Henry Morgenthau Sr. served as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. As reports of the deportations and massacres of Armenians reached him through American consular officers and missionaries, Morgenthau exhausted diplomatic channels — meeting with Talaat Pasha and other Ottoman officials and protesting through formal notes — without effect. Unable to halt the killings, he turned to private means: on September 3, 1915, he cabled Washington requesting that a committee of prominent Americans be assembled to raise relief funds. By 1916, demoralized, he resigned and returned to the United States.
Morgenthau's role did not end with his diplomatic service. In 1918, he published Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, a first-person account of his experiences in Constantinople. The book became one of the most important American sources on the Armenian Genocide and helped sustain public awareness and giving for years afterward.
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