The Protestant church in the Assyrian camp. Baghdad, 1927.

Item Detail

Acheson made his Iraq survey in late June 1927, crossing the Syrian Desert from Damascus by Nairn motor coach and reaching Baghdad on 25 June. He spent three days inspecting Near East Relief's two Baghdad camps. The Nestorian (Assyrian) Refugee Camp sheltered Assyrian Christians displaced by the wartime massacres at Urmia and Hakkari and the postwar collapse of the British safe haven at Ba'qubah; the Armenian Camp held refugees driven east through Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Acheson annotated each Iraq frame on the verso in his own hand and signed it with the "B.C.P." serial numbering he reserved for his personal camera, which makes the Iraq series the most precisely documented body of work in the collection. (Source: Barclay Acheson Diary, 1927)

Verso: Protestant Church, Armenian Camp, Baghdad — one of five churches in the camp. June 26, 1927. B.C.P. 7

Context

The Barclay Acheson Collection at the Rockefeller Archive Center holds the personal photographic record of Near East Relief's Director of Overseas Operations from 1925 through 1929. Barclay Acheson (1886–1957) joined NER as Associate General Secretary in 1922 and took charge of relief work across Greece, Syria, and the Caucasus the following year. He was based in Athens after the 1922 Smyrna catastrophe and traveled annually to NER's field operations across the Caucasus, Anatolia, Beirut, and Baghdad. The collection's 1,000-plus photographs include formal NER institutional records and personal snapshots from his inspection trips. The subjects span the Alexandropol orphan city, the Athens Zappeion evacuation, the Ghazir vocational school, and the 1927 Iraq survey trip. The photographs are the visual counterpart to Acheson's contemporaneous diaries; the RAC also holds the diaries, and they are available on the NERHS museum site under Voices of NER — Leadership.

Acheson made his Iraq survey trip in late June 1927, crossing the Syrian Desert by Nairn motor coach from Damascus and reaching Baghdad on June 25. He spent three days inspecting Near East Relief's two Baghdad camps. The Nestorian Refugee Camp sheltered Assyrian Christians displaced by the wartime massacres at Urmia and Hakkari and the postwar collapse of the British safe haven at Ba'qubah. The Armenian Camp held refugees pushed eastward through Anatolia and Mesopotamia; its Protestant church served one of four congregations on the grounds (Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox, and Nestorian). The Iraq photographs are unusually well-documented: Acheson annotated each one on the verso in his own hand and signed each with the B.C.P. serial numbering he reserved for his personal camera. Because each frame carries date, location, and B.C.P. number, the Iraq series is the most precisely identifiable body of work in the Acheson Collection.