THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (1888-1914) PINAR SÜT İSTANBUL ŞEHİR UNIVERSITY AUGUST 2014 THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (1888-1914) PINAR SÜT İSTANBUL ŞEHİR UNIVERSITY AUGUST 2014 THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (1888-1914) A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF ISTANBUL ŞEHİR UNIVERSITY BY PINAR SÜT IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY AUGUST 2014 ABSTRACT THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (1888-1914) SÜT, Pınar MA, Department of History Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Abdulhamit Kırmızı August 2014, 125 pages This thesis focuses on the working conditions of the Anatolian Railway Company employees within the framework of political conjuncture and from a labor perspective in the period between 1888 and 1914, in the Ottoman Empire. It relies on primary and secondary sources to examine the working conditions, the establishment of the labor organization and the challenges it faced, protests and strikes, and the issue of reconciliation between the state and workers. The central goal of the thesis is the discussion the working conditions of the railway workers including such exceptional situations as contagious diseases and incidences regarding the abduction of workers, and the negative effect of these conditions on work life. The characteristics and the importance of the workplace, the political conjuncture, and the labor policy of the government should be considered as interactive forces when examining working life. Another issue addressed in this thesis is the main motive of the government in preparing the Strike Law of 1909, which was an antistrike legislation was the strike of the Anatolian railway employees in 1908. The organizational power of the railway employees and its effects on other workers in other sectors need to be considered regarding the importance the government distributed to the railway employees’ strike. One of the main assertions of this thesis is the need to write Ottoman history from a bottom up perspective and from the viewpoint of workers. Thus this study sheds light on not only the international and domestic political situation and conjuncture, but also the lives of the railway workers in order to make up for the long negligence of researchers and historians in this regard so far. This study aims of making a contribution to the efforts to fill the gap that currently exists regarding the history of the Ottoman railways and Ottoman labor history. Keywords: Ottoman Labor History, Anatolian Railway Employees, Working Life in the Late Ottoman Period. iii ÖZ ANADOLU DEMİRYOLU ÇALIŞANLARI (1888-1914) SÜT, Pınar MA, Tarih Bölümü Tez Danışmanı: Doç. Dr. Abdulhamit Kırmızı Ağustos 2014, 125 sayfa Bu tez Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda 1888 ve 1914 yılları arasında Anadolu demiryolu işçilerinin siyasi konjonktür çerçevesinde ve emek perspektifinden çalışma hayatlarına odaklanmaktadır. Çalışma hayatı ile ilgili verileri, emek örgütünün kurulması ve karşılaştığı zorluklar, protesto ve grevler ve işçiler ve devlet arasındaki uzlaşmayı incelemek için birinci ve ikincil el kaynaklara dayanmaktadır. Temel hedef, demiryolu işçilerinin çalışma koşullarını, işçilerin karşılaştığı salgın hastalıklar ve adam kaçırma gibi olağanüstü durumları ve bunların çalışma hayatı üzerindeki olumsuz etkisini vurgulayarak tartışmaktır. Çalışma hayatı incelenirken iş yerinin özellikleri ve önemi, siyasi konjonktür ve devletin emek politikaları birbirini etkileyen güçler olarak düşünülmelidir. Bu tezde ele alınan konulardan biri de hükümetin, grev karşıtı kanun olan Tatil-i Eşgal Kanununun (1909) hazırlamasının temel saiği Anadolu demiryolu çalışanlarının 1908’de yaptığı grevdir. Demiryolu çalışanlarının örgütlenme gücü ve bunun diğer sektörlerdeki işçilere etkisi hükümetin demiryolu işçilerinin grevine verdiği önemle düşünülmelidir. Bu tezin temel iddialarından biri Osmanlı tarihini aşağıdan yukarı perspektifi ile ve işçilerin bakış açısından yazmaktır. Bu yüzden bu çalışma, sadece uluslararası ve yerel politik durum ve konjonktüre değil, aynı zamanda bu zamana kadar araştırmacılar ve tarihçilerin uzun süreli ihmalini telafi etmek için demiryolu işçilerinin çalışma hayatına ışık tutmaktadır. Bu çalışma, Osmanlı demiryolları tarihi ve Osmanlı emek tarihi ile ilgili mevcut boşluğun doldurulmasına yardımcı olmak amacındadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Osmanlı Emek Tarihi, Anadolu Demiryolu Çalışanları, Geç Dönem Osmanlı Çalışma Hayatı. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my thanks to my family for always supporting me and helping me to concentrate on my studies. I am also thankful to my friends Fatih Karlıoğlu, Yeliz Ağtaş, Emine Karabulut, Fatma Türkoğlu, and Esra Eren who were always with me whatever the circumstances were. I have to express my special thanks to my thesis advisor Assoc. Prof. Abdülhamit Kırmızı for his support for this thesis. I also would like to thank Prof. Dr. Engin Deniz Akarlı for his guidance. He helped me to become more analytical with his critical contributions along with editing the English of this thesis. Moreover, I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Coşkun Çakır for his encouragement of my study of labor history. I also would like to thank to Rana Marcella Özenç and David Reed Albachten from the Academic Writing Center and Yakoob Ahmed for their great help in editing the language of this study. I am also grateful to the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), National Directorship of Supporting Program of Scientists (BIDEB). Its financial support made this study possible. Finally, I would like thank to the staff of Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives in Istanbul. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ………………………………………………………………………...….iii Öz………………………………………………………………………………......iv Acknowledgements………….……………………………………………………...v Table of Contents………………………………………………………………......vi List of Tables……………………………………………………………………..viii List of Figures and Maps…………………………………………………...……...ix Abbreviations Used in Footnotes..............................................................................x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................1 2. A GLANCE AT LABOR HISTORIOGRAPHY.................................5 2.1. Theoretical Advances in Historiography………..…..…….……….…5 2.2. A Concise Background of Labor History...……..……………………7 2.2.1. Labor History in the Western World ………….……....……..8 2.2.2. Labor History in studies on late the Ottoman and Republican Period…………………………….……………………………………….10 2.3. Global Labor History……….…………………………………….…15 2.4. The Possibility of the Adaptation of Transnational Approach to Ottoman History Studies. .…………………………………………………...20 2.5. Conclusion…………………………………………………….....…..23 3. ANATOLIAN RAILWAYS: THE COMPANY, LINES, AND THE OUTCOMES OF THE INVESTMENTS…………….……………….….….26 3.1. The Development of Railways in the World…………….…….…......27 3.2. The Development of Railways Built in the Ottoman Empire.…….....28 3.2.1. Why the Ottoman Empire?.......................................................28 3.2.2. Railway Investments in the Ottoman Empire…..………….…29 3.3. The New Period in the Railway Age………………………………....33 3.3.1. The Anatolian Railway Company and the Construction Process………………………………………………………………….....34 3.3.2. The New Period with Deutsche Bank.……….………..….…..37 3.3.3. Izmit-Adapazarı Line…………………………….………...…38 vi 3.3.4. The Extension of Anatolian Railways …………….………..38 3.3.5. Eskişehir-Konya Line ……………………………………….40 3.4. The Outcome of Investments……...………………….…………........43 3.5. Conclusion…………………………………………….…………...…47 4. THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES……………………...….….49 4.1. Terminological Complexity…………………………………….....…49 4.2. Some Examples from Arhangelos regarding the Working Life …….50 4.3. The Composition of Labor Force in the Company………...…...……52 4.4. Working with an Epidemic of Cholera…………………...……….....58 4.5. The Organization of the Employees and the Great Strike of the Employees…………………………………………………………………....61 4.6. The Fraternity Union of the Ottoman Anatolian Railway Employees (Anadolu Osmanlı Demiryolları Memurin ve Müstahdemin Cemiyet-i Uhuvvetkarisi )……………………………………………………………….62 4.7. The Great Strike of the Railway Employees…….…………….……..71 4.8. Conclusion…………......…………………………...………….….....78 5. CONCLUSION…….…………………………....…………………….….….80 APPENDICES ……………………………………………………..….….....86 A. Official Text of the Union Regulations (in Ottoman Turkish and French with modern Turkish transliteration)…………………………………..…....86 B. Photographs of the Anatolian railways and workers……………..……..116 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………….....120 vii