Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Child Labor and Industrialization in Early Republican Turkey

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Standard of Living

Part of the book series: Studies in Economic History ((SEH))

Abstract

The chapter provides a historical survey of child labor in early republican Turkey. Capitalist development and class differences were the two main factors that shaped child labor. Evaluating the Turkish experience of child labor within a broader, international context, the present study argues that capitalist development had an overall adverse effect on working-class children despite the official rhetoric that the nation owed to its children the best that it had to give. The emphasis on the problems of child labor in public speeches and several legal changes notwithstanding, political elites took no comprehensive step to ameliorate the socioeconomic conditions of child laborers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Several studies have claimed that there was no capitalist mode of production in Turkey prior to the 1980s. For a recent example, see Düzgün (2012). The findings in this chapter contradict these assertions. The historical development of child labor demonstrated that Turkey had been integrally part of the universal discussion about capitalism and child labor long before the 1980s.

  2. 2.

    Other studies in the same volume also meticulously demonstrate the multiple ways in which Kemalist reforms benefited Turkish children.

  3. 3.

    On the absence of data, see Fişek (1969), p. 63.

  4. 4.

    Such children “were neither slave nor adopted children” but they “were treated as both slaves and adopted children” in the late Ottoman Empire and early republican Turkey (Özbay 1999), p. 28.

  5. 5.

    The population exchange led to the mass entrance of children into the workforce in Greece as well. For details, see Adamopoúlou (2016).

  6. 6.

    Umay also played a decisive role in the enactment of laws concerning child labor in the decades that followed.

  7. 7.

    Another important figure was Emin Sazak (MP for the province of Eskişehir) though he was a political conservative. Sazak complained about child laborers who were quarrying with their bare hands for hours but not compensated for their labors (TBMM, 17 April 1930, 67).

  8. 8.

    There were 22,684 children under the age of 14 who worked in industrial production in 1927. For details, see Devlet (1969).

  9. 9.

    Enterprises that employed fewer than five laborers, however, were excluded (TBMM, 19 April 1930, 97).

  10. 10.

    One more time, the Turkish experience was inseparable from wider global trends. To give but one example, rising unemployment among men brought new restrictions on the use of child labor in factories and workshops in Greece, one of Turkey’s neighbors, as well (Bada and Hantzaroula 2017, p. 19).

  11. 11.

    Turkey was hardly alone in this. For example, as another politically independent country in the interwar Middle East, Egypt did not consistently enforce laws that regulated child labor (Tribune, 26 February 1937, 6). For details on Egypt, see Goldberg (2004).

  12. 12.

    For details, see Arnold (2012).

  13. 13.

    Even in the places where schools existed, children could help their families in the field to make ends meet in the rural parts (Balkır 1998, pp. 127–128).

  14. 14.

    For details, see Nacar (2009).

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Published Primary Sources

  • Alkan İ (1938) Endüstri İşletme Ekonomisi ve Esas Meseleleri. İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • C.H.P. (1935) Dördüncü Büyük Kurultayı Görüşmeleri Tutulgası, 9–16 Mayıs 1935. Ulus Basımevi, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • İktisat Vekâleti (1936) İş Kanunu. Başvekâlet Matbaası, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Tutanakları (TBMM) [Minutes of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey]

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Adamopoúlou M (2016) To Víoma tis Paidikís Ergasías stous Mikrasiátes Prósfyges tis Thessaloníkis (1922–1930). University of the Aegean, Mytilene

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahmad F (2002) The making of modern Turkey. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Akın V (2000) Bir Devrin Cemiyet Adamı - Doktor Fuad Umay (1885-1963) Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Akkaya Y (2008) Kapitalizmin Hapishanelerinde Ödünç Hayatlar - Sınıf Mücadeleleri, Avrupa Birliği, “Küreselleşme”. Eksen Yayıncılık, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Akkaya Y (2010) Cumhuriyet’in Hamalları İşçiler. Yordam, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Algün N (1938) İş Kanunu Birinci Tatbik Yılını Tamamlarken. Türk Akdeniz II(9):3–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Araz Y, Kokdaş İ (2020) In between market and charity: child domestic work and changing labor relations in nineteenth-century ottoman Istanbul. International Labor and Working-Class History 97:81–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arı K (2000) Büyük Mübadele - Türkiye’ye Zorunlu Göç (1923–1925). Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold CE (2012) In the Service of Industrialization: Etatism, social services and the construction of industrial labour forces in Turkey (1930-50). Middle East Stud 48(3):363–385

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avni H (1937) İş Kanunu Nasıl Tatbik Ediliyor. Yeni Adam 4(201):4

    Google Scholar 

  • Bada K, Hantzaroula P (2017) Family strategies, work, and welfare policies toward waged domestic labor in twentieth-century Greece. J Mod Greek Stud 35(1):17–41

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balkır SE (1998) Eski Bir Öğretmenin Anıları. Cumhuriyet, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Belenli T (2016) İş Kanunu Layihası (1927) Hakkında İkdam Gazetesi Tarafından Düzenlenen Bir Anket. Cumhuriyet Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi 12(23):1–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson SP (2007) Household accounts: working-class family economies in the interwar United States. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Blum AS (2011) Speaking of work and family: reciprocity, child labor, and social reproduction, Mexico City, 1920-1940. Hisp Am Hist Rev 91(1):63–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bolzman L (2008) The advent of child rights on the international scene and the role of the save the children international union 1920-45. Refug Surv Q 27(4):26–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boratav K (2008) Türkiye İktisat Tarihi, 1908–2007. İmge Kitabevi, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Byfield J (1997) Innovation and conflict: cloth dyers and the interwar depression in Abeokuta. Nigeria Journal of African History 38(1):77–99

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullen H (2007) The role of international law in the elimination of child labor. Brill, Leiden

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham H, Viazzo PP (1996) Some issues in the historical study of child labour. In: Cunningham H, Viazzo PP (eds) Child labour in historical perspective 1800–1985. Case studies from Europe, Japan and Colombia. Istituto degli Innocent, Florence, pp 11–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham H (2000) The decline of child labour: labour markets and family economies in Europe and North America since 1830. Econ Hist Rev 53(3):409–428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü (1969) Sanayi Sayımı, 1927. Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Dölek Ç (2019) Erken Cumhuriyet Ankarası’nda Emeği Zapt Etmek: Altındağ’da Polisin Toplumsal Tarihi. Mülkiye Dergisi 43(1):63–110

    Google Scholar 

  • Düzgün E (2012) Class, state and property: modernity and capitalism in Turkey. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie 53(2):119–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eichengreen B, Hatton TJ (1988) Interwar unemployment in international perspective: an overview. In: Eichengreen B, Hatton TJ (eds) Interwar unemployment in international perspective. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 1–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Erişçi L (1951) Türkiye İşçi Sınıfının Tarihi (Özet Olarak). Kutulmuş Basımevi, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Ertürk S (1934) İş Kanunu Hakkında Manifaturacılar Cemiyetinin Teşebbüsleri Esnaf Meslek Mecmuası 4:12

    Google Scholar 

  • Fişek K (1969) Türkiyede Kapitalizmin Gelişmesi ve İşçi Sınıfı. Doğan Yayınevi, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Fortna BC (2016) Bonbons and bayonets: mixed messages of childhood in the late ottoman empire and the early Turkish republic. In: Fortna BC (ed) Childhood in the late ottoman empire and after. Brill, Leiden, pp 173–188

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg E (2004) Trade, reputation and child labor in twentieth-century Egypt. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Halman T (1999) Çocuk Cumhuriyeti. In: Onur B (ed) Cumhuriyet ve Çocuk: 2, Ulusal Çocuk Kültürü Kongresi: 4–6 Kasım, vol 1998. Ankara Üniversitesi, Ankara, pp 17–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Kazgan G (2006) Tanzimat’tan 21. Birinci Küreselleşmeden İkinci Küreselleşmeye Yüzyıla Türkiye Ekonomisi. Istanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Koç Y (1998) 100 Soruda Türkiye’de İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Hareketi. Gerçek Yayınevi, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Koç Y (2013) Kemalizm Devrim CHP ve İşçi Sınıfı (1919–1946). Kaynak Yayınları, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Lassonde S (2005) Learning to forget: schooling and family life in New Haven’s working class, 1870–1940. Yale UP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Libal K (2000) The Children’s protection society: nationalizing child welfare in early republican Turkey. New Perspect Turk 23:53–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Libal K (2002) Realizing modernity through the robust Turkish child, 1923-1938. In: Cook DT (ed) Symbolic childhood. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, pp 109–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Libal K (2016) Child poverty and emerging Children’s rights discourse in early republican Turkey. In: Fortna BC (ed) Childhood in the late ottoman empire and after. Brill, Leiden, pp 48–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieten GK (2009) Toward an integrative theory of child labor. In: Hindman HD (ed) The world of child labor - a historical and regional survey. M.E. Sharpe, London, pp 26–32

    Google Scholar 

  • Littell-Lamb E (2011) Caught in the crossfire: Women’s internationalism and the YWCA child labor campaign in Shanghai, 1921-1925. Frontiers 32(3):134–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makal A (2007) Ameleden İşçiye. İletişim, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Maksudyan N (2014) Orphans and destitute children in the late ottoman empire. Syracuse University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Maksudyan N (2016) A triangle of regrets: training ottoman children in Germany during the first world war. In: Fortna BC (ed) Childhood in the late ottoman empire and after. Brill, Leiden, pp 141–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Metinsoy M (2007) İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Türkiye - Savaş ve Gündelik Yaşam. Homer Kitabevi, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Nacar C (2009) ‘Our lives were not as valuable as an animal:’ Workers in State-run Industries in world-war-II Turkey. Int Rev Soc Hist 54(S17):143–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okay C (2007) War and child in the second constitutional period. In: Georgeon F, Kreiser K (eds) Enfance et Jeunesse dans le monde Musulman / childhood and youth in the Muslim world. Maisonneuve & Larose, Paris, pp 219–232

    Google Scholar 

  • Özbay F (1999) Turkish female child labor in domestic work: past and present. ILO/IPEC, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Özbek N (2003) Kemalist Rejim ve Popülizmin Sınırları: Büyük Buhran ve Buğday Alım Politikaları, 1932-1937. Toplum ve Bilim 96:219–238

    Google Scholar 

  • Pamuk Ş (2014) Türkiye’nin 200 Yıllık İktisadi Tarihi: Büyüme. Kurumlar ve Bölüşüm, Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, Istanbul

    Google Scholar 

  • Papathanassiou M (2004) Aspects of childhood in rural Greece: Children in a Mountain Village (ca. 1900-1940). Hist Fam 9(3):325–345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purs A (2004) Unsatisfactory National Identity: school inspectors, education and National Identity in interwar Latvia. Journal of Baltic Studies 35(2):97–125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rapley J (2013) Understanding development: theory and practice in the third world. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shiells M, Wright G (1983) Night work as a labor market phenomenon: southern textiles in the interwar period. Explor Econ Hist 20(4):331–350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Talas C (1961) İçtimai İktisat. Ajans-Türk, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Toprak Z (1982) Türkiye’de “Millî İktisat” 1908–1918. Yurt Yayınları, Ankara

    Google Scholar 

  • Velipaşaoğlu DY (2018) Weaving for war & peace: education of the children in the Hereke factory campus (1912-1918). Cihannüma Tarih ve Coğrafya Araştırmaları Dergisi 4(1):93–129

    Google Scholar 

  • Vergara Á (2018) Identifying the unemployed: social categories and relief in depression-era Chile (1930–1934). Labor 15(3):9–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters S (2016) ‘Child! Now you are’: identity registration, labor, and the definition of childhood in colonial Tanganyika, 1910-1950. The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 9(1):66–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yılmaz H (2013) Becoming Turkish - nationalist reforms and cultural negotiations in early republican Turkey, 1923–1945. Syracuse University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Reuben Silverman for his careful reading and constructive feedback on an earlier version of this chapter. I also thank Gözde Emen for her invaluable comments on different versions of this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Semih Gokatalay

Authors
  1. Semih Gokatalay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Semih Gokatalay .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Religious Studies, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, USA

    Patrick Gray

  2. College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Joshua Hall

  3. Department of History, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

    Ruth Wallis Herndon

  4. Applied Economics, Facultad de Economia y Empresa, Zaragoza, Spain

    Javier Silvestre

Appendix: Remembrance of John Murray

Appendix: Remembrance of John Murray

Unfortunately, I did not meet John E. Murray in person. I began to read his studies when I was an undergraduate student in Turkey. Since then, his scholarly interests in and studies on the history of ordinary people, particularly poor children, have inspired me as a student of economic history. That’s why I wanted to contribute to the edited volume by an essay on child labor in early republican Turkey in honor of him and in memory of my grandfathers, both of whom were child laborers in Turkey during the period under consideration.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Gokatalay, S. (2022). Child Labor and Industrialization in Early Republican Turkey. In: Gray, P., Hall, J., Wallis Herndon, R., Silvestre, J. (eds) Standard of Living. Studies in Economic History. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06477-7_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation