Location

Syra (Syros), Greece

Year

1926

Item Detail

Syra (Syros), Greece, 1926. Orphan boys tend cattle and pigs at a watering area on the orphanage farm, part of the imported American livestock Fred Midgley introduced to improve the herds.

Context

Fred and Carrie Midgley of Worcester, Massachusetts, served with Near East Relief on the island of Syra (Syros), Greece, from 1926 to 1928, Fred as agricultural director at the orphanage. The institution sheltered some 1,400 Armenian and Greek children orphaned by the genocides and the 1922 destruction of Smyrna (İzmir). The Midgley papers were given to the Near East Foundation by their granddaughter, Nancy Winter Taylor, and are held at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

Farm and Vocational Training - These show the orphanage farm that Fred Midgley built and ran: the fields, gardens, and livestock, and the farming and seed-saving he taught the children. They raised much of their own food.

View in the Digital Archive
Orphans tend imported American livestock, Syra 1926