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 A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF TWO AMERICAN WOMEN‘S TRAVEL TO ANKARA DURING THE 1950S: MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING, TRANSITION AND CULTURE IN ANKARA
A Master‘s Thesis

August 2021
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the cultural transformations in Ankara, especially in social and educational life resulting from the increase in the mutual interest between Turkey and the United States, by mainly focusing on the two travel accounts left by two American women who visited Ankara in the 1950s. The accounts by Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester are primary instruments to track the historical touches in these areas. Both women introduced specific characteristics of Ankara with their impression of what they saw and how they perceived it. The transition of traditional society to modern one, the mutual understanding between the American and Turkish people in various areas, are paid attention to analyze these observations about Turkish culture. The changing role of women in the 1950s is also addressed as one of the significant subjects that enable the difference and change to be seen prominently in this thesis.
Keywords: American Influence, Ankara in the 1950s, Mutual Understanding, Cultural Transition, Turkish Society.
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Bu tezin amacı, Türkiye ile Amerika Birleşik Devletleri arasındaki karşılıklı ilginin artması sonucu Ankara'da özellikle sosyal ve eğitim hayatında yaşanan kültürel dönüşümleri, ağırlıklı olarak 1950'lerde Ankara'yı ziyaret eden iki Amerikalı kadının bıraktığı iki seyahat hesabına odaklanarak incelemektir. Lucile Saunders McDonald ve Elizabeth McNeill Leicester'ın kitapları, bu alanlardaki tarihi dokunuşları izlemek için birincil araçlardır. Her iki kadın da Türk toplumunda gördükleri ve bunları nasıl algıladıklarına dair izlenimleriyle Ankara'nın belirli özelliklerini tanıtmışlardır. Türk toplumu, geleneksel toplumdan modern topluma geçiş, Amerikan ve Türk halkının çeşitli alanlarda karşılıklı anlayışına ilişkin bu gözlemleri analiz etmek için; 1950'lerde kadının değişen rolü de bu tezde farklılık ve değişimin belirgin bir şekilde görünmesini sağlayan önemli konulardan biri olarak ele alınmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Amerikan Etkisi, 1950'lerde Ankara, Karşılıklı Anlayış, Kültürel Değişim, Türk Toplumu.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a genuine pleasure to express my deep sense of gratitude to my advisor Assist. Prof. Dr. Kenneth Weisbrode, who believed in me since my interview, and fascinated me with his immense knowledge in his eye-opening classes for the past three years. His patience, support, and humor enabled me to broaden my perspective in my field and complete this thesis after all. I would like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Owen Miller who kept in touch with me whenever I needed it. I am always grateful for his guidance, ideas, and help. I would also like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Bahar Gürsel, whom I could not express my gratitude enough. Her faith and keen interest in me at every stage of my academic career, her kindness, enthusiasm, and motivation make it possible for me to create this thesis. I should also thank Professor Özer Ergenç for his great Ottoman History courses and his way of teaching. Thanks to his enjoyable and instructive classes, I had the privilege to learn his methodological approaches, which I am so appreciative of.
I would like to thank my best Bilkent friend, Umer Hussain, for his companion, smiling face, and always ready to help character. I also thank my dear friend Doğuş Aytaç who constantly guides and listens to me. I am thankful for my two dearest friends, Fikret Demirtaş and Emine Pekdemir, who always believed in me and supported me to overcome all the setbacks. I cannot be thankful enough to my family for their unconditional love and presence; particularly, I am grateful for my beloved sister, Merve Zehra Çiftçi Yavuzarslan, who always wants to support me before, during, and after my thesis.
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Above all I could not possibly express how thankful I am for this person, Ezgi Başal, who became my best friend, roommate, and sister. Aside from my efforts, her persuasion, endless patience, unconditional support, and friendship have enabled me to finish this thesis.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................iiiÖZET ..........................................................................................................................iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.........................................................................................v
TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.....................................................................................ix
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................1
1.1. An Overview of the 1950s in the Turkish and American Cultures.......................4
1.2. Historiography.....................................................................................................13
1.3. Resources and Thesis Plan...................................................................................17
CHAPTER II: THE VISIBILITY OF AN AMERICAN IMPACT ON THE TURKISH SOCIETY IN THE 1950s.........................................................................21
2.1. Encounter of the Turkish and American Cultures during the 1950s...........................................................................................................................23
2.2. A Glimpse of First Observations of the Americans in the Turkish Society........................................................................................................................26
2.3. Observations in Ankara‘s Social Life through Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester......................................................................................................................36
2.4. Conclusion...........................................................................................................44
CHAPTER III: THE AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON TURKISH EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL LIFE...........................................................................................46
3.1. Turkey‘s Participation in the Fulbright Program.................................................50
3.2 The Importance of American Library in Ankara..................................................57 3.3. The Cultural Cold War for the Turkish Women and the Establishment of METU.........................................................................................................................60
3.4. Conclusion...........................................................................................................72
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION................................................................................76
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................81
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APPENDICES..........................................................................................................87
APPENDIX A.......................................................................................................... 87
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
DP Democrat Party
JAMMAT Joint American Military Mission For Aid to Turkey
METU Middle East Technical University
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
ODTÜ Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi
RPP Republican People‘s Party
TAA Turkish-American Association
TAWOS Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Society
USIA United States Information Agency
USIS United States Information Service
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
There has been a period called the ―golden age‖ since ancient times. In modern times, it is not easy to characterize the periods when a new invention occurs. The newness that brings the label is not only about technological breakthroughs, but there also have been significant breaking points in countries‘ political, ideological and even cultural situations that deserve to give the period the title of the golden age. Therefore, it is possible to encounter the ―golden age‖ in contemporary times. There may also be a ―golden age‖ between any two nations during any time as long as they have an ongoing relationship that must have a strong and changing impact. In the light of this statement, Hasan Kösebalaban highlights, ―Turkish-American relations in the first 15 years of the Cold War period are often regarded as the heyday of the bilateral relations.‖1
1 Hasan Kösebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism and Globalization (New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2011), 74.
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The Turkish-American alliance found its rising power at the end of the 1940s. Yet, the roots of this long-term alliance lived its golden age almost for a decade during the 1950s. The golden age of this alliance was shaped by many motives and will be explained in detail. Various important events occurred during the 1950s, all of them contributing to the establishment of this alliance. When the world reached a universal stage than ever before, the 1950s presented itself as a period in which we can research and understand cultural wealth at the universal level. The concepts of modernity and modernization started to spread more. Almost every country began to experience its modernization; the cities developed, ideologies and ideas changed, and the concept of cultural hegemony emerged with the end of the colonial period. However, this concept began to reemerge in the1950s differently. This cultural hegemony defined the Turkish-American alliance during the1950s, and cultural sharing between these two states was more intense than ever. When America started to emerge as a cultural performer, there was one country that was neither geographically close nor a natural ally of America that was on the agenda of the U.S. in the early Cold War era: the Republic of Turkey.
Turkey had an unstable relationship with the Western countries. Yet no irregularity was experienced, particularly with America, because it is possible to state that these two countries had recently started to know each other. During the nineteenth century, the first notable interaction between America and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire back then, was missionary activities. Lewis V. Thomas indicates, ―much of American missionary activity in the Ottoman world, a movement which began in the earlier nineteenth century and thereafter expanded with great success and rapidity, was
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directed to the Armenians.‖2 Therefore, America did not have a full relationship which covered all areas with the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, Cangül Örnek indicates: The appointment of a cultural attaché to Turkey indicated that the US had started to take heed of the cultural domain, which had not previously been associated with foreign policy. However, it should be noted that American civil organizations had been conducting activities in this domain long before this rise of awareness in the government. Some of these activities were part of religious missionary movements in the Ottoman territories, which had commenced long before.3
This initial interaction started for religious purposes in the Ottoman Empire, was gradually transformed in the Turkish Republic. WWII changed their affairs radically. As Cangül Örnek explains, ―Turkey had already advanced its westernization program, and the ideological atmosphere was aggressively anti-communist and pro-western,‖4 and nothing but these kinds of characteristics of a country mattered to participate in the Western bloc during the Cold War. Hence the post-war era ensured a chance for a trial of the Turkish-American alliance from the beginning since ―those peculiarities of Turkey, especially in the 1950s, awoke curiosity in the US academic and diplomatic circles.‖5
This introductory chapter asserts that within the scope of cultural studies, the 1950s has been on the attention of historians because in terms of cultural studies. The beginning of the Cold War, changing face of foreign affairs of the US, the importance of ideology, modernization theory, mass-production and consumerism, popular culture, and Americanization are only a few of the subtitles of the 1950s. Firstly, in this chapter, a brief overview of the general conditions of each country in
2 Lewis V. Thomas and Richard N. Frye, The United States and Turkey and Iran (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 60.
3 Cangül Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy: Turkish Studies in the 1950s and the Diplomacy of the Ideas,‖ Middle Eastern Studies, 48, no. 6 (November 2012): 946.
4 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 941.
5 Ibid.
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the 1950s will be provided. Both cultures are going to be explained to establish a comprehensive understanding. The American impact on the culture and the city—Ankara—is the most significant subject for this thesis. The cultural transformation during the 1950s, the changing social life in Ankara with resemblances and contrasts with the American culture, and how the Turkish society perceived these transformations, the changes, and adaptation process will be focused on. In particular, some specific significant topics such as women, education, and minor but vital issues like cinema and fashion will be the critical points in the thesis.
1.1. An Overview of the 1950s in the Turkish and American Cultures
It is apt to remember how historian Bernard Lewis indicates the initial point of American existence in the perception of Turkey:
Many different factors contributed to this growth of pro-Western, pro-democratic feeling. The movement no doubt owed much to the prestige that attaches to military victory…It was further helped when the United States inherited the place of Germany, in Turkish eyes, as their main bulwark, and therefore model, in resistance to the ancient Russian threat…6
In the twentieth century, these two nations were more reachable due to several transportation improvements, leading to faster communication in foreign affairs. There is no need to go back in time and tell how Turkey‘s relationship with the U.S had developed before taking her as a model. The U.S. kept its distance from Turkey and avoided opening an embassy in Ankara for a long time. As Lewis V. Thomas indicates ―there was no real community of economic, political or cultural interests to bring them, genuinely together.‖7 The diplomatic relationships between two nations became official, yet still ―not until World War II did Turkey become of real
6 Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 314.
7 Thomas and Frye, The United States and Turkey and Iran, 139.
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importance to the United States.‖8 However, Cangül Örnek indicates, ―the Department of State, since the end of the Second World War, had revised its relations with the countries in the Middle East area, including Turkey.‖9 The emergence of the U.S. in other nations‘ politics emerged in two ways: political and cultural at the beginning of the Cold War. Likewise, it was stated that ―securing the American imperium after 1945 manifested itself in two ways. One was hard power, the global (or, at least, western) military and political hegemony of the superpower, but also one of soft power, of cultural imperialism enabled by the first genuinely global popular culture.‖10 Therefore, it will be observed in the further chapters that the early Cold War era presented itself as a period when American cultural dominance vividly shined upon rather than its military and political powers. Yet, the 1950s was the decade that all these forces came together as a whole, and made cultural influence stronger, and better.
The 1950s manifests that American cultural power was so influential during this decade which could not be compared to any other culture because America created this culture by incorporating many other influences. In other words, the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, USIA, USIS, the Fulbright Act, Hollywood, and later NATO were only some of the powers which contributed to the American culture‘s development in the 1950s, and soon it was considered as the ―popular culture‖ of the world. LeRoy Ashby states “during World War II and the early Cold War, the entertainment industry helped forge a national consensus celebrating the American
8 Ibid.
9 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 942
10 Darryl Jones, Elizabeth McCarthy, Bernice M. Murphy, ed., It Came From the 1950s!: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 3-4.
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way of life.‖11 What is essential to state based on this quotation is that the American way of life was not only for Americans but for everyone who decided to follow the path presented by America right after World War II.
The entertainment industry in wartime America became universal in the early Cold War years. Thanks to this industrialization, the American way of life reached people via radio, motion pictures, music, and magazines. Annessa Ann Babic indicates ―the propaganda of the immediate postwar period developed systematically via a plethora of genres and agencies by proxy.‖12 She continues to state ―the American public found itself embedded in an intense government-sponsored campaign to denounce communism.‖13 Essentially, in World War II, propaganda was used by prominent, highly ranked groups to influence the whole country, rather than the distinctive ones. However, this tool became a universal implementation for propagandistic purposes of the U.S. to keep societies and its people in order from domestic issues and international ones.
To discover the alteration on both sides, the USS Missouri’s arrival in Istanbul on April 5, 1946, was very significant because it was the declaratory event that openly demonstrated an alliance between Turkey and the U.S. ―Turkish reaction to the arrival of Missouri was ecstatic. The Turkish press hailed the United States as the defender of peace, right, justice, progress, and prosperity.‖14 From the perspective of America, it must have been an accomplished event to be mentioned in this way by a country whose opinion might have been considered as ―negligible‖ in the early years
11 LeRoy Ashby, With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006): 263.
12 Annessa Ann Babic, ―(Re) Imagining the 1950s: The Crux of Board Games, Wonder Woman, and the American Ideal,‖ Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 46 (2017): 63.
13 Babic, ―(Re) Imagining the 1950s,‖ 65.
14 George S. Harris, Troubled Alliance: Turkish-American Problems in Historical Perspective, 1945-1971 (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1972), 20.
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of the Cold War. Nevertheless, it was the time that the Turkish public started to experience an immediate influence regarding the real meaning of ―being American.‖ Although Missouri’s visit lasted only for four days, Aylin Yalçın states ―when the ship departed on April 9, 1946, together with dollars, cigarettes and many cases of venereal disease, it left behind a group of people transfixed by American power, culture and way of life.‖15 Moreover, this impact‟s long-term consequences were conceived through popular culture, particularly in the 1950s.
Aylin Yalçın points out, ―even though the atmosphere after 1945 perfect for cooperation, the fact that the U.S. was often self-interested, while Turkey required economic help meant that the cultural relation was so unequal…‖16 Straightforwardly, it was pretty expected for both nations to fall into the concept of a superiority-inferiority issue. On the one side, there was the leader and representation of popular culture, the U.S. As Antonio Gramsci claims, ―popular culture is the total sum of the dominant culture‘s efforts to control the majority,‖17 and ―dominant groups in society through an intellectual and moral leadership win the consent of the subordinate groups in society.‖18 Therefore, this consent had been given to the American effect; hence the period of reorientation in Turkish culture with hard and controversial concepts began in 1946. The orientalism issue once again appeared during the golden age of Turkish-American relationships in the 1950s. This issue is critical to understand the Americans' perception towards the Turks during the exchange of cultural interactions because of the aforementioned dominant culture concepts.
15 Aylin Yalçın, ―American Impact on Turkish Social Life (1945-1965),‖ Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 15 (2002): 42.
16 Yalçın, ―American Impact on Turkish Social Life,‖ 41.
17 Ibid, 42.
18 John Herbert, ―Impact of Mass Media,‖ Media and a Changing America, (New York: Longman Inc, 1987): 103 quoted in Aylin Yalçın, ―American Impact on Turkish Social Life (1945-1965),‖ Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 15 (2002): 42.
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Many Americans arrived in Turkey, especially to the capital Ankara, with their families under the supervision of the Marshall Plan to inspect the process. An organization named The Joint American Military Mission for Aid to Turkey (JAMMAT) carried the relationship to the next level after some Americans started living in Ankara. With the support of this kind of organization, the 1950s began with many changes and transformations for both. As Semih Gökalay states, ―after 1945, American influence manifested itself in urbanization trends and Turkish modernization, and following years were a period in which cultural diplomacy obtained worldwide importance.‖19 During this time, other types of travelers came from America to visit Turkey along with the governmental officials and vice versa. There were also visitors who went to America for various purposes such as tourism, training and working. These travelers from both sides provided some information about the places where they visited through interviews and articles in newspapers, and they occasionally and more importantly wrote a book to reflect their experiences which they gained in a foreign land. John Correia-Afonso signifies:
The accounts of any country and of its people are of great interest to the historian of that country, for they enable him to know what impression they made upon the minds of such observers, and to estimate more accurately the part they played in the general history of the world.20
According to this statement, it is apt to manifest that the travelogues have a great value of facts provided by the traveler—who is a foreigner—regarding a native life of the country; the details are described to reveal the differences and similarities, the obvious and unknown or the familiar and unfamiliar.
19 Semih Gökatalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement on Ankara City Culture during the Early Cold War,‖ Journal of Ankara Studies, 6, no.2 (Spring, 2018): 213.
20 John Correia-Afonso, ―The Traveller as Historian,‖ Philippine Studies, 26, no. 1/2 (First and Second Quarters, 1978): 84.
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As a designed capital of the newly-born Turkish nation, Ankara was a typical example of modernization, especially after 1923. As a challenger of modernity, it integrated the society into the economic and social transformations; Ankara became a hub for the new modern identity of Turkey and hosted many travelers during the 1950s. Alev Çınar expresses, ―in Turkey, the concepts modernity, modernness, modernization, and modernism have been at the center of political discourse since the early nineteenth century and have come to constitute the basis of the founding ideology when the new Turkish state was established in 1923.‖21 Foreign travel accounts provided information about architecture, city profile, adaptation of flourishing bourgeois lifestyle, and these were just a few areas to concentrate on. The new capital displayed itself in these travelogues with such a Western lifestyle of its entertainment life, restaurants, and institutions. Among those visitors in the 1950s, there were two significant ones to reveal the American cultural impact on the city of Ankara as a result of advancing bonds in mutual understanding between Turkey and the U.S.; Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester.
Lucile Saunders McDonald was a journalist, historian, and author who came to Turkey and was a correspondent for the New York Times in Istanbul between 1929 and 1930 before visiting Ankara in the 1950s. The Seattle Times describes her:
... the first woman news reporter in all of South America; first woman copy editor in the Pacific Northwest; first woman telegraph editor, courthouse reporter and general news reporter in Oregon; first woman overseas correspondent for a U.S. trade newspaper; first woman on a New York City rewrite desk; second woman journalist in Alaska; and second woman to be a correspondent abroad for The Associated Press.22
21 Alev Çınar, ―The Imagined Community as Urban Reality: The Making of Ankara,‖ Urban Imaginaries, ed. Alev Çınar and Thomas Bender (University of Minnesota Press), 152.
22 Tomas Guillen, ―Obituaries: Lucile McDonald, 93, Journalist, Writer and Northwest Historian,‖ The Seattle Times, Jun 25, 1992, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19920625&slug=1498940.
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After a year in Istanbul, Lucile Saunders traveled all around the world. Her biography indicated ―she was always less fascinated by the political or economic situations in which she found herself than by exotic surroundings, interesting people, and tales of history.‖23 Furthermore, in her own words, she mentions, ―Turkey enthralled me, I had never lived in a place so rich in unusual materials. I could have gone on for years writing about the country…‖24 That‘s why ―Lucile did return to Turkey by herself in 1958. Her research there resulted in a teenage girls‘ story about embassy service in Ankara,‖25 which was Assignment in Ankara by Lucile Saunders McDonald and Zola Helen Ross,26 published in 1959.
Assignment in Ankara is a fiction book developed by Lucile Saunders‘ own experiences and observations during her visitation at the embassy of the U.S. in Ankara. Even though she was in Ankara during the time the book was written, she did not use herself as the main character. She presented a primary source providing first-hand information about the daily life, political life, and social life of Ankara towards the end of the 1950s. But also she introduced the role of the Foreign Service in the foreign affairs between Turkey and the U.S. from the perspective of her character, an American woman, Norma Blake. She appeared to work at the American embassy as a junior ambassador.
Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey by Elizabeth McNeill Leicester is another primary source that examines Ankara in 1950. Elizabeth McNeill Leicester‘s career passed through in the U.S. Foreign Service, she served in the Public Relations in the
23 Lucile Saunders McDonald and Richard McDonald, A Foot in the Door: Reminiscences of Lucile McDonald (Washington: WSU Press, 1995), xiii.
24 Ibid, 145.
25 Ibid, 146.
26 She was also a writer who co-authored many books with Lucile McDonald, including Assignment in Ankara.
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JAMMAT. Unlike Lucile Saunders‘ character in her book, the author herself came to Ankara at the end of 1949 and stayed there for a year. She introduced the author's memories, experiences, and observations, along with the early years of Ankara in the eyes of the JAMMAT official who was an American woman.
The significance of the books comes from both authors‘ critical observations about the Turkish culture and society in Ankara. Initially, both accounts provide us how the U.S. became a guardian of the western civilization during the Cold War with its crucial instruments for foreign relations such as the Foreign Service, USIS, and the JAMMAT. Both women came as government officials to Ankara. The books state how much these services in a foreign land were critical not only for the mutual interest politically and economically, but also culturally. Therefore, in the further chapters, one can understand the changing role of these foreign institutions through these books by their cultural activities to increase mutual understanding between Turkey and the U.S. at the beginning of the Cold War.
Even though Saunders' book is fiction, she stated, ―I went to Ankara late in April for several stories with an American slant.‖27 Therefore, the book may be considered an observer for the reality of the 1950s in the scope of the Turkish-American alliance to power up mutual interest, and the author revealed that she tended to bring up this mutual understanding in her story. The other reason is related to the fact that both accounts are presented by working American women, which is highly significant in terms of comprehension of women‘s position in any country during the Cold War period. First of all, Lucile Saunders McDonald was a correspondent, and it was not an ordinary job back then for a woman in the 1950s, and she even reflected this reality with her character—Norma Blake—in Assignment Ankara. Norma Blake
27 McDonald and McDonald, A Foot in the Door, 142.
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appeared as a person who wants to see and experience the world through working in the Foreign Service. The Seattle Times highlighted impact and importance of the book by stating ―Assignment in Ankara gives an authentic view of the activities in an American embassy. It also offers information of value to young persons considering the Foreign Service as a career.‖28
Similarly, Elizabeth McNeill Leicester represents herself in her book, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, as a woman who needs to go to other countries instead of settling down in one place. Therefore, when both primary characters are women, it is not hard to realize that various information about Turkish and American women is presented. Moreover, the social and cultural condition of the Turkish women in Ankara, their appearances, and behaviors are also displayed by these women authors since they tended to compare them according to their own culture. Hence, both accounts provide us another insight about women so that the changing role of women in the 1950s can be understood differently.
A historical understanding of Ankara has changed thanks to the contributions of these books in many senses. During the 1950s, Ankara‘s representation of national identity was combined with urban politics and culture and started displaying itself vividly in Ankara. However, Ankara‘s politics and culture did not just belong to the city; the evolving and spreading American impact created a joint culture. Due to critical observations of both authors, specific characteristics as they appeared to the authors are introduced; the stereotypes, cultural and social hegemony/difference are given by their own impressions at full length in the context of an idea of joint culture in this newly developing capital. Secondly, while one book is fiction, the other one is
28 ―Foreign Service Work is Theme of Girls‘ Novel,‖ The Seattle Times, August 9, 1959.
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presented as nonfiction. These books complete each other to verify the historical reality by becoming an alternative source, and historical touches are more visible to be tracked and cross-checked.
Moreover, while Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey presents the year 1949 and 1950, the other gives information about 1958. To establish a comprehensive understanding of the period, two accounts make it easier to detect the contradiction, correlation, or comparison in general. Overall, when a joint culture/mutual understanding between Turkey and America is studied, new perspectives by two American women about Ankara are brought in with their comparative, unique, fiction and nonfiction expressions. This thesis will demonstrate that the books became a tool for authors to speak for both the domestic and community life of Ankara, such as education, social life, and the statue of women with their presence and actions. Furthermore, the changing role of women in the 1950s with the assistance of the Foreign Service will be analyzed because the understanding in these subjects was changed due to both books. That is why they carry historical values and are considered historical accounts.
1.2. Historiography
In terms of cultural studies, the 1950s have attracted historians‘ attention because of the cultural variety. A vast number of works were published, and the best thing about the following work is that it deals with the two nations‘ cultures to provide the opportunity to examine various sources from both sides. To illustrate, historian Bernard Lewis‘ work The Emergence of Modern Turkey, published in 1961, is a good start to have a closer look at the sources of Turkish Civilization and several changes experienced in the society after the declaration of the Republic until 1950 so
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that background of social life in Turkey can be acquired. Even a literary figure, like Halide Edip Adıvar, wrote a similar book in 1955 titled Türkiye’de Şark, Garp ve Amerikan Tesirleri to highlight the American influence in Turkey and other sorts of influences like the one of Europe. It is one of the essential primary sources of this thesis since a book displays both sides‘ history and explains her attitudes towards the American culture and its impact over the Turkish society. However, both works‘ importance come from the idea of providing historical information on Turkish culture and history long before the 1950s. Therefore, to comprehend the transition between the cultures, it is essential to know the existing culture‘s past. Belgelerle Türk-Amerikan Münasebetleri was prepared by Fahir Armaoğlu, and it is based on a number of documents concerning the events from the first years of the Republic, and covers all the events that took place in the 1950s, many of the primary documents for each event are collected in this work. Mandate for Change, 1953-1956: The White House Years by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the U.S. shined upon the Eisenhower administration‘s actions and personal decisions. A couple of years before he visited Turkey in 1959, a change had been seen as obligatory for Turkey too, so his foreign policy about Turkey is indicated explicitly in this book. Mehmet Ö. Alkan states that it should be kept in mind that the international links of the 1950s women's movement were established in the context of Americanization, anti-communism, and the Cold War.29 That‘s why Social Change and Turkish Women by Nermin Abadan offers us a great deal of first-hand observation of the status of Turkish women during the 1950s. With statistical information regarding education, working area and family by separating them into years and cities. Therefore, when
29 Mehmet Ö. Alkan, ―Soğuk Savaş‘ın Toplumsal, Kültürel ve Günlük Hayatı İnşa Edilirken,‖ in Türkiye’nin 1950’li Yılları, (The 1950s of Turkey) ed. Mete Kaan Kaynar (Ankara: İletişim Yayıncılık, 2019), 663.
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the topic comes particularly about Turkish women in further chapters. This source will be the main work to present a real look at the situation in the 1950s.
Other sources present the perspective of the political aspect of the 1950s, Türkkaya Ataöv‘s book NATO and Turkey explains not only the process of Turkey in NATO but also the post-war understanding of the West towards the Middle East and cultural imperialism. Turkey‘s participation in NATO in 1952 was a stage that carried Turkey out into a lifetime alliance with the West and played a role in attracting more attention for foreign relations. Thus, Ataöv‘s book is a significant source to discover this understanding. Oral Sander‘s Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri, 1947-1964, is an excellent work to obtain information regarding the foreign affairs of both nations, and the period it focuses on is a perfect match with this thesis‘ focus period. The most well-known work about the alliance between America and Turkey was presented in George S. Harris‘s Troubled Alliance published in 1972. The importance of Troubled Alliance is about focusing on the problematic parts in the relationship between Turkey and the U.S., and from a historical perspective. Harris highlights the critical moments of this alliance like the Marshall Plan, NATO, and later the Democrat Party‘s role which lasted more than a decade in Turkey which is considered one of the essential factors that provided the Americans the opportunity to spread their culture more efficiently during the 1950s. The United States and Turkey and Iran by Lewis V. Thomas and Richard N. Frye is a book published in 1951 in terms of figuring out the intention of America in the Middle East, focuses on Turkey‘s relationship with the United States precisely during the indicated period. Moreover, these books are more about the politics in the Middle East, yet information about women can also be found. Many of the books listed so far were
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either written or published around the 1950s or afterward which is substantial to understand the period from a first-hand perspective. Although it does not mean that there is no reliability issue—which is always an issue—these works are helpful to figure out the insight of the events with their perception of each author.
There are also sources that are neither directly based on Turkish-American relations in cultural nor political aspect, nor they have been written directly regarding the 1950s. For instance, Edward Said‘s Orientalism is a helpful work about cultural hegemony as Said‘s Orient was the Middle East, and Turkey can be considered naturally within this context. One of the other works of Edward Said is also utilized for this thesis, Culture and Imperialism. Even though the book analyzes the roots of European imperialism in the 19th century, it offers a general understanding of its impact on culture. Furthermore, the perspective of the West over the East is also highlighted. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East by Daniel Lerner is another relevant resource to illustrate the Middle East, its politics, and culture. Modernization is a focused point in this thesis, and the role of modernized tools such as movies, radio, or press are highlighted in this book, in which Turkey is highly mentioned. Academies for Anatolia: A Study of the Rationale, Program, and Impact of the Educational Institutions Sponsored by the American Board in Turkey, 1830-2005 by Frank A. Stone is a comprehensive book concerning American missions and educational works in Anatolia. Even though it does not focus on only the 1950s, it is a valuable source to reveal the American Board‘s missions before, after, and during the Cold War. After all, education has always been one of the most potent investments for superior cultures in other countries, and this thesis focuses specifically on the American impact on education in Ankara in the following chapters. American Popular Culture Through History: The
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1950s is a secondary source written by William H. Young with Nancy K. Young, and presents explicitly information about particular concepts like leisure activities, consumables to music, and movies in the 1950s‘ everyday America. A similar work With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830 by LeRoy Ashby concentrates on the popular culture in America from the 1830s until the beginning of the twentieth-first century. Selda Tuncer‘s Women and Public Space in Turkey is also one of the secondary sources, yet a critical one in terms of examining the Turkish women‘s place in public life from the 1950s to 1980s. These sorts of secondary sources are vital to support the facts driven from the primary resources to construct the proximate interpretation, so each of them is a ground in the dissertation.
1.3. Resources and Thesis Plan
This thesis consists of three main chapters. The primary sources of the thesis are mainly derived from the local newspapers of each country, the popular magazines of the period, and published documents, mainly the reports of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. In terms of newspapers, there are a variety of sources both for the American and Turkish sides. The Turkish-American News is an essential source of this period to examine; it was a weekly newspaper published in 1951 and made much news about Ankara when two different cultures began to interact. The newspapers of the period have always been a quality source to get direct information from, and in this case, the Turkish-American News provides information on the Turkish-American Association of the period. Turkish-American Women's Cultural Union and Turkish-American Association were founded by people who quickly adopted the American culture and used their efforts to introduce it to Turkish
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culture. They had a significant impact on public life via their activities. Moreover, Akşam newspaper will employ to give an example about personal visits to and from America in this thesis.
Many magazines are valuable sources for numerous topics such as education, entertainment, and women, as each magazine‘s perspective presents much information regarding how society perceived the change. Many noteworthy magazines were published in Ankara like USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement. Likewise, many American newspapers present a divergent outlook regarding Turkey from their perspectives such as the New York Times and the Seattle Times.
American impression in the social life in Ankara and the organizations of the period design the second chapter. “There were joint endeavors to help Turks and Americans to have contact in daily life. In this context, the Turkish-American Association was founded.”30 Therefore, the Turkish-American Association and the Turkish-American Women's Cultural Union activities are studied because these foundations‘ one of the biggest purposes was to introduce the American culture to the Turkish people. Additionally, the Americans living in Turkey started to become familiar with the Turkish culture, so the news of Turkish-American News and the actions of Turkish-American Association will be the main sources for a chapter that supports my statement. Nevin Gültekin and Dilşen Onsekiz state, ―the first period of compulsory cultural exchange on the basis of the official ideology of modernization of the Turkish Republic, the country (Ankara in this context) has to be an effective means of transferring the process to be adopted throughout the entertainment and urban
30 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 948.
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practice.‖31 Therefore, the American impact on the Turkish women living in Ankara with the observations of Lucile Saunders McDonald‘s and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester‘s books is also examined.
In the third chapter, since one of the best ways to reach permanency in other cultures passes from education, the importance of the education which was also under the impact of the American culture will be argued. The Fulbright program was the most known and popular scholarship during the 1950s. How education went into transformation as an outcome of the American impact, and the importance of the exchange program is revealed. The activities of the American Library in Ankara and the establishment of Middle East Technical University (METU) which was established as a result of this impact are mainly the focus. One of the aims was to provide younger generations‘ American education in the 1950s, so the third chapter will analyze American effects on the Turkish education system and all the changes that came with this impact.
The parts concerned with Lucile Saunders McDonald‘s works of Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey are analyzed in every chapter. All forenamed subjects such as the language classes, situation of the Turkish women are revealed according to the perception of Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester. Two accounts are vital primary sources for the research since both contain many realities about Ankara in the 1950s. With the availability and support of many other sources in this thesis, all chapters concentrate on Saunders‘ and Leicester‘s books which can be considered as a micro-detail of a big picture.
31 Nevin Gültekin and Dilşen Onsekiz, ―The Formation and Locational Preference of Entertainment Spaces in the City of Ankara,‖ Gazi Üniversitesi Mühendislik Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi, 20, no.1, (2005), 138.
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The last part makes concluding remarks on the early Cold War Turkish-American alliance and its impact on the cultural side of the city of Ankara with many dimensions and includes summaries of the conclusions of each chapter. In brief, the main questions that this thesis seeks are the following: How was the Turkish culture in the city of Ankara transformed, how was the mutual understanding and interest developed in the scope of the Turkish-American alliance in the 1950s, and lastly, how did Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester perceive and reflect the reality of the decade in the city of Ankara in their books.
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CHAPTER II
THE VISIBILITY OF AN AMERICAN IMPACT ON THE TURKISH SOCIETY IN THE 1950s
In May 1950, the newly established Democrat Party32 came to power after 27 years of rule by the Republican People‘s Party.33 Due to this change in administration, the Turkish Republic radically transformed itself in the 1950s. Eric Jan Zürcher highlights, ―the year 1950 was a revolutionary beginning since the election brought entirely new, previously excluded, social forces to positions of central power.‖34 A power shift in administrative change indicated numerous decisions in foreign and domestic policies. This change happened especially after Adnan Menderes, the Prime Minister, took office; the Korean War broke out. The significance of the Korean War comes from the fact that it strictly increased the credibility of Turkey in the international area, which also later led to Turkish-American alliance. As Oral Sander
32 The Democrat Party (DP) was founded in 1946 by Celal Bayar, who was the third President of Turkey from 1950 to 1960.
33 Republican People‘s Party (RPP) was established in 1923 by the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the RPP ruled Turkey from 1923 to 1950.
34 Eric Jan Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B.Tauris, 2004) quoted in Hasan Kösebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism and Globalization (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 71.
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specifies, Turkey‘s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) affected its domestic and foreign policy.35 This event affected Turkish-American relations in a way that no other events can be compared to.36
The post-war era ensured a chance for a second start in foreign policy and the domestic transformation of a traditional society to a modern one. William H. Young specifies:
The 1950s witnessed a great expansion of mass and popular culture, especially through the vehicle of television. And yet, at the same time, the decade marked the acceleration of individualization within the culture, the demassification of music, film, art, literature and leisure to attract narrower, more specialized audiences.37
In other words, culture was divided into many sub-categories. Just the television itself created a new understanding of people‘s social life. The cinema and movies became research areas as their impacts were more prominent than expected in cultural studies. Moreover, due to globalization, countries influenced each other's cultures. So it was not possible to talk about a single culture of each country. The transformations in the 1950s made each culture unique by combining influence from outside with local culture. A new type of joint culture appeared almost in every country‘s cultural history where a cultural change occurred.
Between 1947 and 1952 the process of Westernization sped up in Turkey. Both the U.S. and Turkey made Westernization a significant priority in their policies. The U.S. as a superpower of the period, Oral Sander states that the U.S. had a broad role in decision and policy-making.38 Furthermore, Türkkaya Ataöv claims, ―the United
35 Oral Sander, Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri: 1947-1964 (Turkish-American Relations: 1947-1964) (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi, 1979), 67.
36 Ibid, 87.
37 William H. Young, The 1950s (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008), xi.
38 Oral Sander, Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri: 1947-1964, 34.
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States most certainly wanted to tie Turkey‘s fate with her own in ways more than once. Turkey has shown willingness to adhere to American global policies by committing her soldiers to combat in the Far East.‖39 When the Korean War continued, Turkey's success and management over the Marshall Plan was observed and followed closely by the U.S. Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, and Assignment in Ankara are the result of these visits. Such visitations of the United States to Turkey made a lasting impact on the Turkish-American alliance in social and cultural exchange. Notably, it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other's culture more closely. To illustrate, both American women in the mentioned accounts did not know where Ankara was before they were assigned to go there, so they did not even have general knowledge about Turkish culture. When these two women—Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester—came to Turkey, they were in Ankara as a part of the foreign relations between America and Turkey. The decisions taken for the foreign affairs on both sides started to display their impact on internal politics, particularly in the domestic life of Turkish society.
2.1. Encounter of the Turkish and American Cultures during The 1950s
According to Cangül Örnek, ―the appointment of a cultural attache to Turkey indicated that the U.S. had started to take heed of the cultural domain, which had not previously been associated with foreign policy.‖40 The spread of American culture became vital for U.S. foreign policy during the early years of the Cold War. Already an expected American involvement in the relations between the U.S. and Turkey respectively gained speed due to countless activities of both sides. As George S. Harris illustrates, ―once Turkey entered NATO, this connection led to a proliferation
39 Türkkaya Ataöv, NATO and Turkey (Ankara: Sevinç, 1970), 108-9.
40 Örnek, From Analysis to Policy, 946.
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of U.S. activities in Turkey, from an array of special bilateral accords ordering more intimate military cooperation to a fanning out of technical assistance projects to a great variety of Turkish life.‖41
The American influence was more determined and provocative in some areas such as entertainment life, education, and gender, women in particular over the Turkish society. The writings of American travelers are about how Turkish culture was related to the concepts of power and imperialism. According to Turkish scholar Türkkaya Ataöv, ―North Atlantic Treaty Organization was the strongest citadel of U.S. imperialism. Its policy of anti-communism may be accepted as a cover for the U.S. plans to subordinate other capitalist countries and penetrate the newly-independent ones.‖42 In the post-war world, ideological motives played an essential role in shaping new social and economic structures.
Aside from economic reasons, ideology was behind the Turkish-American alliance. On the U.S. side, the idea focused on the West‘s superiority to the East, and the West was now the U.S., not Europe anymore. In her account, Leicester had an idea regarding this issue. She states that America was doing something great by improving Turkey‘s military forces and the country in general.43 Her colleague Mr. Oleanski44 agreed with the importance of sending aid to keep countries on America's side. Mr. Oleanski explicitly asserted that there was no other way and that the extension of U.S. imperialism to Turkey was necessary for the country. Elizabeth McNeill‘s views also suited the idea of imperialism as she saw the U.S. as the one
41 George S. Harris, Troubled Alliance; Turkish-American Problems in Historical Perspective, 1945-1971 (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1972), 49.
42 Ataöv, NATO and Turkey, 159.
43 This information comes from Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey (The United States of America: Xlibris Corporation, 2009). To learn more please look at page 87.
44 Elizabeth McNeill was assigned to deal with the local press with Mr. Oleanski at JAMMAT building in Ankara during her duty in between 1949 and 1950.
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that had all the power and means to improve another country. As she states in her own words, ―they admired us and were grateful for all the aid we were giving them.‖45
The idea of superiority was used during the encounter of the Turkish and U.S. cultures in the early years of the 1950s. However, displaying the superiority of the U.S. over Turkish society was not the purpose of this encounter. On the contrary, the idea of imperialism was a natural outcome due to the atmosphere of the Cold War, as Leicester previously indicated. According to Richard P. Garlitz, ―American advisors shared their knowledge of scientific agriculture, health, and sanitation, nutrition and education in an attempt to improve quality of life and to foster development in the Third World.‖46 The U.S. did not hesitate to use this shared knowledge over other cultures deliberately.
According to literary critic Edward Said, the idea of imperialism in a way that ―imperialism as a word or ideology has turned up only rarely and recently in the account of United States culture, politics, and history. But the connection between imperial politics and culture is astonishingly direct.‖47 This idea applies to the U.S. States as the ―American experience was from the beginning founded upon the idea of imperium—a dominion, state or sovereignty that would expand in population and territory, and increase in strength and power.‖48 In the post-war world, the United States spread its ideas by using new cultural tools. For instance, movies and magazines became a tool that displayed how people could dress and behave like
45 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 87.
46 Richard P. Garlitz, ―Academic Ambassadors in the Middle East: The University Contract Program in Turkey and Iran, 1950-1970,‖ (PhD. diss., Ohio University, 2008), 10.
47 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: A Division of Random House, Inc., 1994), 8.
48 Patrick O‘Brien, ―The Costs and Benefits of British Imperialism,‖ Past and Present, 120, (1988): 180-181 quoted in Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, 8.
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celebrities. A country no longer had to occupy a territory to expand its power. Cultural occupation now could achieve the same aim. As one American poet Archibald MacLeish states, ―in a divided world in which the real issue of division is cultural issue, cultural relations are not irrelevancies. They are everything.‖49
The U.S. was a pioneer in a changing world, yet its transformation inside and its reflection outside were different, also how each country perceived this change varied. Therefore, there were many types of the American experience—namely the Americanization—and it differed from country to country. When Turkey experienced a transformation, growth, or change culturally, it might be easy to assume that there was an effect by an outsider, the U. S., since the world was more globalized than ever. In the next pages, it will be seen that Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey introduced this diversity within Turkish culture and showed how the American impact varied depending on location.
2.2. A Glimpse of First Observations of the Americans in the Turkish Society
Novelist Halide Edip Adıvar indicates that American influences were relatively new to the Turkish people. The effects of the West—the United States—were manifested in political ideas. After 1945 a favorable situation for its development emerged in Turkey, leading to an acceleration of partnership with the U.S.50 Although the U.S. and the Ottoman Empire had interactions in the nineteenth century,51 the American style was a new concept for the Turkish people. Interactions with Europe had existed for a very long time, yet the decade of 1950 had a great impact on Turkey. When the
49 Richard T. Arndt, The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (Washington: Potomac Books, Inc., 2006), 98.
50 Halide Edip Adıvar, Türkiye’de Şark, Garp ve Amerikan Tesirleri (The Orient, The West and American Influences in Turkey) (İstanbul: Can Yayınları, 2009), 273-4
51 See above Chapter I, page 2 and 3.
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idea of the West was shifted slowly, but dramatically from Europe to the U.S., the American experience or the American way of life was introduced to the Turkish people profoundly after the participation of Turkey into NATO in 1952, which actually started with the Marshall Plan in 1947. Aylin Yalçın states, ―in 1952 more than 240,000 Americans came to Turkey, most of whom were military personnel; within two years that number had increased threefold.‖52 The continuing rise in the American population in Turkey must have been related to the fact that Turkey was considered as one of the most anti-communist countries. Also its achievements in the Korean War, NATO, and the democratic improvements inside of the country made it possible for more Americans to come to Turkey, and stay there. The Americans were usually welcomed, and in return Americans enjoyed observing and giving aid, and they began to be familiar with the Turkish culture as they continued to observe the country. In Assignment in Ankara, Norma Blake who went on duty as a junior ambassador from the United States Department of State, and worked in the Embassy of the U.S. appeared as one of the Americans who might have been a colleague or friend to someone in Ankara. During the first encounter of both cultures, Lucile Saunders McDonalds started to indicate the idea that there was an important line not to cross in each culture although many foreign officials‘ had a duty to make a change in the society:
People of other nations are going to judge you by your conduct. If there is a law in the city where you live which says you cannot turn on a radio loud-speaker after ten at night, you must resign yourself to obey it, no matter if it seems absurd. You are in a foreign country and because you are an American you cannot set yourself up as an exception.53
52 Oğuz Adanır, Personal Interview, February, 2002 quoted in Yalçın, ―American Impact on Turkish Social Life,‖ 43.
53 Lucile Saunders McDonald and Zola Helen Ross, Assignment in Ankara (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1959), 25-6.
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However, it must be borne in mind that Lucile Saunders McDonald tended to present us more about the difference in the rules and understandings, and how someone must be respectful towards them throughout the book. This inclination was the result of her being a working woman in the Foreign Institute. She was aware of the fact that cultural differences were everything in their jobs. Americans such as Lucile McDonald were instructed and trained to understand how diverse Turkey‘s culture is and to follow its rules. Therefore, she kept underlying the differences within the culture as they appeared to her in her daily experiences.
The interaction between Turkey and the U.S. was too limited, particularly on the American side. Lewis Thomas indicates, ―in 1947, as in 1941, it was still true that Turks knew much more about America than Americans knew about Turkey.‖54 The U.S.‘s isolation policy during the interwar period did not contribute to the country‘s awareness about Turkey as well. The U.S. was not in the picture of the Middle Eastern area until the end of WWII, so this policy affected America‘s interest and knowledge towards Turkey to some degree. What triggered Americans to keep coming to Turkey was firstly the term curiosity. Thomas and Richard N. Frye state, ―Turkey was and is certainly the most resolute, independent, and stable element and also unquestionably the most democratic and the most western element in a semi-oriental area of widespread political and economic unrest.‖55 Therefore, when Turkey appeared in this way, later on, the duty in a foreign land became the other reason for Americans to be in Turkey along with curiosity.
There are various accounts from Americans about Turkey. An obligation to fulfill the duty of curiosity helped these accounts to come into sight. After all, these books—
54 Thomas and Frye, The United States and Turkey and Iran, 144.
55 Ibid, 146.
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Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey—supplied what kind of policy the U.S. would take in Turkey. Such works also enabled us to understand why these Americans were curious about Turkey as well as their activities after they arrived in Ankara. Thanks to these books, it became easier to know how much knowledge one side had about the other at the beginning of 1950.
Aside from the books mentioned, there were many articles about the travelers who came to Turkey to visit, and vice versa. There were also Turkish people who went to the U.S. in the 1950s. It is apt to remind that these articles are just as significant as the books because they reveal the facts about the first impression of both cultures on each side. The observations in these articles present different subjects that were not presented in the aforementioned Americans‘ books. One of these articles appeared in the newspaper, Akşam, about an American girl who visited Anatolia. The article reflected her experience with the customs and traditions of the Turkish people on January 22, 1950. This article is a good start to understand the first encounter of the Turkish-American cultures from the perspective of an American woman. The article highlights:
Miss Fay Kirb tells that during a train journey somewhere between in Malatya and Diyarbakır, she experienced a nice event. When she got on the train, she could not find a seat, so a police officer helped her to find a seat, and she was placed in a compartment full of soldiers. Soldiers got stuck to give a place to her gladly, and they placed her in a window side so that she could feel comfortable. A police officer advised soldiers about to be careful not to disturb Miss Kirb by anyone. Miss Kirb expressed her feeling by saying that the passengers are honest, respectable and showing a smiling face in Turkey. I should mention the interest shown by the Turkish nation to foreigners with pleasure and satisfaction, so that I could understand Anatolian life better.56
Miss Kirb continues to tell as follow:
56 To see more, please look at, ―Bir Amerikalı kızın Anadoluda Seyahatı,‖ Akşam, January 22, 1950.
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During my trip, we chatted with many young people about how to grow their field crops better and their desire was to learn more about modern farming methods. The greatest evident to express my feelings on my trip to Turkey, my desire to travel to other countries as travel to Turkey in the year of 1950.57
Although it was not common to see this kind of personal travel news at the beginning of the 1950s, Americans were visiting Turkey, not only for official duty but out of curiosity. Turkey began to be known on an international scale and started to become familiar with other cultures. Moreover, if it is necessary to make an inference about what Miss Kirb described Turkey, the Turks expressed themselves as hospitable who enjoyed having conversations with the foreigners. The last statement about the trip comes from the fact that Miss Kirb explained a real concern of most of the Turkish people, which was a farming issue. As a country that was starting to develop its economy recently, it was financially based on American support. Turkey was an agricultural country and it continued to provide development in this direction since 1923. As Oral Sander points out, the economic assistance given to Turkey in the context of the Marshall Plan and Economic Cooperation Organization was designed in a way that Turkey could directly contribute to the economy of West Europe and America. Turkey was also advised by the U.S. to improve its economy in agriculture rather than industry.58
Russell Dorr who was Marshall Plan‘s Turkey special mission chief made a statement to make it clear that the purpose of economic aid given to Turkey in December 1951 was to supply free workers in the world's military and defense factories…59 In the end, this illustration is critical in two senses; firstly, a personal visit by Miss Kirb revealed a real issue both for Turkey and the U.S. about
57 Ibid.
58 Sander, Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri: 1947-1964, 51.
59 Ayın Tarihi, no.217, December 1951, page 56 quoted in Sander, Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri: 1947-1964, 52.
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agriculture. Secondly, this personal visit displays entirely a different subject that the other two primary accounts—Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey—did not speak of. It can be thus highlighted that the travelogues are sources that convey to us what the travelers viewed as their priority. The presence of different subjects in each travel book also shows us the difference in the perspectives of the authors.
A similar visit to the U.S. from Turkey occurred around the same time. According to an article written by Şevket Rado in Akşam, the Turkish Maritime Lines passenger vessel Tarsus had visited the city of New York for 10 days for the purpose of Turkish propaganda in the U.S. The article stated that the passenger vessel Tarsus had been instrumental in the most vivid propaganda about Turkey, and served to spread Turkish love in New York.60 Strictly, the news highlights more about how Turkey tried to impress Americans by inviting them for a cocktail so that they could get familiar with Turkish cuisine, handcrafts, and leaflets. This propaganda about Turkey was in English. Hence, a straight-forward approach of Turks to Americans revealed itself when they used English in their leaflets to increase the chance of recognition. Nevertheless, the writer of the article concludes that the luck of Turkey was very much loved by Americans even though its level of recognition is very low.61 This line remarkably summarizes the cultural relationship between Turkey and America at the beginning of 1950. On the one hand, Turkey was doing everything to remain an ally with the U.S. in its foreign policy and cultural policy. On the other hand, Turkey was just one country out of many which needed to be under the preservation and influence of the U.S. In addition, Turkey was the one that knew
60 To see more, please look at, ―Tarsus Amerika Seferinden 29 Haziranda Dönüyor,‖ Akşam, June 27, 1950.
61 Ibid.
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more about the U.S. than Americans knew about Turkey. Nonetheless, Akşam continued to publish news about the daily life of Americans and the American culture during the visitation of the Turkish Maritime Lines passenger vessel Tarsus. Therefore, looking at the content of this news, how the Turks perceived the U.S., and how these perceptions were reflected in the news will be helpful in order to establish a comprehensive insight into the encounter of Turkish and American cultures in 1950.
The writer of Akşam provided 25 articles about the American experience under the title of ―American Tale.‖ The first couple of articles mentioned the first impression of the writer towards the U.S. from its skyscrapers, population of New York to the historical background of the city. The following articles generally questioned the consumerism and popular culture that are the impressive subjects of the American culture that began to spread in Turkey.
The main purpose of the vibrant American market is to provoke people by putting everything in the most attractive form, to make the most unnecessary thing as necessary, to force people into a wild, endless waste. The European economy based on savings advises us not to go beyond the need. However, the American economy encourages waste, living above income and borrowing.That‘s why American men work so much.62
Television, which seems like an unfamiliar, incredible invention to us, has already spread in the United States at the radio level we have. Television has entered the home of every middle-class American. On June 1, 1949, there were 2.010.000 televisions in the United States. It is estimated that this amount will exceed 6 million by the end of 1950, and when it spreads to all over the world, radio will die out for sure.63
A very accurate observation was reflected by Şevket Rado in his articles for two reasons. First of all, the consumer habits of Americans were well known universally particularly after the post-war world. Later it became a culture itself known as the
62 To see more, please look at, ―Amerikan Masalı,‖ Akşam, July 10, 1950.
63 Ibid, July14, 1950.
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consumer culture and was perceived as a culture that was adopted by other nations as it spread. Secondly, Şevket Rado argued in a way to praise Americans regarding their improvements in technology. Mentioning the generality of the television which was a leading symbol of the 1950s displayed how Americans thrived when it was compared to other nations like Turkey. Therefore, even though the article displayed this part of consumerism in America negatively, it shows how a Turk comprehended a segment of the consumer culture in 1950. As writer Annessa Ann Babic indicates, ―the fluidity and access to goods, travel, and modes of conduct symbolize the 1950s and its desire to construct the ideal American identity.‖64 Additionally, historian LeRoy Ashby highlights:
By the mid-1950s, a nation with only 6 percent of the world‘s population was producing more than half of the world‘s manufactured goods. Moreover, citizens viewed the U.S. as a model nation, notable for its workable government, its ideals of democracy and freedom.65
The writer Şevket Rado met with an American, and refers to him as Mr. Jones in his articles during his journey in New York, and had a lot of conversations with him. During one of his chats, the writer asked Mr. Jones what he thought about American affairs abroad, and also his idea about Turkey. Mr. Jones answers:
Americans should definitely get involved in European affairs. Because it is not possible for us to do otherwise in terms of politics and economy. Especially economically, we cannot be confined to ourselves. As for Turkey, we had no idea about Turkey until now, to tell you the truth, I would think it as a country that adheres to ancient times. Our minds changed completely after meeting you.66
Mr. Jones presented a very critical opinion—even though it was a personal opinion—concerning the foreign policies of the United States. Mr. Jones presented the U.S. as the leader of the period, and why it had a righteousness of its involvement in other
64 Babic, ―(Re) Imagining the 1950s‖, 68.
65 LeRoy Ashby, With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006), 282.
66 To see more, please look at, ―Amerikan Masalı,‖ Akşam, July 20, 1950.
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countries policies. Moreover, the same argument always comes back to state that Americans did not know much about the Turks while entering the 1950s, but somehow this situation changed in a very short time, and Turkey became a country whose policy mattered for the U.S. in the upcoming future.
There are many subjects that a traveler perceives and reflects on in their accounts. It must be stated that it is sometimes a surprise what kind of details are mentioned in travelogues, due to the personality of the author and the background. For instance, Şevket Rado provides details regarding the consumer and popular culture of America by cheering its development in technology, and the next sections will show how Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey were completely different. Hence, the two primary accounts show how the starting point of observation for two visiting American women at different times was the city of Ankara. The first impression of Leicester regarding Ankara was its being a barren country. She also claimed:
Everything within sight was gray and somber. The desert, spreading out in all directions, distant mountain ranges...but when we reached Ankara, a small city was rising out of the flat landscape, golden maple trees bordering the main street, Ataturk Bulvari, broke the monotony of the clay-colored city.67
The geographical and architectural characteristics of Ankara left an unfavorable impression on the writer who frequently referenced Ankara's concrete buildings, and how these structures made the city gloomy.
Norma Blake who went on duty as a junior ambassador from the United States Department of State in Assignment in Ankara, and worked in the U.S. Embassy did not make a detailed description about Ankara. As a matter of fact, she admitted ―Ankara was a place she‘d hardly heard of. Except for having seen the name in
67 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 25-6.
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newspapers, she‘d hardly been aware of its existence.‖68 Later on, when she reached Ankara, she made a comment about the dissimilarity of Ankara with any other American city by stating that ―the houses were light-colored and starkly in design. Ankara did not look like an American city.‖69 Yet ―the public buildings and private residences were mostly European in design.‖70 These two approaches display that it would be a mistake to picture all Americans who came to Ankara as equally engaged with the same ideas.
Moreover, even though the Turkish-American alliance was having its golden times during the 1950s, Ankara was not widely known by every governmental official who came there. Both nations still had a long way to go in influencing each other. The reason for this situation can be explained by how Assignment in Ankara states:
Ataturk moved the capital here, and planned a new city in the center of the country so that it would not be close to foreign influences...he never thought Ankara would grow to this size. The farm he created out in the country is now almost inside the city limits.71
Every particular approach displays a new perspective of Americans living in Ankara not only about Turkey in general but also about the social and cultural resemblances and differences. For instance, Ankara was completely different from any city in America in terms of architecture. In addition, Ankara as a designed capital was constantly developing not only in terms of population, but also culturally and socially. Even though it was designated to stay away from foreign interference, an effect from outside was not only about politics anymore in the 1950s. As a result, Ankara found itself as a capital that was under the cultural influence of foreigners.
68 Lucile Saunders McDonald and Zola Helen Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 30.
69 Ibid, 37.
70 Ibid, 51.
71 Ibid, 55.
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2.3. Observations in Ankara’s Social Life through Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester
In Ankara, especially in the first years after the Republic, various activities were carried out to transform the social structure, organize the unity of men and women, and ensure the participation of women in social life.72 Ankara was an important place for the implementation of new vital teachings, especially about cultural life. Americanization or the American way of life brought a radical change in the transformation of Ankara which had already begun after 1923. The years after 1950 were when this transformation happened intensely. American influence was seen in the capital Ankara after the war, even more so than Istanbul in most respects.73
Selda Tuncer classifies the urban public places jointly used by the women in Ankara as ―first places for recreational activities; parks and picnic areas; second places for eating out; restaurants, cafes and patisseries; third places for cultural activities and entertainment like cinemas, theatres, and music venues.‖74 According to this classification, the first powerful aspect to point out in the change of Ankara was the restaurants where men and women came together and socialized, which was not a common idea. In the years when modernization was just beginning before the 1950s, situations, where men and women danced and ate together in the same place, were considered unusual and unwelcome. However, in the second quarter of the century, there were many initiatives to open fine restaurants, and hotels with restaurants. Selda Tuncer points out ―offering good-quality service and rich menus, including foreign dishes, these restaurants were Western in style…They were predominantly
72 Adile Nuray Bayraktar, ―Large-Scale Change in the Capital Ankara after the Declaration of the Republic: The Construction of Modern Life and Modern Spaces,‖ Journal of Ankara Studies, 4, (Spring, 2016): 68.
73 Gökalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement on Ankara City Culture During the Early Cold War,‖ 231.
74 Selda Tuncer, Women and Public Space in Turkey: Gender, Modernity and the Urban Experience (London: I.B.Tauris, 2018), 72.
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male-dominated venues, and rarely used for family entertainment or related activities.‖75 This change which played a major role in Ankara's social life brought the first modernized restaurant of Ankara, which was Karpiç. The characteristics of Karpiç was described in Assignment in Ankara:
...famous Karpiç Restaurant, founded by a Russian refugee soon after President Atatürk had moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara in the early days of the republic. The big room where they were ceremoniously seated was filled with diners, most of them men. An orchestra played softly on a raised dais. An attentive waiter poured bottle water into tall crystal glasses and hovered over the table, bringing hard rolls and dishes of relish…‖76
The impact of Karpiç was so well-known that Assignment in Ankara gave small, yet significant details of Karpiç. This included its modern style such as modern equipment used to serve, and waiters trained to give better service. Music was also an essential feature since there was an orchestra and dance floor which made Karpiç one of the most important entertainment venues of that period. Moreover, the critical description of how the restaurant had male customers remarks the differences between men and women in social life. A better example came from Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey. A receptionist in Cijan Palas Hotel where Leicester stayed during her first weeks told her that Karpiç Restaurant was the only place for une jeune femme seule—a young woman alone—which manifests the women‘s place in public life, whether a foreigner or Turk in the early years of the 1950s. She continues to describe that she ―felt as though she had entered the forbidden inner-sanctum of a Turkish men‘s club.‖77
Assignment in Ankara also indicated, ―if you sit alone in the dining room, you shock the entire Near East. Most Turkish women simply aren‘t seen in public without their
75 Ibid, 81.
76 McDonalds and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 115.
77 Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 33.
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families.‖78 Additionally, a specification was given regarding the same subject and stated, ―Turkish girls were still constrained with proprieties. A chaperon, or a reasonable facsimile of one, was required.‖79 In this sense, Selda Tuncer reminds us, ―eating out was not a common cultural practice at the time.‖80 This practice remained an uncommon phenomenon only for women throughout the 1950s. The restaurants were not only places where women were misunderstood and socially restricted. Leicester highlights, ―even though Atatürk had liberated the Turkish women, almost a quarter of a century ago, the older women still were not accustomed to accompanying their husbands to social events given by foreigners.‖81 Furthermore, she alleges an opinion about treatment towards the women in Turkish public life by stating that ―in most countries, a servant would rush to relieve a woman of a heavy package, but not in Turkey, where respect for women was still below par.‖82
There was inequality for American women in their jobs in foreign countries when it came to having contact with any other foreign man. Leicester mentions that this rule was not applicable to the men, and only the women were considered as a target by foreign men who might be communists. Later on, she refers to this situation as a ―double standard,‖ and states, ―our big boss doesn‘t trust us not to give away secrets, but they do trust our men to date foreign women.‖83 The fact that many of the same points were mentioned in both accounts show that they not only drew attention to the difference between men and women in Turkey's social life but also the U.S. itself had a big discrepancy about gender discrimination in working life. Even though both American women were unfamiliar with the situation of Turkey, the details they gave
78 McDonalds and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 44.
79 Ibid, 168.
80 Tuncer, Women and the Public Place in Turkey, 81.
81 Leicester, 103.
82 Leicester, 75-6.
83 Ibid, 91.
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provided the real discrepancy of women‘s public place had great importance in the bigger picture of Turkish and American cultures.
Norma Blake and Leicester did not attend any activity associated with the certain type of entertainment life such as theater and cinema in Ankara. In Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, both spent their spare time looking for a house, and furnishing their home. To do that, both of them visited the old side of Ankara with help of at least one Turkish friend, met with various merchants and experienced this cultural side of the city. Moreover, apart from going to Karpiç Restaurant, Leicester mentioned that she attended a celebration on Christmas Day, and a staff party at Canadian Embassy, and went to the Turkish Ski Club. 84 As previously stated, Ankara was the city of the civil servants, and both of them are introduced as such, so both women came to Ankara as an official with the idea of duty. Therefore, their observations about the social life of Ankara remained in the circle of working environment, which were the JAMMAT building and the U.S. Embassy.
As a result of advancing relations between the U.S. and Turkey, historian Bahar Gürsel indicates that the Turkish-American Association (TAA) was established to provide a better understanding of each other. The TAA officially opened in 1951 as a non-governmental organization to strengthen the ties between the two countries.85 The primary mission of the TAA was to introduce Turkish culture to Americans while contributing significantly to the cultural life of Ankara.86 It was not possible
84 To learn more, please look at Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 100-3, and also 111-6.
85 Bahar Gürsel, ―Turkish-American Association: The First Twenty Years of an Ankara Institution,‖ Journal of Ankara Studies, vol.8, no.1, (2020): 178, please also look at The Turkish-American Association of Mutual Understanding Program, 1956, p. 1.
86 Gökalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement on Ankara City Culture During the Early Cold War,‖ 225.
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for people from the U.S. and Turkey not to be influenced by each other‘s cultures during the activities of the TAA. Moreover, the Americans started to reveal their culture in the daily conversations with the Turkish officials, especially with the assistance of TAA. As Frederick P. Latimer highlights:
The Americans, with a few notable exceptions, made little or no effort to learn Turkish—even a few words can work magic—to make friends with Turks, or to make any concessions to local custom, but the Turks generally still have a real liking for Americans.87
This meant that there was a dominant culture that was eager to influence rather than getting influenced during this cultural encounter. George S. Harris provides a good point by stating ―Menderes' determination to use American aid to further his partisan purposes inevitably involved the United States in the Turkish domestic policies.‖88 Therefore, along with the acknowledgment of the American identity by the Turkish government, and with the help of foundations like TAA, the first very intimate interaction of two cultures emerged in the society in a natural way since after these Americans began to live in Turkey, they became someone who was a neighbor, colleague or friend by time.
It is apt to note that the effects of the American influence can be spotted in the changing role of the Turkish women, and the first impact can be seen in the foundation of women‘s associations. The first one established was the Turkish-American Women's Cultural Union in Ankara.89 Nermin Abadan, who was the leading figure for this establishment, conveyed a message to the government in 1949, and stated the importance of these kind of institutions in the face of a growing cultural tie between Turkey and the United States:
87 Frederick P. Latimer, Jr, ―The American Image Abroad,‖ Western Humanities Review, (Summer, 1961): 205.
88 George S. Harris, Troubled Alliance, 80.
89 Gökatalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement,‖ 215.
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It is known by the high authorities that it is a necessary task to introduce our country to the Anglo-Saxon world, to which we are in close contact with them and to which we bind our political destiny, and to prevent the members of these countries from acquiring false information and opinions about our country and our people.90
Bringing Turkish and American women together and introducing them to each other; strengthening the cultural relationships of the two countries within the framework of the existing close relationship; and providing for the women of the two countries a ground for exchanging views on their attitudes and traditions.91
The institution was founded under the aims as stated above. Along with many purposes, however, one must keep in mind the real reason for increasing the numbers of such foundations laid in the idea of bringing Turkey to the level of a western country. Hence, while doing that, the contribution of working Turkish women was powered thanks to these sorts of foundations. During the Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Union meetings, members were educated and taught in many various fields. The Turkish women transformed from the traditional one to the modern one. A news article from USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement states:
Membership requirements are that one be a Turkish or American citizen…and all Americans urged to join. Here is an opportunity to meet interesting Turkish women active in all fields, to make lasting friendships and to enjoy a favorite activity. There is an activity of interest to everyone.92
Moreover, there was an opportunity to learn either Turkish or English among its activities.93 The activities and meetings of this organization were announced in Turkish-American News and then in the USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement. One of the activities held by the Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Society is worth mentioning. This organization did not only perform events related to Ankara.
90 CHP, 490.1.0.0.11016.918.2, BCA quoted in Gökatalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement,‖ 215.
91 USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of October 8-14, 1959.
92 Ibid.
93 To see more, please look at Turkish-American News, February 15, 1953.
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As one of the main aims was to increase the recognition of the Turkish culture, they also arranged activities related to other cities in Turkey such as Konya.
TAWOS takes pleasure in announcing a Mevlana program for members and their family on Tuesday…A talk in English on the life and works of the great Islamic thinker and mystic of the XIII century, Mevlana Cellaleddin Rumi, founder of the order of Whirling Dervishes…94
Today, Americans who visit Turkey are surely going to visit the tomb of Mevlana in Konya.95 Halide Edip Adıvar mentions that this is because of the literary influence of the East over the West, and the familiarity via literary work made by tourists that visit Konya. Nevertheless, this activity of TAWOS employs the idea of giving people—particularly women—more knowledge, familiarity and alteration in their social calendar so that participation could remain at the highest level. Lucile Saunders McDonald also highlighted, ―all of the girls in Foreign Service make use of their week-ends and vacation periods for brief journeys to nearby cities and other countries.‖96 For instance, Leicester firstly traveled to Cyprus where she had been twice, and then to the Middle East started from Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus to Jerusalem during her time in Ankara.97 During her trips, many hints that a woman traveling alone or even taking a bus alone would not be taken kindly by most people. Yet the author continued to travel, and admitted that she became a different woman who wanted to see the world while working at the end of her journeys in 1950. Thus, despite all the obstacles or even traditions in society, each step taken by women to make a change in their situation started leaving a lasting impact. These women influenced other women, and it gradually became universal during the 1950s.
94 USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of December 17-23, 1959.
95 Adıvar, Türkiye’de Şark, Garp ve Amerikan Tesirleri, (The Orient, The West and American Influences in Turkey), 316.
96 ―They‘ve Joined Foreign Service to See World,‖ The Seattle Times, March 30, 1958.
97 To learn more, please look at Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 125-163, and also 176-222.
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Moreover, Lucile Saunders did not fail to mention the TAA. She stated, ―the Turkish-American Association was giving a benefit for earthquake victims some distance away from Ankara, and she bought a concert ticket.‖98 Cultural recognition in every sense was the leading idea behind every activity. However, as mentioned by Lucile Saunders McDonald, the TAA also displayed a sensitive profile towards situations that required social responsibility so that it could be active in as many areas as possible. Furthermore, another area employed by the Turkish-American Association to keep its members engaged in learning other cultures was theatre. For instance, it became common to produce Turkish plays in English directed by an American playwright.
The Turkish play to be procured is called ―The Neighborhood,‖ and presents a very powerful and extremely interesting cross-section of temporary Turkish life, somewhat like Thornton Wilder‘s ―Our Town‖ for American life. It is a very human play and is considered one of the best plays of the Turkish Theater… Don't miss this unique opportunity of sharing in this pioneer event in international cultural activity.99
It must be kept in mind that the choosing of each activity‘s purpose was to display the cultures so that it could be a teachable moment while also entertaining the people. In this case, the current lifestyle of Turkish people was presented to the audiences who were foreigners, mostly Americans. It also exhibits that making a cultural activity in another language shows the demand, which resulted from the rising population in the society, and these were people who wanted to enjoy the activities in their language. Furthermore, this activity was significant as it displayed itself as a global cultural event. Strictly, it can be argued that the cultural activities held in Turkey were considered among the other international ones.
98 McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 82.
99 To see more, please look at ―Turkish Play To Be Produced In English,‖ USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of October 1-7, 1959.
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2.4. Conclusion
Daniel Lerner indicates, ―while tradition still rules, transition gets under way.‖100 It was exactly what happened in Turkish society due to the influence of American culture as a result of an alliance—or friendship—between Turkey and the U.S. in the 1950s. Intense communication and interaction brought all kinds of modern transformations to Ankara along with the travelers. In the process, various events triggered the other events, and curiosity and fear of the 1950s shaped this course. American way shadowed out its effects in multiple areas in Turkish social life, and the Democrat Party‘s foreign and domestic policy played an important role. In the beginning, the initial step was the Korean War which assisted in increasing the reliability of Turkey in the international area, especially in the eyes of the United States. The Korean War opened the way of participation in NATO in 1952 so that foreign politics could leave its place in cultural affairs.
From the perspectives of the two American women, Assignment in Ankara and Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey provided different insights about Turkish social life in Ankara. Both accounts mentioned the most important restaurant in Ankara—Karpiç—by examining the status of the Turkish women from various aspects. How women eating alone out was perceived by society and the social status of women in general was mostly described in these accounts. Moreover, both women stated that Karpiç Restaurant was considered as western with its design, cuisine and service. Hence, observations on the restaurant supplied many perspectives about the changing Turkish social and cultural life in Ankara.
100 Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (Glencoe: Free Press, 1965), 141.
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Since Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester appeared as working women in the accounts, their priorities and focus were different. Both women gave great importance to their duties in the embassy and the JAMMAT, and they failed to observe the entertainment life of Ankara. The establishments such as the TAA, which found itself a place in Assignment in Ankara, and the Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Society enormously helped with the lasting American impact on Turkish society during the 1950s. The New York Times reflected the American effect by stating that ―the subtler influence shown by such things as the snack bars, the American style of bread, the Christmas decorations that blossomed in December on an unprecedented scale, and the English now widely spoken by waiters and taxi drivers.‖101 These were the other small yet powerful changes in the reality of Ankara. The news continues:
The U.S. is not in the Baghdad Pact, but United States citizens certainly are in the pact countries. Ankara is a striking example…even at the end of the war there were only a few hundred people from the United States in all of Turkey. Today there are more than 6.000. While settling in Turkey, the Americans have also brought bits of America with them.102
The mutual effects were distinguished not only by the Turkish press but also the American press mentioned mobility in the Turkish culture from time to time. Undoubtedly, cultural activities were already increasing in Turkey since the beginning of the 1950s, and their number was strictly addressed to Americans. It eventually caused more Americans to come to Turkey. Thanks to these visits, it enabled the spread of American style via cultural activities. It also should be noted that the American lifestyle profoundly affected the people‘s entertainment life in Ankara.
101 ―Ankara Showing Influence of U.S.,‖ The New York Times, February 2, 1958.
102 Ibid.
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CHAPTER III
THE AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON TURKISH EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL LIFE
During the 1950s, Turkey became a land that allowed Americans to spread their culture relatively freely compared to any other country. The propagations of the American culture were held officially here and supported by the Turkish government. However, the process did not start, especially in this period. The United States‘ Foreign Service Institute did not involve itself directly in affairs of Middle East countries during the 1940s as it did in the 1950s. Yet, it continued to observe the latest situation of each country to determine the right time to step in long before the 1950s. Therefore, there were almost no areas that the Americans did not affect. Changes and newness in education were one of them. The importance of education in cultural studies remained considerable since it was the best way to reach permanency for an influencer culture in its mission of spreading cultural activities. Cangül Örnek indicates, ―investigating the cultural activities, which was an important component of
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public diplomacy, is fruitful to map out the observations and perceptions of diplomats about the political and ideological atmosphere in Turkey.‖103
Türkkaya Ataöv states, ―history teaches us that civilization is never under the monopoly of a single nation.‖104 He constructed the idea of imperialism of the West over the East. It was an accurate approach culturally due to the interaction between America and Turkey in the 1950s. The policy of the United States created the same situation in Turkey, which was that Turkish culture was under a great deal of American influence. However, this kind of significant impact might be puzzling on Turkish society due to preserving existing culture. Hence, Türkkaya Ataöv continues to indicate:
What should interest us in terms of the characteristics of the Western world is its economic, political and ideological nature. What concerns us is the kind of relationship that may or will be established between a Western world possessing certain economic, political and ideological features and an undeveloped country like Turkey.105
This statement accurately fits with the situation of Turkey. Due to the momentum of activities held by Americans in the 1950s, American culture became more visible than before. The ruling party was willing to adopt every aspect of the American way. Yet as stated above, specific ideas exposed by other cultures might be concerning inside Turkish society since Turkey was not in the same category as America in terms of development. It was more open to being influenced by the outsider. In the light of this statement, the Turkish education system was one of the areas that were not definitely under the monopoly of a single nation but under many influences. The most significant influencer was the United States.
103 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 941.
104 Ataöv, NATO and Turkey, 107.
105 Ibid, 106.
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According to the Americans, one of the deficiencies of Turkey was the lack of human resources. For instance, while carrying out aid programs in Turkey they faced difficulty in finding people who spoke their language, who understood what they were asked, and who had the adequate knowledge and skill to fulfill complicated tasks. That is why education had been one of the principal issues they dealt with.106
What has been stated was a real and significant problem; even though the American culture got accepted in Turkish society, only a small number of people could speak English in the 1950s. In her book, this situation was expressed to Leicester by her college Mr. Oleanski in these words:
I am afraid Turkey will not fulfill your thirst for culture. It is full of history, but language barrier makes it difficult to meet the local people and the religious restrictions on Turkish women make it especially hard for and American women alone...This is still an underdeveloped country...but that‘s why we‘re here for.107
Therefore, giving English classes or educating people in English were important initiatives for Americans so that their missions could reach the masses. As a result of this, since the differences in language were always a barrier, Americans have carried out many programs to increase the learning of English in Turkey. Moreover, the mutual understanding of each culture became more accessible due to this development. These programs covered various scholarships, exchange programs and enabled the establishment of many new universities, along with the personal efforts of foreigners. For instance, in Assignment in Ankara, Norma Blake thought she must learn Turkish as soon as she started working at the embassy. She realized that there was a class every morning, and an excuse was easily given for employees who wanted to attend this class. However, instead of participating in this class, Norma took her conversational Turkish class from the Turkish employee, Perihan.108
106 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 950.
107 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 39.
108 Perihan was Turkish employee at the same office as Norma did, and it was stated that she attended a good school kept by some of American women at Uskudar. Perihan reflected as an educated young
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Moreover, Norma Blake coaches her to improve her shorthand in English during these classes.109 Perihan explains, ―they can spend one hour with shorthand and one hour with Turkish conversation. That is the way lessons are exchanged with foreign people.‖110 It is apt to indicate when Lucile Saunders mentioned this detail in her book, she observed the real presence of these classes both in the embassy and in the society during her visitation of Ankara in 1958.
Aside from the foundations and exchange programs, she constructed how two women‘s personal efforts contributed to them learning the language. Both women were educated and worked and assisted each other for their mutual interests. Hence, the writer could present both characters as an excellent example for all the women even though there were many restrictions on the Turkish women. In Assignment in Ankara, this part is explained over Perihan. She kept stating that she was living with her married sister, and she had an obligation at home all the time. This situation about the Turkish woman who mustn‘t live alone was a fact in the 1950s. Elizabeth McNeill indicates the same idea in her book. The restrictions and their duties at home mostly interrupted the daily and social lives of Turkish women. For example, Norma Blake wanted to cook dinner for Perihan for the day they had a class, yet Perihan declined this offer by stating that she had to be at home.111
Turkish woman who was able to speak English, and worked at the embassy, which both were not so common in Turkey during the 1950s.
109 To learn more, please look at McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 56.
110 Ibid, 79-80.
111 Even though Perihan did not give details about this example throughout the book, later on a mistake happens at the Embassy, Perihan loses her job, and it is the time that she stops living with her married sister. Norma finds out that Perihan‘s brother-in-law states that Perihan does not live with them anymore because she does not have a job. This reality manifests that though many girls like Perihan were not common in the society, still there were many rules for them to maintain their lives and as in Perihan situation, they had to live according to the rules of her family. To learn more, please look at McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 79.
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In this chapter, due to the American impact, the changes and transformations in the Turkish education system that started with the adoption of the Fulbright in Turkey and the American Library are mainly going to be studied. Multiple reports issued by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy will be used as primary sources for the Fulbright Program. Many news from different newspapers will be given to establish a comprehensive understanding of the changes and newness in education. Additionally, the Middle East Technical University‘s establishment will be analyzed as an example university founded in Ankara for spreading the American style of teaching.
3.1. Turkey’s Participation in the Fulbright Program
In the Cold War, education started to play an explicit role internationally to reconstruct each world‘s society. In his book, Türkkaya Ataöv refers that a reliable American source states, ―there are many indications that we are beginning to use education as a principal instrument for the achievement of our international objectives.‖112 A clear and direct message was given by the United States Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange in 1950, and it demonstrates the significance of mutual interest in educational understanding:
International harmony and understanding can only be achieved through the conscious choice of millions of individual minds. Enduring peace and prosperity will be achieved only when people realize that they have common interests and concerns, understand each other and work harmoniously toward common goals. That is the number one fact of international life today. It is the humanizing factor in the conduct of international relations.113
Since the war, Turkish consciousness became more prone to the American way rather than British-conscious as before, so the investments of Americans in Turkey
112 Ataöv, NATO and Turkey, 154.
113 Second Semiannual Report on Educational Exchange Activities January 3, 1950, Report, from U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/reports-u-s-advisory-commission-on-public-diplomacy/?coll_filter_year=1957&coll_filter_month=&coll_filter_release_type=&coll_filter_bureau=&results= (accessed March 4, 2021), 1.
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were nothing but expected. Therefore, besides the entertainment life, education began to be used as a weapon for cultural activities on a global scale. The changes in higher education were necessary for mutual understanding and connection, so one of the programs was begun under Public Law 584 of the Seventy-ninth Congress, the Fulbright Act.114
In the U.S., the first initiation of the exchange programs was applied mainly for Latin American countries in the cause of the good neighbor policy.115 However, a more globalized world and the spread of communism at the beginning of the Cold War triggered the idea of being a good neighbor to all the countries that required the United States‘ policies. Therefore, more international exchange programs were needed because a consistency required for the Cold War propaganda was found in exchange programs. This consistency was hard to obtain in other propaganda tools. In other words, exchange programs and cultural activities in the educational field provided a long-lived result. Likewise, as Polina Kaniuka manifests:
The Fulbright Program saw its origin in the liminal period between the end of WWII and the hegemony of the Cold War imperatives as a lost moment of benevolent globalism as America rose to international prominence in the emergence of propaganda war with the Soviet Union.116
In 1950, where and how the educational exchange program operated was important. Multiple countries were specifically given from Europe (including British
114 This program was not more than any other propaganda tool of the Cold War-era created by the Americans, but it was more effective, global and permanent, and many other propagandas such as movies, magazines were open to be changed quickly; whenever a fashion of the year became different, the theme of these tools was changed.
115 Good neighbor policy was a foreign policy towards Latin America initiated during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The main purpose of this policy was not to interfere with the domestic affairs of Latin American countries and to show them the United States was a good neighbor to these countries.
116 Polina Kaniuka, ―International Education in the United States Through the Prism of Fulbright Program: Historical Analysis,‖ American Educational History Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2, (2019): 148 please also look at, Sam Lebovic, ―From War Junk to Educational Exchange: The World War II Origins of the Fulbright Program and the Foundations of American Cultural Globalism, 1945–1950,‖ Diplomatic History 37, no. 2 (2013): 281-2.
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Commonwealth), Far East, Near East, and Africa. The importance of the countries from Near East such as Burma, Turkey and Yemen was indicated in this way:
Nations of this area are increasingly orienting themselves toward the west and seeking the assistance of the United States. It is important to the United States that the economic and social development of this great and strategic are be rapid, peaceful, essentially democratic and directed toward the elimination of the glaring economic inequalities which make for wars and discontent.117
With this, a given message was apparent when it came to Eastern countries; the aid from the U. S. was essential to eliminate the inequalities that caused many problems inside these countries. However, it is critical to state that the significance of the westernization movements of the countries above might be the real reason why the United States wanted to give its assistance to them. After all, these countries proved that they could be improved, and one day they became a helpful ally in the changing world. Moreover, the stated countries and America were entirely different from each other culturally, so the initiatives were to make this cultural difference decrease in any way applicable. In Assignment in Ankara, an expression related to this situation is manifested to Norma Blake from her college, Mr. Huntley, with these words:
I suppose you think Ankara is pretty much of a flea bite after being promised Seville? Oh, it is natural. Somehow it‘s the Spanish-speaking countries which inspire our staffs with a sense of mystery and romance. But it‘s in Ankara and all this part of the world, Miss Blake, that history is being made and perhaps unmade. None of us can hope to understand Near Eastern culture overnight. But we can try, can‘t we?118
To understand this quotation, it must be borne in mind that Normal Blake was supposed to go to Seville for her duty in 1958. However, as a result of last minute change, she was assigned to Ankara. In the beginning of the book, she explained how she was disappointed about this change since she was familiar with Spanish culture and she could speak Spanish, but not Turkish. Therefore, when Mr. Huntley gave an
117 Ibid, 17.
118 McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 48.
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example from Seville, a reader must be reminded to think that Seville was the representation of the West, and Turkey was for the Near East. Moreover, the statement was an apparent reality of the cultural division of the world in the 1950s; Seville as a city in the West was better known than Ankara, so its attractiveness for public diplomacy was also more appealing for people who were on duty. However, as Mr. Huntley indicates that the other part of the world—Near East in this context—was being transformed, and it had offerings culturally as much as a city in the West had it. Undoubtedly, the expression was also being tried to say that the purpose of the foreigners in these cities was to discover the local culture to mutually understand each other. Hence, all these appointments of foreigners to other countries and educational exchange programs were consequences of the idea of mutual understanding in public diplomacy. Cangül Örnek highlights, ―the core of this systematic public diplomacy had been the information program carried out by the USIE/USIS119. The operations of these two bodies were embedded in the American diplomatic mission in Turkey.‖120 Even though the activities carried out by USIA were not welcomed at the beginning of the 1950s, it gradually became an approved part of the cultural events in Turkey. Cangül Örnek continues to indicate: At the application of the Marshall Plan led the USIE to design the information program according to the needs of the aid operations. In this regard, the USIE/USIS invited American experts to assume positions at ministries, set training courses for technicians and bureaucrats in various fields…‖121
119 The United States Information Agency (USIA) was an agency whose goals were to carry out public diplomacy. USIA was known as The United States Information Service (USIS) which guided cultural activities in the international area.
120 Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 947.
121 Ibid, 952.
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The offices held by these agencies were responsible for introducing, encouraging, and spreading the educational exchange programs as well as with other cultural activities in Turkey. For instance, USIS‘ role in cultural activities was described with an example and referred to as ―the do-gooders‖ in Assignment in Ankara: USIS often had complimentary tickets that were given to the Embassy personnel. American stars were brought to Ankara on concert tours, and only recently an American director had been imported for the Turkish Symphony Orchestra. Making the arrangements for these matters was one of the functions of the Information Service. USIS also issued press releases, assisted visiting journalists, arranged exchange scholarships, and decided how the grants from benevolent American foundations were to be used.122 USIS displayed itself as a service that handled a wide range of business while conducting cultural affairs in many senses. Also, it paid attention to the American personals' social needs. It was one of the best ways for USIS to bring and introduce two cultures closer to each other. Therefore, Lucile Saunders McDonald kept underlining the importance of USIS by saying that ―USIS was an efficient propaganda branch of American government, designed to convince the free world it should remain free, to show that the United States was in harmony with other countries‘ legitimate aspirations for progress and peace.‖123 Each official living in Ankara was an ambassador trying to create this perception. Even though Turkey displayed itself as a pro-American at the beginning of the Cold War period, there was a hesitation in specific topics. One of them was an education in 1948. As George S. Harris points out: Education was a domain the Turkish elite generally considered the most sensitive area of national life; the educational process was viewed as the way
122 McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 89.
123 Ibid, 95.
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to consolidate the Atatürk reforms. Clearly, the majority of Turkish educators felt no need for advice and assistance from abroad.124 Leicester, as the JAMMAT official who dealt with the press in her time at office, refers, ―the Turks were suspicious of foreigners bearing gifts. They don‘t understand why Americans, strangers from the other side of the world, were suddenly flooding with gifts…‖125 Even with this assistance from the JAMMAT mainly was related to modernizing the Turkish military forces. So, the approach of Turks about being suspicious was a fact in the 1950s. It must be kept in mind that if there was a curiosity from foreigners to other cultures in their missions, there was also a suspicion towards this curiosity and assistance. Thus, although the 1950s of Turkey were about to display itself as an espouser of the U.S. way in many senses, there was also a hesitation for certain subjects like education.126 Furthermore, the significance and necessity of the press—especially releases about America—were mentioned by Elizabeth McNeill Leicester in the context of suspicion. She states that there were many misunderstandings and false impressions of life in America. Since she was dealing with the press, at some point she was trying to understand why America was helping Turkey so much if the Turks were suspicious and resentful about it. These thoughts occurred because of what local papers said about the aid coming from the U.S. Mr. Oleanski explains to her the importance of these aids to keep free countries on America's side, and there was no other choice because of the Cold War. Hence, even though the American releases in Turkey were important, what the local
124 Harris, Troubled Alliance, 76.
125 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 85. 126 However, the situation did not take long, and acceptance came quickly and the Turkish-American Cultural Agreement became a basis which led Turkey to sign the Fulbright Program. It was signed in Ankara, and the purpose of the agreement was indicated by highlighting the importance of cultural ties and mutual understanding of both nations, and it was also stated that the Fulbright agreement will give a larger ink in the idea and culture field. To learn more, please look at ―Türk Amerikan Kültür Antlaşması,‖ Ortak Hafıza, Fulbright Türkiye, accessed May 10, 2021, https://70th.fulbright.org.tr.
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newspapers said about America and how they reflected these aids were pretty essential for this process. 127 Mutual understanding came from the shared joint ideas and cultures of both nations. Hence, the Fulbright program assisted both to have it. It began as one of the aid programs applied to Turkey by the U.S., and it points out the position of Turkey within the aid programs of America, which occurred as a significant one since the aid programs did not cover the areas of economy and politics, but also education and culture. Therefore, the U.S. wanted to have an ally that was able to show their ideas and attitudes in every field. At the end of this progress, Turkey agreed to make a pact with America in 1949. Turkey became one of the nations that went under this transformation with the signature for the Fulbright and became a valuable member by recognizing the significance of reorganizing the post-world politically and culturally. Around the same time when Leicester came to Ankara, the Fulbright Scholarship was accepted by Turkey. Even though neither she nor Lucile Saunders McDonald mentioned this program, it was still the result of the American influence in Ankara. Moreover, both accounts highlighted the prevalence of Turkish lessons in Ankara. It was a vital observation as it pointed to the reality of language barriers in foreign countries. Turkey‘s decision to sign up for the program was well-received on the American side. Later the importance of the agreement was stated in a way that every country which signed the program contributed for the cause of the Fulbright program, which primarily made a huge contribution for the foreign policies of the United States. For instance, New York Times indicates:
127 To learn more, please check Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 87-88-89.
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People from every state in the Union have gone abroad under the program. A young woman from Idaho is teaching nursing in Ankara. Others are studying political science in London, labor relations in Italy, anthropology in Burma. Others are lecturing in American history, literature, economics and political science in universities from Oxford to Ankara to Manila.128
3.2. The Importance of the American Library in Ankara Another reflection of the American influence in Ankara in the 1950s, which started with the acceptance of the Fulbright scholarship in Turkey, was the activities of the American Library. Semih Gökatalay refers that the Binational Centers have been an effective tool of American cultural imperialism during the Cold War. Especially after Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of the United States in 1953, the American Libraries mediated American culture worldwide.129 During the 1950s, the American Library in Ankara was very active in terms of having a considerable amount of sources, events, and propagandizing American culture to the citizens of Ankara. USIE offices in the Near East, South Asia, and Africa gave great importance to assisting the people of each country in learning English. The U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange highlights: The assistance includes such activities as participation in ―conversation groups‖ which meet in the USIE library, as well as making available English teaching textbooks to library patrons. In addition to USIE libraries at Ankara and Istanbul, a reading room is maintained at Izmir. The USIE library program in Turkey, as in other countries, embraces a wide variety of activities and reaches many different groups.130 At the beginning of the 1950s, Ankara was not the only city affected by U.S. activities. Still, as it is seen, other big cities were also under this influence, and it
128 ―Open Doors, Not Iron Curtains,‖ New York Times, August 5, 1951.
129 Gökatalay, ―The Effects of the Turkish-American Rapprochement on Ankara City Culture During the Early Cold War,‖ 219 please also look at J. Collett, American Libraries Abroad: United States Information Agency Activities. Library Trends, 20(3), 1972, 538-539.
130 International Educational and Technical Exchange in Fiscal Year-1950, Report, Secretariat of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange, June 30, 1950, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435023768161&view=1up&seq=1 (accessed May 21, 2021), 111.
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displays the power of the U.S. impact in Turkey. Libraries became one of the critical places where educational and cultural events were spread; book discussions, teaching and learning English, exhibitions were only a few activities among many insides of the American Library. A report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange published in 1950 highlights information regarding libraries in Ankara and Istanbul and states that magazine subscriptions were 369, book stocks were 7,468, and the number of readers annually 69,066.131 These numbers point out the same idea indicated by the above report. The diversity of books and the readers were sufficiently much in 1950, and these numbers gradually increased throughout the 1950s. Apart from this variety in the books, American Library presented other cultural activities as important and impressive. According to the news in the Turkish-American News, recorded concerts, youth activities, pocket books and library window exhibits were only a couple of new ones in American Library during the year of 1953.132 The activities of the American Library in Ankara were not mentioned by Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester. It is essential to state that when both women were in Ankara, the Fulbright Program and the American Library contributed to Ankara‘s cultural understanding. However, as stated earlier, Lucile Saunders and Elizabeth McNeill came to Ankara as working women. Simply, both women‘s jobs allowed them to notice specific characteristics as long as these features somehow appealed to them. Hence, it is possible to assume that they did not hear
131 This information comes from a report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange. To learn more, please look at International Educational and Technical Exchange in Fiscal Year-1950, Report, Secretariat of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange, June 30, 1950.
132 This information comes from Turkish-American News. To find out more details, please look at Turkish-American News, February 8, 1953.
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any news about the program or the Library because of their work environment.133 Although both writers did not talk about it, they would have come into contact with them and therefore they are important as setting the context of both women‘s stay and understanding of life in Ankara as American visitors. Yet, the American Library‘s activities were also regularly announced in the magazine of USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement. The announcements were mostly to take the attention of the people of Ankara so that many could go and experience the activity of the week and learn more about both cultures. To illustrate, one of the significant exhibits was the 150 Years of Turkish-American Relations. According to the news, ―more than 90.000 citizens of Ankara visited the exhibition, and it was co-sponsored by the Turkish-American Governments.‖134 Support directly came from the Turkish Ministry. The number of participants into these kinds of organizations demonstrates the power of the growing influence of American culture, which was prestigious and acknowledged. Another activity of the American Library was to introduce many different books almost every week for the readers so that these books were also a tool to help the mutual understanding between Americans and Turks. American Library in the magazine mentioned above states: Living abroad often sharpens your interest in your own country and its institutions. Have you read Max Lerner‘s American as a Civilization? These books gain points when read away from home. They are also useful when we answer the questions of Turks interested in our country.135
133 Please keep in mind that Lucile Saunders McDonald worked in Foreign Service, and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester came as the JAMMAT official.
134 USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, the week of November 5-11, 1959.
135 Ibid, week of October 22-28, 1959.
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This news was a direct invention for Americans living in Ankara, not only for them to be more aware of their country, but also it was an opportunity for them to communicate with the local ones. Moreover, in the other issue of the magazine, the purpose of the institution was pointed out by American Library: The books at the American Library are chosen to help tell America‘s story to the Turkish people. The library has a large stock of encyclopedias, indexes, handbooks, phone books, biographical and geographical dictionaries and specialized reference books of all kinds. Help us to advertise this service in Ankara. Tell your Turkish friends and associates about it.136 Apart from Americans who came through military and political programs like the JAMMAT, with the implementation of the Fulbright program, many Americans, especially young ones, started to go to Turkey for educational purposes. It made the American impact more evident in cultural and educational fields. Thereby, American Library found itself in a huge role in Turkish educational and cultural life. When the number of people involved in the mutual understanding increased, there had to be a supporter to keep this rise steady for the interaction. The American Library did exactly what was necessary for both sides. After all, culture became the primary tool abroad for the national interest of the United States, and these kinds of initiatives fulfilled the requirement of all countries which participated in mutual interest. 3.3. The Cultural Cold War for the Turkish Women and the Establishment of METU Lewis V. Thomas once indicates, ―not until the time of the Republic did American educational institutions in Turkey begin to attract large numbers of Moslem Turks.‖137 However, the American image in every Turkish social and cultural life
136 USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of November 12-18, 1959, please also look at the issue published in week of December 3-9, 1959.
137 Thomas and Frye, The United States and Turkey and Iran, 142.
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was constantly evolving and changing reality in the 1950s. Either American educational institutions or the Turkish educational system under the American style was one of the prominent influencers to create an attraction of the society. Therefore, with the change in education and the increase in literacy rate, a massive part of the society deeply affected, Turkish women. The 1950s were still a passing period for Turkish society from a traditional to a modern one. It is not possible to talk about a complete change where every woman was affected in the same way. The difference between rural and urban parts of Ankara was too big to be underestimated, and even Ankara itself had multiple contradictions about this transition. There were certain perceptions caught by Lucile Saunders regarding the traditional Turkish society—particularly in women—in Assignment in Ankara. The conversation between Norma Blake and her Turkish friend—Ahmed—who helped her rent an apartment from his grandfather manifests a significant fact about the Turkish women and a young man who had to live his life according to his grandfather. Ahmed explains, ―I must remain in Ankara for no better reason, I sometimes vow to baby-sit my aunt and my cousin when my uncle must absent himself from home on business matters.‖138 How Norma understood what he meant indicates in this way: The emancipation of Turkish women was largely a myth to his grandfather‘s generation. Since Ahmed‘s uncle would be away from his home for two weeks, his grandfather had ordered Ahmed to stay away from his classes at the university for that time and live with his aunt and cousin. Women could not be allowed to be completely alone with their servants Norma wondered what Ahmed‘s grandfather thought of the American girls who came to Turkey...139
138 McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 73.
139 Ibid, 73-4.
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Although the transition was tried to be managed in many areas, it was not indeed easy. The traditional family structure, differences between generations, obligations, and culture were not underestimated by foreigners according to the perception of an American girl. Lucile Saunders expressed, ―Turkish families certainly kept a tight rein on their young people,‖140 and all of these made the transformation difficult. Nevertheless, some people assisted the society in transforming itself handily rather than just the Americans. Türkkaya Ataöv asserts, ―even educational scholarships have generally been turned into a means of influencing young men and women who may be active in the political parties, and other organizations.‖141 Having mentioned about the other means which led more women to participate in working life, there were many pioneering professional women models such as Halide Edip Adıvar, Nermin Abadan, but also multiple foreigners who came to visit Ankara, especially journalists like Lucile Saunders McDonald. She indicates in her article in the Seattle Times, ―young men may join the navy to see the world. But today many young women from Washington State are demonstrating that they can enroll in the Foreign Service and attain the same goal.‖142 Therefore, there was a universal change in the understanding of female employees. As stated, the foreign missions were widely known, that multiple young women officials fulfilled this duty. Assignment in Ankara with its female and young character working in the embassy resulted from this process. Nermin Abadan, who was one of the Fulbright scholars in between 1952 and 1953, highlights the passing of traditional society by manifesting:
140 Ibid, 82.
141 Ataöv, NATO and Turkey, 154.
142 ―They‘ve Joined Foreign Service to See World,‖ The Seattle Times, March 30, 1958.
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A dedication to western ideas on behalf of a sincere progressive-minded ruling class, are still not enough to completely change the social structure of patriarchal, traditional society—even though that society was already in a stage of transition at the beginning of the national revolution.143 Turkey was intrinsically trying to shift itself from a traditional to contemporary society in the 1950s. Although Ankara was under the influence of the Americans slightly more than any other big city, it was not an exception. Selda Tuncer indicates, ―Ankara had a special role in the emergence of a modern national public culture.‖144 Therefore, the transition in the society and a change in the educational affairs had a cause-effect relationship and the Turkish women who were in this process reflected a transition in their position in public life as an outcome of this passing of traditional society. Halide Edip Adıvar asserts that the influence of America on Turkey leads it to imitate its education system and schools. As a result of this, it is an issue that will be the most vital and most affecting one for Turkey‘s future.145 When the author indicated this idea in 1955, she was openly aware that many of them were temporary and unstaid among American influences. Turkey‘s adaptation of the American way of education was too permanent, so its effects on the Turkish women were too. Nermin Abadan points out this significance by indicating, ―the change in the status and role of women certainly occupies an important place. This reveals itself not only in the appearance, dress, and extrovert attitudes of women but also in the permanent process of reorientation of value judgments.‖146 Hence, this reorientation strongly manifested itself in the movements of the Turkish women both by proving the
143 Nermin Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women (Ankara: Publication of the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Ankara, 1963), 7.
144 Tuncer, Women and Public Space in Turkey, 64.
145 Adıvar, Türkiye’de Şark, Garp ve Amerikan Tesirleri, (The Orient, The West and American Influences in Turkey), 304.
146 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 1.
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transition in the society and permanence of the change in education via culture. George S. Harris alleges: Attitudes and practices would always remain resistant to change. In this milieu, success of an American-sponsored endeavor could come only when able and devoted people were engaged in a long term effort, backed by a clearly formulated program that was accepted and understood by their Turkish counterparts.147 In this sense, many Turkish educators began to assist the Turkish people about this transition with their ideas; particularly with the Fulbright program‘s spread, many new ideas reflected themselves in the American style. However, the change had not come easily. When the American educational understanding over the Turkish educators started to gain speed, these educated people made a difference in the society. George McGhee remarked regarding the situation in 1953, so the headline was appeared in Turkish-American News: Cultural bonds between our countries are stronger today than ever before. Twenty-four Americans are now studying and teaching in Turkish universities under the Fulbright Educational Exchange Act. Forty-four Turkish scholars are teaching and studying in American universities under the same program. These, however, are only a small portion of more than 500 Turkish students who are in the U.S. either as a result of their own or their government‘s initiative.148 Throughout the 1950s, various people received Western-style education abroad, and when they came back to Turkey, they also brought an awareness with themselves. This awareness gradually displayed itself in educational understanding and new movements of the Turkish women as a cross-cultural awareness in the Turkish community. For instance, Lucile Saunders mentions a girl named ―Miss Randles‖ in her article and stated, ―she is assistant cultural-affairs official for all of Turkey. She works with the educational exchange program, is treasurer for the Fulbright
147 Harris, Troubled Alliance, 77.
148 ―McGhee Cites Turkey‘s Role as Free World Anchor,‖ Turkish-American News, January 11, 1953.
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Committee, and helps with the President‘s fund introducing American top-level cultural attractions into Turkey.‖149 This official was one of the women who worked in the Foreign Service, and Lucile Saunders tried to display how these foreign women were successful at their job and created a difference by being a pioneer. Later on, Miss Randles was asked to give a speech for a group of girls at Gazi Teacher Training College in Ankara. Therefore, whether a foreign woman or a Turkish one, the transformation to encourage more women to take place in academic and business life was universally expanded. Nermin Abadan points out, ―the accelerated change of Turkish society as well as the fact that in Turkish women who receive the education they are also permitted, indeed encouraged, to take jobs, a tendency toward a consistent modern style has developed.‖150 Undoubtedly, the participation of more women in the education world altered their ideas, and the first noticeable change about them began to be shown in their appearances. The aforementioned American impact on Turkish cinema, movie--entertainment life--demonstrated how effective it was on Turkish women. Moreover, when these women had a chance to receive an education or be in a literacy group, the transition became bigger. The example below manifests the recent differences in Turkish women during the 1950s: The grandmother is wearing low heel shoes and a scarf, the daughter with a bare head but no decollate, and the grand-daughter according to the latest issue of any American or European fashion magazine. In the capital, Ankara and Istanbul, Izmir, and even large cities such as Eskişehir, Bursa and Adana, one may see on the street more adherent to complete Western styles and behaviors, such as young couples pushing a pram in the most natural way.151 Daniel Lerner indicates:
149 ―They‘ve Joined Foreign Service to See World,‖ The Seattle Times, March 30, 1958.
150 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 7.
151 Ibid.
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The Traditional Turks are in the process of self-transformation. They are persons marked by aspirations for a future which will be better than the past, but they have not yet acquired a comprehensive set of new values to replace the old one.152 He had a point in his claim by stating the differences between the Traditional and Modern Turks and their changes. Even though there was no information about whether the stated women were traditionalist or modern in the given example, three generations of Turkish women signaled this transition with their appearances in the society. Moreover, in the previously mentioned example,153 the differences between generations were not only specific to the Turkish women. Many Turkish people displayed a tendency towards their tradition. Its power at a young age was very effective in a way that made it difficult for young ones to keep up with this transformation imposed by foreigners. Additionally, some traditionalist ideas and understandings were habituated by society, and it took time to change because they were powerful. They were applied to foreigners as well, so Leicester states, ―although Turkey was a Moslem country, Atatürk had modernized it into the point where women wore European clothes. But I was advised to be conservative when choosing my wardrobe.‖154 Mehmet Ö. Alkan indicates this process in the society by explaining that traditional values in the countryside were being eroded...This environment in which American culture was pumped was a complete confusion of values. Local culture and foreign culture showed themselves sharply in the 1950s more than in the history of Turkey.155
152 Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, 160.
153 Please see page 62, footnote 139.
154 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 32.
155 Mehmet Ö. Alkan, ―Soğuk Savaş‘ın Toplumsal, Kültürel ve Günlük Hayatı İnşa Edilirken,‖ 597.
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Year
Primary
Middle
Lycee
Vocational
University
1927-8
119,689
2,408
383
456
590
1944-5 616,737 24,127 5,830 19,096 4,188
1954-5
858,090
37,791
8,388
38,914
4,193
1960-1 1298,906 86,851 22,797 62,730 13,731
Figure 1. Number of Girl Students in Various Institutions.156 Education for Turkish girls and women had been started immediately with the foundation of the Republic, and the post-war period was the time when an actual increase happened. The table above points out that the 1950s were when the number of Turkish girls receiving an education increased. The number in the new decade also showed that the quick change in understanding of Turkish education affected the girls‘ participation in multiple institutions. It is apt to state that the number of enrollment in the universities resulted from the ongoing effects of various contributions in the field. The number had almost tripled in five years, and the activities of the American Library, the TAWOS, and the Fulbright program were only a couple of examples of effectiveness for this result. For instance, the TAWOS made their advertisements by stating that the Society had an activity of interest to everyone. These activities were various indeed, and groups were created for each of them, such as archeology, arts and crafts, book reviews, cooking and home entertainment, fashion, the language of English and Turkish, and music.157
156 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 12.
157 The Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Society organized these monthly luncheons, and announced weekly from multiple newspapers and magazines. Membership requirements were only to be either a Turkish or American citizen who were over eighteen years old. To find out more, please look at USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of October 8-14, 1959.
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The girls who participated in any of these activities became more aware of self-improvement because, as seen, the education given to women was perceived as classical "education" and provided an opportunity to increase women‘s learning and teaching abilities in many different fields. Therefore, it naturally gave rise to many of them to attend the next one, which mainly was higher education since the average age of these girls was over eighteen years. The TAWOS was not the only organization that offered these activities to the women; TAA was as significant as the previous one. TAA regularly presented the teaching classes in English and Turkish, especially to promote mutual understanding. In this context, Frank Andrews Stone claimed in 1958, ―the students desire to learn English and about life in the ‗West‘—American teachers are needed.‖158 Moreover, TAA regularly publishes news about a requirement of a teacher to teach English. Last year nearly three thousand Turkish adults regularly attended the English courses given by the TAA as part of its program devoted to fostering friendship and understanding between Turks and Americans through personal contact. Such interest and effort on the part of our Turkish allies deserves the best instruction possible, given by native speakers of English. Every American in Ankara is a potential teacher. Won‘t you help this great demand for English training by devoting a few hours a week to teaching?159
The number of participants attending these classes was relatively high, which shows the demand itself. Aside from the purpose of the Americans to teach English, it is understood how high the desire of the Turks to learn it was. Nermin Abadan asserts, “the teaching profession, the first career opened to Turkish women, is still a substantial field for women‟s professional activities.”160 Therefore, there had been
158 Frank Andrews Stone, ―Academies for Anatolia: A Study of the Rationale, Program and Impact of the Educational Institutions Sponsored by the American Board in Turkey: 1830-2005,‖ (San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press, 2006), 293.
159 USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, week of December 3-9, 1959.
160 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 16.
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various institutions that trained the Turkish girls to provide bilingual employees. Nermin Abadan mentions:
The establishment of a new commercial teacher training college (November 1955) which is particularly interested in promoting secretarial training for women. It is a cooperative enterprise of the Ministry of Education, the U.S. Technical Assistance Program, and, in the beginning, the Graduate School of Administration of New York University.161
It displays how much the cooperation between Turkey and the U.S. was powerful. While Turkish teachers were learning to teach English, many native Turkish speakers taught Turkish to the Americans. Turkish-American News remarks, “the Turkish-American Association in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor is conducting two weeks seminar on the techniques of teaching English, with emphasis on opportunity for practice…”162 One more example came from Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey. It highlights the reality of many Americans taking the Turkish classes during their time in Ankara. It states that the JAMMAT officials enrolled in the Turkish language class every day for thirty minutes.163 These foreign officials stayed on their duty for at least a year to learn the local language to communicate with the local ones. Sometimes, the reason was even given just for simple situations like taxi rides and shopping. Last but not least, the advancement in higher education and their missions over Turkish women took an important place amongst the various educational institutions. One stands as an example of the American impact on the Turkish educational system, which was the establishment of Middle East Technical University.
161 Ibid.
162 Turkish-American News, July 21, 1954.
163 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester also took the French course privately during her journey in Ankara; yet she did not provide anything about the context of each course.
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In the second half of the 1950s, Middle East Technical University (METU) was founded in 1956 in Ankara, and “unlike other Turkish universities, ODTU164 was to be patterned after American models.”165 Cangül Örnek refers, ―METU was thought to be a source of technical personnel educated in western standards. This was also a response to the complaints of the Americans about the lack of well-educated personnel.‖166 The deficiency of educated people in engineering and technical fields was one of the biggest problems of Turkey during the 1950s. When many existing technical staffs in Turkey were compared to the American personnel, the lack of
164 The Turkish version of Middle East Technical University is Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi or ODTÜ.
165 Behlül Üsdıken, ―Transferring American Models For Education in Business and Public Administration to Turkey, 1950-1970,‖ in American Turkish Encounters: Politics and Culture, 1830-1989, ed. Nur Bilge Criss, Selçuk Esenbel, Tony Greenwood and Louis Mazzari, (United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 322.
166 Kemal Karpat, ―Orta Dogu Teknik Universite ve Zaruri Bir Müdafaa,‖ (Middle East Technical University and An Obligatory Defense), Forum , 12, no. 136, 1959, 7-10. Please also look at Cangül Örnek, ―From Analysis to Policy,‖ 953.
Figure 2. “English lessons for Turks,” Turkish-American News, 1953.
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education and language manifested itself in the face of constant assistance from the United States. To provide this essential need, Nurettin Çalışkan indicates that when METU was founded, it was planned to be different from the tradition of institutionalized universities that existed until then. The basis of this difference was the financial-administrative structure of English education, the implementation of a complete American model from top to bottom in Turkey, including the curriculum, and even the management of passing the class.167 A news about METU found itself a place in the New York Times, which expressed the importance of Turkey‟s geographic location by stating that it was a pivotal country to spread the influence the Western ideas in 1958:
A school conceived as a scientific training ground for the entire Middle East must use an international language, it is said, and Turkish is not such a language. More important, it is maintained, knowledge of Western technology can be brought here only through some language of Western science.168
167 Nurettin Çalışkan, ODTÜ Tarihçe: 1956-1980 (History of METU: 1956-1980) (Ankara: Arayış Yayınları, 2002), 6.
168 ―Stassen Assists School in Turkey,‖ New York Times, December 8, 1958.
Figure 3. ―Turkish lessons for Americans,‖ Turkish-American News, 1953.
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Nermin Abadan highlights, “great importance for the future is the steady growth in the number of women students in various universities.”169 Therefore, it is apt to point out that when more universities started to be opened, more girl students continued with their education after finishing the lycée. A university degree began to be manifested as a change in the Turkish women‟s social status, which eventually became a critical factor in the transition of traditional society to a modern one. To illustrate, there were 182 members who worked as an academic staff between 1944-5, but this academic rank rose up to 295 in between 1954-5, and then doubled to 507 in the beginning of the 1960s.170 Undoubtedly, these numbers manifested more than expected. First of all, as Selda Tuncer manifests, “the number of women in public life increased noticeably with their growing participation in education and employment.”171 It presents that demand for education from the Turkish women constantly increased, and there were more women employees in educational fields, so the customary public life was changed. Secondly, a chance to receive an education and work were also given to these women, and that‟s how the role of women in Turkish society gradually started to alter.
3.4. Conclusion
At the end of the 1950s, according to the New York Times, “education in Turkey is about 100 years behind the United States in terms of methods and facilities, Dr. Burdell172 said, but we hope to catch up in five years.”173 Turkey had entered a new phase with the establishment of Middle East Technical University. The lack of trained people in engineering, administration, teaching, and architecture was
169 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 16.
170 Ibid, 17.
171 Tuncer, Women and Public Space in Turkey, 71.
172 According to the New York Times, Dr. Edwin S. Burdell was an American and the first president of the four-year old university, which was METU.
173 ―Mideast Technical University Is Making Progress in Turkey,‖ New York Times, June 19, 1960.
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resolved, the understanding of learning and teaching was changed. Most importantly, this university, established with the contributions of the U.S. and the United Nations, started to make a name for Turkey's education not only in the Middle East but also in the West. For instance, “the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has contributed $1,500,000 in support of the university. Dr. Burdell said, “if the project was successful, it might serve as a model for regional centers to help underdeveloped countries in other parts of the world.”174 Therefore, METU became a school that was not just a consequence of the alliance between Turkey and the U.S. Still, it also represented a future model for other countries in need.
Moreover, as the university became more well-known in the international arena, participation in the Fulbright scholarship increased. It caused more foreign students to come to Ankara, affecting life here in many ways. Turkish people's learning English had become widespread, and many institutions supported it, such as American Library, the TAA, and the Turkish-American Cultural Society.
The change, which came mainly with the American influence, gave many Turkish women an opportunity to participate in higher education. The establishment of modern sense universities with the impact of the Fulbright helped them to widen their perspectives. The Turkish women started to speak a foreign language, get an education abroad, and work in many fields as men did in the changing society. Nermin Abadan points out:
This highly idealized and roughly sketched portrait of the Turkish women will certainly not completely fit in with the standard of tomorrow. But some of its ingredients might still survive in more modern society. This essence might help the Turkish women of tomorrow to face the new problems and tasks of the future.175
174 Ibid.
175 Abadan, Social Change and Turkish Women, 36.
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As the 1950s were a transition period, the Turkish women did their best to fit in with this change and promote the transition. As a result of all these transformations, the 1950s displayed itself as a decade that altered the understanding of Ankara‟s social and cultural life in a more modern way. Selda Tuncer points out, “men and women could come together in modern forms of dress to socialise and be entertained while cultivating their new identities and practicing „civilised‟ public demeanour.”176 After all, there was a total progression in womanhood, so it meant a total advancement in Turkish society.
It is apt to conclude that Joseph S. Nye remarks, “power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes you want. One can affect others‟ behavior in three main ways: threats of coercion, inducements, and payments, and attraction that makes others want what you want.”177 According to this statement, the United States‟ Cold War public diplomacy on Turkey, was mainly about to draw attention via its cultural appeal throughout the 1950s. The exchange programs, boosting English teaching, opening offices with many activities, and setting up example universities were part of this process. Hence, the U.S. cultural diplomacy can be considered as “soft power,” defined as “it is not merely influenced, though it is one source of influence.”178 Even though all transformations as mentioned earlier in the city of Ankara were not entirely the result of this influence, it was closely associated with it. Lucile Saunders McDonald expresses:
Turkey was an important part of the world in hopes for peace...American worries over „leaks‟ of confidential information to powers that might threaten
176 Tuncer, Women and Public Space in Turkey, 69-70.
177 Joseph S. Nye ―Public Diplomacy and Soft Power,‖ The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, no. 1 (March 2008): 94.
178 Ibid, 95.
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that peace was insistent and real...Ankara, despite the mud and constant construction, was a city of color and vitality.179
Thus, firstly, the U.S. influence on the side of progress came to Turkey due to the Cold War concerns through political diplomacy like the Marshall Plan, which was the second way in Joseph S. Nye‟s explanation to affect the others. However, this way turned out to be the diplomacy that became more vital to convince the people and keep the world order as America wanted. So it became the people's diplomacy, which influenced the Turkish people in many areas. Ankara went under intense transformation with the assistance of the U.S. impact in the 1950s, and Lucile Saunders observed why and how Ankara took an important place for this diplomacy.
179 McDonald and Ross, Assignment in Ankara, 123-4.
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
―Remain yourselves, but learn how to take from the West what is indispensable to an evolved people. Admit science and new ideas into your lives. If you don’t, they will devour you.‖180
John Correia-Afonso states:
Tales of travel can provide not only most delightful and entertaining reading, but also precious material for history. The observations and opinions of the travelers of long ago are for the intelligent a voyage not only through time and space, but through ideas as well.181
According to this statement, the travel books consist of the writer's perception. This perception is also impressed by many variables such as character, job, and background. Therefore, when Leicester came to Turkey at the end of 1949, she came as a government official by the JAMMAT, and her purpose was not to travel to Ankara intentionally. One must keep in mind that the first impression she had about Ankara was unfavorable, yet she continued to provide and criticize many details from her perspective. Hence, when she began to write her experiences and
180 Elizabeth McNeill Leicester, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, 55.
181 John Correia-Afonso, ―The Traveller as Historian,‖ 90.
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observations about Ankara in Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, it became a work whose historical side was more than one expected. Her opinions, especially towards the Turkish women, and Ankara‘s architectural features provided a historical observation of the period in Turkish society in many senses. Firstly, Leicester presented us how much her background affected the judgments she made in the face of cultural differences in Ankara. She found Ankara as a barren country, and she stated that everything within sight was gray and somber.182 Because she was from America, she might have gotten used to a city with skyscraper, and wide and clean roads. This observation teaches us the first impression which Ankara left over foreigners as a newly developing capital in a changing world. Even though Ankara tried to be shown as a city under heavy modernist transformation in the early years of 1950s, the observations she made proved the opposite. Secondly, Leicester appeared as a working woman in foreign lands, and she found out that the discrepancies between her and the Turkish women in society were so different. The treatment towards women, the dress code and rules that only applied to women made her question the fact of modernization in Ankara. Therefore, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey introduces us the reality of Ankara in 1950 with a perspective that describes its negative and shortcomings.
Likewise, Lucile Saunders McDonald wrote Assignment in Ankara as a fiction book based on actual observations of the author in 1958. Unlike the previous one, the writer wanted to travel to Ankara after her assignment in Istanbul ended in 1930, so she tended to express her observations as they were, instead of criticizing them. Her fictional character—Norma Blake—arrived in Ankara as a junior ambassador who worked in the Foreign Service. Lucile Saunders presented her character as a person
182 To find out more, please check page 34.
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who became more aware of why Ankara was necessary for the U.S. throughout the book. She provided many vital details about stereotypes of Ankara over Turkish people she met. She offered Ankara as a city where modernization was actually happening and many Americans were living and working; girls she met could speak English, the organizations like TAA, and the USIA were contributing the mutual understanding in Ankara. She accepted the cultural differences between Turkish and American societies, and was wise enough not to criticize them, but settled for them during her stay.
Therefore, a simple conclusion can be drawn that a detailed analysis of the alliance between Turkey and the U.S. by the perspectives of two American working women provided various cultural aspects of the American impact in Ankara during the 1950s. The most significant aspects were the fact that two women‘s background and jobs because these aspects made them categorize their observations unconditionally. Therefore, apart from providing geographical and architectural details of Ankara, both women tended to observe Turkish of women, language classes, and the role of the U.S. in Turkish society. Additionally, specific differences in the Turkish society like social relations between men and women and both women presented notes on how much Atatürk worked for the development and westernization of Ankara. All of them contributed the historical understanding of Ankara in many senses because each observation of the traveler was various according to the travelers‘ perception. Working women presented in both accounts, so Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester closely observed the different statuses of Turkish women. The women they observed usually were from their work environment, and their observations about them brought the social and cultural differences in society. As stated previously, it shows that the identity and background of the foreigner—the
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writers—influenced which areas to observe. Moreover, the common ground of both accounts was to mention the most famous restaurant of the time, Karpiç Restaurant. This restaurant became a critical point in both authors‘ observations because it represented the level of westernization in Ankara by looking at its design and food and a few places where women could socialize relatively freely.
It is apt to state that among these focuses, a passing of traditional society to a modern one and the changing role of women are highly analyzed in every chapter. Both Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester‘s observant character and retentive memory enabled them to write elaborate books about these subjects. With the increase in mutual understanding between Turkey and the U.S., women became the most affected part of society. Because two working American women observed the change and difference in Turkish women‘s status, a new perception came into the light thanks to these accounts. It manifests the changing role of women both in domestic and community life. Women appeared as someone who could go and live in a foreign land, speak another language, and represent their country, as both authors did. Furthermore, all mentioned changes pointed out the transition in society, which mainly came in the 1950s, and with the assistance supplied by the U.S., and all brought two cultures closer to each other during this period.
In conclusion, simply, the U.S.‘s public diplomacy was efficiently implemented in Ankara. There was not a single area that was not affected by this diplomacy, and the entertainment sector, education, and gender were a few of these areas. The U.S.‘s cultural diplomacy did not directly intend to create this transformation in Turkish society. However, Ankara became a representative of modernization, and it was constantly under change, so this diplomacy assisted the changing side of Ankara.
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Notably, those personal and diplomatic visitations, establishment of many institutions influenced by American style were the example of changing side in Ankara. In a sense, Memories of 1950 in Ankara, Turkey, and Assignment in Ankara were truly the result of this diplomacy, and when both women came to Ankara under government-sponsored jobs, they discovered the importance of Ankara for the U.S.‘s foreign affairs. Aside from their observations in society, it was stated at the beginning how important both women‘s work was in developing correlation under the conditions of the Cold War. Therefore, the U.S. influence on the side of progress played a major role in the cultural life of Ankara; periodicals such as the Turkish-American News and USIS Bulletin Ankara Activities Supplement, foundations such as the Turkish-American Association and the Turkish-American Women‘s Cultural Society, and Middle East Technical University appeared as a consequence of the mutual interest between Turkey and the U.S. That is why all of them are primarily used to build a comprehensive understanding in this thesis. Lastly, Lucile Saunders McDonald and Elizabeth McNeill Leicester‘s books must be seen as primary works that observed Ankara‘s cultural and social life with minor yet critical details. Acquiring the new perspectives from these accounts about the cultural transformation of Ankara in the context of alliance between Turkey and the U.S. during the 1950s was also a micro detail of the big picture, yet influential indeed.
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
LIST OF FIGURES
1. Number of Girl Students in Various Institutions……………………….67
2. English Lessons for Turks………………………………………………70
3. Turkish Lessons for Americans…………………………………………71