nowhere to eat near the site. There is a serviceable cafeteria used by the employees, who will likely offer you to accompany them to lunch if you are just there for a day or two. In general though, we recommend researchers pack a lunch.

Miscellaneous

The library staff will give researchers a short tour of the modest museum and library at the archives upon their visit. This museum contains some important visual materials, artifacts, and books and publications by and about the organization that may be consulted by researchers. If you are doing extensive research at the Red Crescent, particularly on the institution itself, inquire about the contents of the museum as it may contain some very interesting materials.

Future Developments

As the digitization and cataloging process is ongoing, it is always worth checking in periodically to see if anything on your topic has been added.

Contact information

Address: Arşiv Yönetimi Bölümü

Türk Kızılayı Caddesi No:6

Etimesgut – ANKARA

Archives Department Administrator

Hande UZUN KÜLCÜ

Tel: +90 (312) 293 64 26

handeu@kizilay.org.tr

Fax: +90 (312) 293 64 36

Resources and Links: