Abstract:

This article focuses on the education of the children at Hereke Factory during the turbulent years from the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) through World War I (1914-1918) up to the seizure of the factory by the British in 1918. This article investigates the schooling system at the factory, including both formal and vocational education, and its relationship to those of other workhouses supported by philanthropy within the empire. Charitable and philanthropic institutions within the Ottoman socio-political system provided for the employment of widows and orphans who had lost relatives in the Balkan Wars and World War I. In this philanthropic network, Hereke Imperial Factory, as an institution to create funds to help orphans and widows, became a model of vocational education for needy in general education system. Later, the factory became a center at the target of nationalist-religious philanthropic discourses.

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