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A year on, 500 workers are in the field. Acorne, 10 Jan 1920.
Location
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Year
1920
Item Detail
A year after the first unit sailed from New York on the transport Mercurius, Near East Relief had some 500 workers in the field and stations from Adabazar to Trebizond. Most of the issue is given to industrial work. Edith Smith's new dressmaking department put 800 to 1,000 women to work at 60 piasters a day and turned out as many as 2,600 garments a week, and the Constantinople branches returned 18,780 garments in November. A new station at Arabkir took in 223 orphans and employed 500 women in cotton spinning and weaving.
Context
The Acorne was the weekly bulletin of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, produced in Constantinople for private circulation among the Committee's own staff. By January 1920, it printed a thousand copies a week for station directors in the field and for supporters in America.
Issues ran to four pages of short field dispatches and unit reports: orphan care, medical work, refugee feeding, education and workshop programs, with operational notes on supplies, rations, transport and exchange. Personnel notices recorded arrivals, transfers and departures. The bulletin took the title Near East Relief with Vol. II, No. 42 on 23 October 1920.
No complete run is known to survive. NERHS holds seventeen issues of Volume II, drawn from the Harry Pratt Judson records at the University of Chicago, the Martin Weaver Documents at the Mennonite Historical Library, and the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary.
These ten issues open Volume II in January 1920 and resume in September and October with the Robert College conference, the Greek-Turkish fighting around Ismid, and the opening of the Kuleli orphanage.
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Holding Institution
Burke Library (Union Theological Seminary)
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Attribution
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Libraries; photographs contributed by Shant Mardirossian
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Rights
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Document Contents
'Notice' requiring directors to read the monthly instructions on individual remittances; 'Rapid Growth of Work of Near East Relief' marking a year since the first unit sailed from New York on the U.S. Transport Mercurius, followed by the Pensacola and then the Leviathan with its 250 additional workers, with some 500 personnel now in the field and a complete list of stations from Adabazar to Trebizond; 'Lost Property' seeking the fraternity pin of Paul Peltier, who died at the British Hospital at Eskeshehir on 1 April 1919; 'Monthly Exchange' giving the January rates in paper liras — the dollar at 0.95, pound sterling 3.65, twenty francs 1.90, twenty lire 1.55 and the gold lira 4.38; 'Regarding Passports' on renewal through an American Consul; 'Regarding Individual Remittances' on triplicate receipt forms and Advice Sheet numbers; 'No Fire Insurance on Supplies', a communication from the Director of Railways on the Anatolian Railways; 'Rules for Mail' on the Embassy pouch, the French post at 2½ piasters and the British at five; 'Everything from Soup to Nuts' on the Gift Shop on Grand rue Pera, selling laces from Armenia, rugs from Aintab, hand-woven materials from Brusa, sweaters from the Constantinople workrooms and embroidered pillow-tops from Marash, all the work of refugees and war sufferers, built up by Miss Esther Baugh and Miss Rose Wilson to average daily sales of $150 to $200, with a tea room on the balcony; 'New Station Opened' on Arabkir in the Harpoot district under J. Herbert Knapp with Miss Tannen and Miss Murdock, 223 orphans, and cotton spinning and weaving employing 500 women; 'New Branch of Industry' on a dressmaking department under Miss Edith Smith of the Wellesley alumnae, who came over with the Leviathan Unit and has had 800 to 1,000 women under her supervision producing as many as 2,600 garments a week at 60 piasters a day; 'November Report for Constantinople Unit' by Mrs. G. M. Beck, Chairman of the Industrial Committee, on the new store at Top Kapo, a lingerie department of 20 women, wool work at the Psamatia refugee camp and cotton at Haidar Pasha, and the Stamboul Fabrica; garment returns by branch totalling 18,780 and Fabrica returns for cloth, wool, knitting, weaving, embroidery and lace; 'Personal Notes' on Captain Maurice Husik of the Haskell Mission, Dr. Elsie Mitchell sailing for New York, Miss Gaylord at Derindje, Dr. Clara Williams assigned to Derindje, Mrs. Nettie Austin leaving the Top Kapou store for Oulou Kishla, and Miss Mills and Mrs. Hinson convalescing from influenza; 'Professional Amateurs' on the Hissar players of Roberts College in Galsworthy's «The Pigeon» at Henrietta Washburn Hall on 5 January; and 'Just Another Store' on a new Near East Relief store on Grand rue Pera under Donald Perry, selling goods 'Americain', sugar, beans, rice, candles and shoes at a third to a half below market price.