A refugee woman carries water through the mud of a camp. Beirut, c. 1921–1923.

Location

Beirut, Lebanon

Year

c. 1921–1923

Item Detail

Near East Relief lent tents to refugee families. On a trip in January 1922, Nellie Miller passed tents "loaned by the N.E.R.," where people were "washing in small pans, baking, mending shoes, and everything imaginable." She carries the water in a metal pot with a looped handle. Nellie Miller wrote in March 1923 that a week of almost steady rain had made the Beirut streets "a gooie mess" where one was "likely to get showered with mud from head to foot."

Context

Nellie Marie Miller Mann (1897–1997) was a member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, and a graduate of Goshen College. The Mennonite Relief Commission placed her with Near East Relief in 1921. She was appointed on 20 August 1921, sailed the same day aboard the S.S. Patria, and reached Beirut on 20 September. At the Syria-Palestine headquarters she was secretary to the treasurer and, by April 1923, in charge of the individual remittance department. She left Beirut at the end of August 1923.

These are the photographs she kept and sent home. They include her own snapshots and prints by colleagues and other photographers, and they show her voyage out on the S.S. Patria, the Beirut headquarters and its staff house, the Birds' Nest at Sidon, the Australasian Orphanage at Antilyas, and the refugee camps and relief work around Beirut and in Cilicia and northern Syria. David W. Mann published his mother's writings as Letters from Syria, 1921–1923 (2013) and gave the originals to the Near East Foundation.

View in the Digital Archive

  • Holding Institution

    Rockefeller Archive Center

  • External Link
    https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/Ahi2i3M7wcFTbQuXZgxDib

  • Attribution

    Rockefeller Archive Center. Near East Foundation records, FA406. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14.

  • Rights

    Some materials may be protected by U.S. copyright law. Materials are presented for non-commercial research and educational use under fair use. Uses beyond fair use may require permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for rights determination and compliance rests with the user. If you believe you hold rights in this material or have information about rights holders not currently reflected, please contact [email protected].

  • Notes

    Catalog title: "The crippled water carrier, note the mud, Armenian Camp."

    Sources for the Item Detail

    • Nellie Miller Mann, Letters from Syria, 1921–1923, transcribed and edited by David W. Mann (Morgantown, Pa.: Masthof Press, 2013), pp. 67–68.

    • Nellie Miller to Mr. and Mrs. Vernon E. Reiff, Beirut, 4 March 1923, in this collection. Page 1: "For the last week it has been pouring almost steadily, which makes the streets a gooie mess ... from every side one is likely to get showered with mud from head to foot."

    About this group

    • Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Near East Foundation records (FA406), Rockefeller Archive Center. Finding aid: https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/Ahi2i3M7wcFTbQuXZgxDib

    • Nellie Miller Mann, Letters from Syria, 1921–1923, transcribed and edited by David W. Mann (Morgantown, Pa.: Masthof Press, 2013). The published text is edited: where a manuscript survives in the collection it governs.

    • Near East Relief, Syria-Palestine Area, Organization and Personnel, 28 April 1923, typescript, in this collection.

A refugee woman carries water through the mud of a camp. Beirut, c. 1921–1923.