Whose Struggle? Armenian Socialist Parties and the Women Workers’ Union in Adapazarı during the Second Constitutional Period

Abstract

In this article, we examine the labor activism and struggle of Armenian women working in the silk industry around Adapazarı, to the east of Istanbul, in the early 1910s. Although labor activism in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution of 1908 has received ample attention of scholars, these women and their struggle remained un(der)examined. We focus on how these female workers organized and in particular on the Adapazarı Silk Workers’ Union (in Armenian: Adapazarı Medaksi Kordzaworagan Miutiwn ) and its relations with the (male dominated) Armenian socialist activist organizations of the period. As such, it contextualizes these women’s activism within the broader social activism of post-revolutionary Ottoman society. We show that these women not only stood up against the factory owners but, at times, also against Armenian socialists from whom they on the one hand received support but who, on the other hand, tried to control them by denying them autonomy. The article sits at the crossroad of social, labor and women’s history and the history of one of the larger ethno-religious communities in the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians. Using Armenian- and French-language sources, it significantly expands our knowledge about a hitherto ignored group of women workers and their activism in the late Ottoman Empire. Moreover, as the workers, socialist activists, and factory owners were mainly Armenians, the article also enhances our knowledge on labor activism and revolutionary politics within the Armenian community and how these were located within the broader society of the late Ottoman Empire.