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Worked All Their Lives in Tobacco: Life Inside the Factory and Warehouse Walls

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Labor and Power in the Late Ottoman Empire

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Abstract

This chapter tackles the question of what went on inside Ottoman tobacco factories and warehouses. Nacar examines the dynamics of the relations into which workers entered, both with one another and with management, while processing tobacco leaves and manufacturing them into cut tobacco and cigarettes. By exploring how the labor process in the Ottoman tobacco industry was organized, the chapter sheds some light on relations of power between workers and employers and among groups of workers. It particularly draws attention to different degrees of control that skilled warehouse hands and their factory counterparts had over their conditions of work as well as gendered hierarchies at work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Michael Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 15.

  2. 2.

    Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 8.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 5–9; Cavalla: Report by Mr. Maling, British Vice-Council at Cavalla in Great Britain Parliamentary Papers, Abstracts of Reports of the Trade of Various Countries and Places for the Year 1859, vol. 63 (1861), 55–56; US Department of Commerce and Labor, Monthly Consular and Trade Reports, June 1909, no. 345 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), 77–78.

  4. 4.

    Kosova, Ben İşçiyim, 61 and 64. See also Maria Rentetzi, “Tobacco Factories: The History of a Lost Culture,” in Tobacco Factories, ed. Kamilo Nollas (Athens: Kastaniotis Editions, 2007), 31; Anonymous Tobacco Manuscript, 15. I bought the anonymous tobacco manuscript online from a bookstore in Ankara, Berdelacuz Sahaf, in November 2008. The book does not have a title, publication date, or known author. It was written in Ottoman Turkish probably in the 1920s.

  5. 5.

    Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the Twentieth-Century Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 35–55.

  6. 6.

    BOA, DH.MKT 1873/89, doc. 1 (21 Eylül 1307/October 3, 1891).

  7. 7.

    BOA, TFR.I.SL 52/5252, doc. 1 (19 Eylül 1320/October 2, 1904). In his interrogation by the police, Gorgi claimed that he did not act alone in killing the foreman. He was aided by a tavern keeper named Dimitri and a tobacco packer named Adamo.

  8. 8.

    “İşten Çıkarıldı Diye Ustabaşıyı Vurdu,” Cumhuriyet, January 8, 1933. For another similar case, see “İş Vermedi Diye Ustabaşıyı Vurdu,” Cumhuriyet, May 31, 1932.

  9. 9.

    Neuburger, Balkan Smoke, 63. Neuburger notes that behind the anti-Greek actions was a nationalist political association organized by Slavic refugees from Ottoman Macedonia. Most of these refugees arrived in Bulgaria during and after the Ilinden Uprising of 1903.

  10. 10.

    British Documents on the Origins of the War (1898–1914), vol. 5: The Near East, ed. G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1928), 23. See also BOA, DH.MKT 1173/22, doc. 1 (17 Nisan 1323/April 30, 1907) and BOA, DH.MKT 1171/89, doc. 1 (29 Mayıs 1323/June 11, 1907).

  11. 11.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 16, 20 and 22 (22 Safer 1291/April 10, 1874; 2 Receb 1291/August 15, 1874; and 3 Receb 1291/August 16, 1874).

  12. 12.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 4, 6 and 14 (6 Safer 1291/March 25, 1874; 7 Safer 1291/March 26, 1874; and 15 Safer 1291/April 3, 1874).

  13. 13.

    The documents consulted do not mention why Şükrü Efendi helped the Kemah-born tobacco cutters find work in the TMA. It is quite possible that he was born in Kemah or served there as a government official. For co-local networks established by immigrants from Arapkir in late Ottoman Istanbul, see Cem Behar, A Neighbourhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap İlyas Mahalle (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).

  14. 14.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 14 (15 Safer 1291/April 3, 1874).

  15. 15.

    Angil’s account suggests that he had a close relationship with Recep and Panayot. This was partly because they worked side by side in the same room. It is important to note that when they were interrogated by the officials of the TMA in April 1874, Recep and Panayot gave substantially the same account of events. See BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 4–5 (6 Safer 1291/March 25, 1874).

  16. 16.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 14 (15 Safer 1291/April 3, 1874).

  17. 17.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 4 (7 Mart 1290/March 19, 1874).

  18. 18.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 4 (6 Safer 1291/March 25, 1874).

  19. 19.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 6 (7 Safer 1291/March 26, 1874). When he was interrogated in March 1874, Lefter was again working for the TMA. However, in his account he did not mention how he was rehired for the second time.

  20. 20.

    There were two more workers who claimed that they were forced to pay bribes to gain entry into the factory. For the testimonies of these workers, named Mihal and Tanas, see BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 6–7 and 10 (8 Safer 1291/March 27, 1874 and 12 Safer 1291/March 31, 1874).

  21. 21.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 9, 20 and 21 (12 Safer 1291/March 31, 1874; 27 Cemaziyelahir 1291/August 11, 1874; 2 Receb 1291/August 15, 1874; and 10 Receb 1291/August 25, 1874).

  22. 22.

    Şevket Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler (Ankara: Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü, 2000), 73; Akın Sefer, “The Arsenal of Ottoman Modernity: Workers, Industry, and the State in Late Ottoman Istanbul” (PhD diss., Northeastern University, 2018), 155.

  23. 23.

    The two other foremen were Nikola and Mustafa. The name of the manager was Hacı Emin Efendi. He was dismissed in June or July 1874. Shortly afterwards, Yanko, Nikola, and Mustafa followed him. See BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 19 (27 Cemaziyelahir 1291/August 11, 1874).

  24. 24.

    BOA, ŞD 565/39, doc. 3 (22 Şevval 1295/October 18, 1878); Basiretçi Ali Efendi, İstanbul Mektupları, ed. Nuri Sağlam (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2001), 574; Nur Banu Özbalta, “Cibali Tütün ve Sigara Fabrikası (Kadir Has Üniversitesi),” accessed May 28, 2019, https://campanulaalba.blogpot.com; Hüseyin Irmak, “Sanayileşmenin En Önemli Adımı Cibali Tütün Fabrikası,” accessed May 28, 2019, http://www.sanayicidergisi.com.tr/sanayii-tarihi/sanayilesmenin-en-onemli-adimi-cibali-tutun-fabrikasi-h607.html.

  25. 25.

    Richard Coopey and Alan McKinlay, “‘Stealing the Souls of Men’: Employers, Supervisors and Work Organization (ca. 1890–1939),” in Supervision and Authority: Western European Experiences, 1830–1939, ed. Patricia Van den Eeckhout (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 182.

  26. 26.

    “Tabakerzeugung, Bearbeitung und Handel in Der Europäischen Türkei,” Berichte über Handel und Industrie 18, no. 7 (December 1912): 331 and 333; Özsoy, “Kavala‘dan Tuzla‘ya Bir Mübâdilin Öyküsü”; Rentetzi, “Configuring Identities,” 72–75.

  27. 27.

    Orhan Köseraif, Türk Tütünü ve Tütüncülüğü (Istanbul: Matbaai Ebüzziya,1938), 113; Kosova, Ben İşçiyim, 68; Hadar, “Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonika,” 133; Rentetzi, “Configuring Identities,” 74.

  28. 28.

    “The Home of Turkish Tobacco,” 191; Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 14–15; Köseraif, Türk Tütünü, 111; Özçelik, Tütüncülerin Tarihi, 10, Mehmet Rakım Ulukan, “Türk Tütünlerinin İşlenmesi-3,” Türk Tütünü Mecmuası, no. 15 (1939): 6; Hadar, “Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonika,” 133.

  29. 29.

    Mardinizade Ahmed Cemalledin, Tütüncülük (Istanbul: Teşebbüs Matbaası, 1340/1924), 96–110; Mehmet Rakım Ulukan, “Türk Tütünlerinin İşlenmesi-4,” Türk Tütünü Mecmuası, no. 16 (1939): 7; Cavalla: Report by Mr. Maling, 56; Anderson, “A Journey from Mount Athos to Hebrus,” 240; Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 16; Anonymous Tobacco Manuscript, 3.

  30. 30.

    Cavalla: Report by Mr. Maling, 56.

  31. 31.

    Abbott, The Tale of a Tour in Macedonia, 297.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 297; BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, doc. 3 (3 Mayıs 1320/May 16, 1904); Köseraif, Türk Tütünü, 107–8.

  33. 33.

    For analysis of the gendered division of labor in the silk factories of Mount Lebanon, see Khater, “‘House’ to ‘Goddess of the House’.” A tobacco monopoly was established in Lebanon in 1935. Women dominated the least-skilled and lowest-paid jobs in the monopoly company’s factories. See Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press: 2010), 3 and 29–30.

  34. 34.

    Avdela, “Class, Ethnicity, and Gender,” 424; Rentetzi, “Configuring Identities,” 74.

  35. 35.

    For example, in Izmir, tobacco baling was mainly a man’s work by the early 1920s. See A Survey of Some Social Conditions in Smyrna, 38.

  36. 36.

    BOA, DH. İD 107/29, doc. 3 (27 Haziran 1328/July 10, 1912).

  37. 37.

    1315 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 571; 1318 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 509; 1322 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 441; 1325 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 426; “Tabakerzeugung, Bearbeitung und Handel,” 333.

  38. 38.

    BOA, DH.İD 132/4, docs. 5–6 (5 and 6 Teşrinievvel 1325/October 18 and 19, 1909); Yannis Vyzikas, Chronico ton Ergatikon Agonon (Kavala: Tobacco Museum, 1994), 15. I thank Anna Maria Aslanoğlu and Tutku Vardağlı for the translation of related chapters in this manuscript from Greek to Turkish.

  39. 39.

    BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, doc. 3 (3 Mayıs 1320/May 16, 1904). One mecidiye coin was worth twenty piasters.

  40. 40.

    Vergi-i şahsi was a form of income tax introduced by the Ottoman government in 1903. It remained in force until 1907. Besides vergi-i şahsi, urban workers were liable to pay income tax (temettü vergisi), which was also calculated on the basis of their daily wages. See Nadir Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli: Osmanlı’da Vergi, Siyaset ve Toplumsal Adalet (1839–1908) (Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2015), 113–53.

  41. 41.

    The General Inspectorate of Rumelia was founded in 1902. In December of that year, Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha was appointed to the head of the inspectorate. Its mandate covered the provinces of Monastir, Salonica, Kosovo, Yanya, İşkodra, and Edirne. See Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties, 33; Gökhan Çetinsaya, “II. Abdülhamid’in İç Politikası: Bir Dönemlendirme Denemesi,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları, no. 47 (2016): 399.

  42. 42.

    BOA, TFR.I.SL 183/18286, docs. 1 and 2 (4 Mayıs 1324/May 17, 1908). On the internal passport system in the Ottoman Empire, see Christoph Herzog, “Migration and the State: On Ottoman Regulations Concerning Migration Since the Age of Mahmud II,” in The City in the Ottoman Empire: Migration and the Making of Urban Modernity, ed. Ulrike Freitag, Malte Fuhrmann, Nora Lafi, and Florian Riedler (New York: Routledge, 2011), 118–21.

  43. 43.

    “Kavala’dan Yazılıyor,” Tanin, 31 Temmuz 1325/August 13, 1909. The involvement of the gendarmerie in tax collection was not peculiar to Kavala. Özbek shows that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, gendarmes often assisted in the collection of taxes in the Anatolian and Balkan countryside. See Özbek, İmparatorluğun Bedeli, 179–88.

  44. 44.

    The priest, in turn, sent the money to the Patriarchate in Istanbul. That was because the Greek schooling system was under the control of the Patriarchate. It supplied teachers to parish schools and provided the curriculum and instructional materials. See Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties, 51.

  45. 45.

    Educational commissions were district-level governmental bodies. Their primary responsibilities included ensuring the implementation of the curriculum set by the Ministry of Education in local schools and raising funds for these schools. See Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839–1908: Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 101–8.

  46. 46.

    BOA, ŞD 2027/12, docs. 1 and 4 (7 Kânunuevvel 1312/December 19, 1896 and 2 Temmuz 1313/July 14, 1897).

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 1315 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 570; Vyzikas, Chronico ton Ergatikon Agonon, 12–16.

  48. 48.

    Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East, 39.

  49. 49.

    Yıldırım, Osmanlı’da İşçiler, 278.

  50. 50.

    When, in February 1874, the factory guards found two tobacco leaves hidden in his shoes, a tobacco cutter named Mihal was laid off from his work, in accordance with this regulation. Moreover, the head foreman fined him sixty piasters. See BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 11 (12 Safer 1291/March 31, 1874).

  51. 51.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 1, 5, 7, and 8 (5, 7, 8, and 9 Safer 1291/March 24, 25, 27, and 28, 1874).

  52. 52.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12506; “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 70.

  53. 53.

    “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733; “Reji Amelesi,” Azad, 21 Teşrinisani 1326/December 4, 1910; Quataert, “The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914,” 902; Doğruel and Doğruel, Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Tekel, 220.

  54. 54.

    Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 61.

  55. 55.

    Stella, “The Turkish Tobacco Industry,” 392; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 70; Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East, 40. The amount a blender received varied according to the quality of the cigarette blend. See “Reji Amelesi,” Azad, 21 Teşrinisani 1326/December 4, 1910.

  56. 56.

    Hulkiender, Bir Galata Bankerinin Portresi, 76.

  57. 57.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 5, 9 and 16 (7 Safer 1291/March 26, 1874; 10 Safer 1291/March 29, 1874; and 22 Safer 1291/April 10, 1874).

  58. 58.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 15, 16 and 22 (20 Safer 1291/April 8, 1874; 22 Safer 1291/April 10, 1874; and 10 Receb 1291/August 25, 1874).

  59. 59.

    BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf number: 10 (12 Safer 1291/March 31, 1874).

  60. 60.

    Nelson, Managers and Workers, 39–41; BOA, ZB 6/17, doc. 8 leaf numbers: 9 and 10 (10 and 12 Safer 1291/March 29 and 31, 1874).

  61. 61.

    Balsoy, “Gendering Ottoman Labor History,” 59.

  62. 62.

    “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733; “Osmanlı Tütünleri ve Reji İdaresi,” 296.

  63. 63.

    Quataert, Social Disintegration, 18; Meropi Anastassiadou, Selanik, 1830–1912: Tanzimat Çağında Bir Osmanlı Şehri (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998), 179.

  64. 64.

    In 1909, the factory in Damascus possessed five tobacco-cutting machines. According to the Ottoman industrial surveys of 1913 and 1915, in the Cibali and Izmir factories, there were thirty-six motorized cutting machines in total. Ökçün, Osmanlı Sanayii, 76; Great Britain Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Turkey, Report for the Year 1909 on the Trade of Damascus (Annual Series No: 4467), 5.

  65. 65.

    “Osmanlı Tütünleri ve Reji İdaresi,” 296; “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 70–71.

  66. 66.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12508; BOA, DH.MKT 2083/90, doc. 1 (22 Temmuz 1313/August 3, 1897).

  67. 67.

    “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 70.

  68. 68.

    Yıldırım, Osmanlı’da İşçiler, 193; “Reji Amelesi,” Azad, 21 Teşrinisani 1326/December 4, 1910.

  69. 69.

    Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 68.

  70. 70.

    Ali Efendi, İstanbul Mektupları, 328.

  71. 71.

    Joan Casanovas, Bread or Bullets: Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1898 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 28 and 38–39; Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East, 37.

  72. 72.

    BOA, BEO 2813/210937, doc. 3 (5 Nisan 1322/April 18, 1906); Ökçün, Osmanlı Sanayii, 76.

  73. 73.

    Shechter notes that women were rarely employed in the Egyptian tobacco industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East, 42.

  74. 74.

    Rogoff, Homelands, 40.

  75. 75.

    According to a former government official, some of these workers were brought from outside the city. See BOA, Y.PRK.ML 4/62, doc. 1.

  76. 76.

    “Osmanlı Tütünleri ve Reji İdaresi,” 296; “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 734; “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12507.

  77. 77.

    Great Britain Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Turkey, Report for the Years 1891–92 on the Trade of the Consular District of Salonica (Annual Series No: 1144), 10.

  78. 78.

    Gazi Giray Günaydın, “Canik Mutasarrıflığı’nda Tütün Rejisi Uygulamalarına Karşı Tütün Amelelerinin Tepkileri,” Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi 7, no. 7 (2009): 109.

  79. 79.

    “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 734; Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East, 40. Shechter notes that hand-rolled cigarette production did not immediately disappear after the introduction of tube-making machinery. Cigarette workers apparently continued to roll the highest-quality cigarettes by hand.

  80. 80.

    BOA, BEO 1890/14173, doc. 2 (9 Temmuz 1318/July 22, 1902); BOA, BEO 2457/184201, doc. 2 (18 Teşrinisani 1320/December 1, 1904); BOA, BEO 2808/210530, doc. 2 (3 Nisan 1322/April 16, 1906); “Osmanlı Tütünleri ve Reji İdaresi,” 296; Great Britain Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Turkey, Report for the Year 1909 on the Trade of Damascus, 5; Goodman, Tobacco in History, 231; Quataert, Social Disintegration, 18; Quataert, “The Workers of Salonica,” 66.

  81. 81.

    Ökçün, Osmanlı Sanayii, 76.

  82. 82.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12507–12508. The machines installed at the Cibali factory had far less production capacity than the Bonsack cigarette-making machines used by the Duke Company in the United States. In 1884, a Bonsack machine produced between 100,000 and 120,000 cigarettes per day. About one year later, the machine’s capacity increased to 250,000 cigarettes a day. See Goodman, Tobacco in History, 231; Rogoff, Homelands, 43.

  83. 83.

    Great Britain Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Turkey, Report for the Year 1909 on the Trade of Damascus, 5.

  84. 84.

    BOA, DH.MKT 2344/92, doc. 1 (30 Nisan 1316/May 13, 1900); BOA, DH.MKT 2193/4, doc. 1 (20 Nisan 1315/May 2, 1899). In making this decision, Régie officials probably also took into account the improved transportation infrastructure of the Ottoman Empire. Rail lines connected Istanbul to Edirne in 1873 and to Ankara in 1892. See Quataert, “The Age of Reforms,” 807–8.

  85. 85.

    BOA, DH.MKT 2193/4, doc. 1 (20 Nisan 1315/May 2, 1899).

  86. 86.

    BOA, DH.MKT 2344/92, doc. 1 (30 Nisan 1316/May 13, 1900); BOA, DH.MKT 2205/124, doc. 1 (10 Mayıs 1315/May 22, 1899).

  87. 87.

    BOA, DH.MKT 912/53, doc. 12 (17 Mart 1322/March 30, 1906); “Reji Amelesi,” Azad, 21 Teşrinisani 1326/December 4, 1910.

  88. 88.

    Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 18.

  89. 89.

    BOA, BEO 1890/14173, doc. 2 (9 Temmuz 1318/July 22, 1902).

  90. 90.

    The available evidence shows that the Régie paid women less than men. In the early 1890s, male workers in the Salonica factory were paid at the rate of thirty to thirty-nine pennies, while female workers received twelve to sixteen pennies per day of nine working hours. See Ilıcak, “Jewish Socialism in Ottoman Salonica,” 121.

  91. 91.

    Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 71. It is important to note that the Régie workers, like their counterparts in tobacco warehouses, were required to pay some of their earnings in taxes. In 1908, female Cibali workers aged under fifteen years paid ten piasters in income tax, while those who were older than the age of fifteen and earned up to fifteen piasters per day were required to pay twenty-five piasters. The tax bill of those earning more than fifteen piasters per day amounted to seventy piasters. See BOA, ŞD 436/79, doc. 2 (22 Temmuz 1324/August 4, 1908).

  92. 92.

    At the turn of the century, the salaries of government officials were also usually in arrears. See François Georgeon, Sultan Abdülhamid (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2018), 210–11.

  93. 93.

    BOA, DH.MKT 912/53, docs. 9 and 12 (17 Mart 1322/March 30, 1906).

  94. 94.

    The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12507; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 71.

  95. 95.

    Moore, “Some Phases of Industrial Life,” 193.

  96. 96.

    BOA, BEO 1890/14173, doc. 2 (9 Temmuz 1318/July 22, 1902).

  97. 97.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12506; “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 734; Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 71.

  98. 98.

    Anastassiadou, Selanik, 179–80.

  99. 99.

    Günaydın, “Canik Mutasarrıflığı’nda Tütün Rejisi,” 109.

  100. 100.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12506.

  101. 101.

    “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 734.

  102. 102.

    Stern, Die Moderne der Türkei, 71.

  103. 103.

    A Survey of Some Social Conditions in Smyrna, 37.

  104. 104.

    İhsai Yıllık, Birinci Cild: 1928 (Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Matbaası, 1928), 172; Zafer Toprak, İttihad-Terakki ve Cihan Harbi: Savaş Ekonomisi ve Türkiye’de Devletçilik (Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi, 2003), 163–64.

  105. 105.

    For a discussion of gender hierarchies in the Cibali factory, see Balsoy, “Gendering Ottoman Labor History.”

  106. 106.

    BOA, DH.MKT 2111/107, doc. 1 (17 Eylül 1314/September 29, 1898).

  107. 107.

    Moore, “Some Phases of Industrial Life,” 193. The Cibali workers continued to work in unhealthy conditions after the dissolution of the Régie. The prevalence of eye and lung diseases among them was mentioned in a 1927 novel, Çulluk, by Mahmut Yesari. Likewise, a former Cibali worker noted that she “had severe nose bleeds because of the poor health conditions in the workspace [in the second half of the twentieth century.]” See Ahmet Makal, “Türkiye’de Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kadın Emeği,” Çalışma ve Toplum, no. 25 (2010): 31; Selen and O’Neil, “I am here,” 1173.

  108. 108.

    A Survey of Some Social Conditions in Smyrna, 41.

  109. 109.

    “Tuberculosis Among the Tobacco Workmen,” 1541. It seems that working conditions in tobacco factories and warehouses were particularly hazardous for pregnant women. In the early 1900s, an Ottoman doctor wrote that about half of the women in the tobacco industry suffered a miscarriage. See Balsoy, “Gendering Ottoman Labor History,” 66.

  110. 110.

    “The Central Tobacco Factory in Constantinople,” 12508; BOA, DH.MKT 993/67, doc. 1 (16 Temmuz 1321/July 29, 1905); BOA, DH.MKT 1002/56, doc. 2 (4 Eylül 1321/September 17, 1905).

  111. 111.

    Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, 148.

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Nacar, C. (2019). Worked All Their Lives in Tobacco: Life Inside the Factory and Warehouse Walls. In: Labor and Power in the Late Ottoman Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31559-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31559-7_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-31558-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-31559-7

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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