Building Missionary-Philanthropic Educational Networks: A Medical School for Women in Constantinople

The American College for Girls in Constantinople has been credited with playing a significant role in Turkish women’s emancipation and the feminist movement. From its humble origins in a small overseas mission, the institution evolved by 1914 into a U.S.-style college with a campus sponsored by leading American philanthropists. The designs were intended to impress visitors and to control the women students’ bodies, and, as such, were contested by the women at the helm of the institution. By examining the correspondence among various actors involved in the project, as well as the architects’ drawings, this article traces the building process of the campus with a focus on its lesser-known and unrealized medical school. It argues that the building process helped the American women educators of the ACG to establish an educational network that offered them opportunities unavailable to them in the United States.