Creating the ‘New Woman’ in Early Republican Turkey: The Contributions of the American Collegiate Institute and the American College for Girls

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which two American schools, the American College for Girls and the American Collegiate Institute, contributed to the development of the early Turkish republic's ideal of the ‘new’ Turkish woman. Kemalist rhetoric exhorted women to serve the nation as educated women while fulfilling their traditional roles as wives and mothers. This article first describes the founding and early development of the two American schools and then discusses how the changes in their goals, curricula, and extracurricular activities both supported and transcended the Kemalist Westernizing project.