Gertrude Anthony receives a shoe shine from an orphan boy at the Near East Relief boys' orphanage, Marsovan (Merzifon).

Location

Marsovan (Merzifon), Turkey

Year

c. 1921–1922

Context

A. Gertrude Anthony (1873–1967), niece of the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, ran the Near East Relief boys' orphanage at Marsovan (Merzifon) from June 1921 until its evacuation the following year. The orphanage occupied the campus of Anatolia College, an American school whose buildings and hospital sheltered as many as two thousand Armenian and Greek children orphaned by the genocides.

In July 1921, Topal Osman's irregulars destroyed the town's Greek and Armenian quarters and killed roughly half its Christian residents in four days. The orphanage held on through that summer and the next. When the final ultimatum came in September 1922, Anthony led some five hundred children to the coast at Samsun in a caravan of fifty-six wagons, then left Marsovan for good in January 1923.

These photographs show the orphanage at work: boys gathered before the college's arcaded halls, classes in tailoring and cobbling, and the children at music, drill, and play.

View in the Digital Archive

  • Holding Institution

    University of California (Bancroft Library)

  • External Link
    https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/275580?v=uv#?xywh=-471%2C-651%2C9411%2C6805

  • Attribution

    Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Gertrude Anthony photographs (BANC PIC 1986.006).

  • Rights

    Digital surrogate courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (Gertrude Anthony photographs, BANC PIC 1986.006). Some materials may be protected by U.S. copyright law. This material is presented in view-only mode for non-commercial research and educational use under fair use. Uses beyond fair use may require permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for determining rights status and compliance rests with the user. Please write to [email protected] if you have any information about rights holders that we are not aware of.

  • Notes

    Identified as the Anatolia College campus at Marsovan (Merzifon), Turkey, circa 1921–1922. The attribution rests on architectural cross-matches with the SALT Research collection: the three-storey plastered building with cut-stone quoined corners and external metal staircase is North College, the campus dormitory; the wooden-balconied vernacular outbuildings match the style of South Hall (the Girls' School) and the industrial workshops; and the monumental two-tier arcaded building visible in several frames may be the rebuilt hospital of 1912, although the pre-1906 hospital documented by SALT was a different vernacular structure.

    Sources:

    * North College, Anatolia College (Marsovan / Merzifon): https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/42909
    * South Hall (Girls' School) and the campus industrial workshops: https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/45809
    * Anatolia College Hospital before 1906 (vernacular structure): https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/45813

Gertrude Anthony receives a shoe shine from an orphan boy at the Near East Relief boys' orphanage, Marsovan (Merzifon).