Hester Donaldson Jenkins (1869-1941), a professor at the American College for Girls in Constantinople from 1900-1909, wrote enthusiastically about the Young Turks, who in 1908 established a constitutional monarchy in the Ottoman Empire. They seemed to Jenkins to promise new freedoms for Ottoman women. In this book Jenkins uses her own observations of Constantinople, her students, and their families to construct an account of a "typical" Turkish Muslim woman's life cycle at this turning point in Ottoman history. She intends her comments on childhood, education, marriage, polygamy, and divorce...

Born as a Greek Ottoman in Constantinople/Istanbul, Demetra Vaka Brown (1877-1946) moved to America where she became a journalist and novelist, revisiting Turkey to write several books about the twilight of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the Turkish Republic. Her first book, Haremlik: Some Pages from the Life of Oriental Women, published in 1909, was based on experiences from 1901 when modernization had made inroads into Ottoman domestic life and the harem was becoming a thing of the past. Her reflections on life in the harem suggest the conflicted nature of her allegiances. On the...

Anna Bowman Dodd (1855-1929), a New York travel writer and journalist, journeyed to Istanbul with the American Ambassador to France and was entertained by Abdulhamid II Yildiz Palace in 1901. When the gaieties of the court were finished, Dodd embarked on a detailed account of the city and its people. Interested in documenting the changes in Turkey brought about by the "embrace" of modernity and progress, she considers Turkish women's rights, harems and marriage, the management of the household, education, slavery, the Sultan's reign, and nationalist movements in the last days of the Ottoman...

Born into the Ottoman Muslim elite, Zeyneb Hanoum and her sister Melek Hanoum were given a Western-style education by their progressive father, who expected them subsequently to live the segregated lives of Ottoman ladies. Rebelling, the sisters arranged to meet the French author Pierre Loti and collaborated with him on his famous book Les Desenchantees/The Disenchanted in the hope that harnessing European intellectual support would speed up Ottoman social reform. Fleeing Istanbul in 1906 for fear of imperial reprisals, the sisters traveled in disguise to Europe, hoping to find "freedom" in...

Grace Ellison (d. 1935) actively encouraged dialogues between Turkish and British women at the outset of the twentieth century. Despite an impressive legacy, Ellison and her work have almost disappeared from the historical record; the republication of this 1915 work aims to address this neglect.

The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul (Stamboul) is a picturesque description of women's life in post-World War I Turkey during a period of social and political turmoil. Here Demetra Vaka (1877-1946), an expatriate of Ottoman Turkey, established American journalist and acquaintance of Prince Sabaheddin, returns to her native Istanbul after a 20-year absence. Describing women's lives in post-World War I Turkey, she reports on the successful project of female emancipation pursued by Mustafa Kemal as part of the nationalist agenda. Noting how much this project had benefited upper- and middle-class...

The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul (Stamboul) is a picturesque description of women's life in post-World War I Turkey during a period of social and political turmoil. Here Demetra Vaka (1877-1946), an expatriate of Ottoman Turkey, established American journalist and acquaintance of Prince Sabaheddin, returns to her native Istanbul after a 20-year absence. Describing women's lives in post-World War I Turkey, she reports on the successful project of female emancipation pursued by Mustafa Kemal as part of the nationalist agenda. Noting how much this project had benefited upper- and middle-class...

Melek Hanim's sensationalist account of life in Turkey contains details of political intrigue and corruption, and demonstrates the influence and mobility available to women in the official households of the Ottoman elite.

Bowman Dodd documents changes in Turkey, encouraged by the "embrace" of modernity. She considers Turkish women's rights, harems and marriage, the management of the household, education, slavery, the Sultan's reign, and nationalist movements in the Ottoman Empire.

Halide Adivar Edib (1882-1964) was one of Turkey's leading feminists in the Young Turk and early Republican period. In Memoirs, Edib's account of her private life provides a unique example of a woman's individual and personal struggle for emancipation and gender equality.