Barclay Acheson's “Concentration Plan”: closing the Caucasus orphanages, July 1926
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Location

Alexandropol (Gyumri), Armenia

Year

1926

Item Detail

Barclay Acheson's confidential memorandum of July 20, 1926 reorganizing Near East Relief's Caucasus operations — abandoning the Kara Kala, Stepanavan, and Kazachi Post stations and concentrating all work at Polygon and Seversky.

Context

Barclay Acheson, an ordained Presbyterian minister, served as Associate General Secretary of Near East Relief from 1922 and by 1925 had become its Director of Overseas Operations, responsible for relief and orphanage work across Greece, the Caucasus, Syria, and Iraq. On his annual inspection tours he kept a detailed diary — dictated and typed, with supporting memoranda — that records the decisions behind NER's transformation into the development-oriented Near East Foundation.

This excerpt reproduces Acheson's “Preliminary memorandum concerning reorganization of N.E.R. activities” (July 20, 1926). Facing shrinking funds and the Soviet military's demand for NER's barracks, Acheson set out a plan to close three stations where orphaned children had lived for years and to concentrate every activity — the children, the nurses' training school and hospital, the agricultural and stock-breeding work — at Polygon, with Seversky to follow by mid-1927. It shows a relief executive weighing programmatic quality and institutional survival against the disruption of uprooting children, and judging concentration the course that would best conserve NER's resources.

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  • Holding Institution

    Rockefeller Archive Center

  • External Link
    https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/64fr94a5BkPfRg5mqsSJnA

  • Attribution

    Barclay Acheson Collection (Series 12), Near East Foundation Records, Rockefeller Archive Center

  • Rights

    No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law.

  • Notes

    Curated excerpt of pp. 129–134 of Barclay Acheson Diary, 1926 Part 1, from the digitized RAC scan. Full volume in the Barclay Acheson Collection (Series 12), Rockefeller Archive Center. Diary is typed (dictated), with handwritten personal entries on facing pages; Document Contents transcribed from the typescript .

  • Document Contents

    …the urgent request of the Military that either Polygon or Stepanavan be returned to them at once. However, in the light of the above circumstances, the following plan is proposed: (A) The abandonment of Kara Kala and its return to the Government on or before January 1, 1927… (B) The abandonment and return of Stepanavan… (C) The abandonment of Kazachi Post and its return to the Government… Concentration of all NER activities from Sept. 1 until July 1, 1927 (with the exception of the receiving warehouses) at Polygon and [Seversky]. This means the concentration of: (a) All of the children, (b) The Nurses' Training School and Hospital, (c) The agricultural work, (d) The stock breeding work. On July 1, 1927 Seversky shall be returned to the Government and thereafter all of the activities of NER shall be concentrated at Polygon.

    This entire plan is the result of much thought and it is believed that it will best conserve the resources of NER… Near East Relief is in the best position that it has been in during its history in this country for effecting this program… It therefore would be very unfortunate if circumstances prevented the materialization of this plan.

Barclay Acheson's “Concentration Plan”: closing the Caucasus orphanages, July 1926