Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

Fieldwork Announcement - Florida

If you are located in Florida and you are a descendant of migrants from Asia Minor, eastern Thrace or the islands of Imbros, Tenedos or those in the Sea of Marmara please contact us to schedule an interview.

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 1

Our first two interviews in Eastern Pennsylvania remind us of the restrictionist nature of US immigration laws.

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 2

Hidden between the folds of fabric covering the Statue of Liberty is a very different call than the one offered by Emma Lazarus's The New Colussus.

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 3

Like on Day 2, Marseille loomed large as a site of onward migration on Day 3 of interviews in eastern Pennsylvania.

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 4

On Day 4, the destruction of the city of Smyrna in September 1922 resulted in the expulsion of a family of four from Çeşme to Mytiline.

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 5

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 6

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 7

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 8

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 9

Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 10

Remembering 1922 - A Twelve-part Video Series Commemorating the Migration of Ottoman Greeks to the US

Over the course of twelve episodes, researchers of the OGUS project present the unique migration experiences of Ottoman Greeks to the US in a series of online videos entitled, Remembering 1922: Twelve Memories of Migration from the Late Ottoman Empire to the US. The videos present a variety of migration experiences between 1907-1924, from economic migration during periods of relative peace and stability, to refugeedom, to transnational migration and return migration.

Seven Cities, Seven Stories: Community, Labor, Experience of Immigrants from the Former Ottoman Empire

Seven Cities, Seven Stories: Community, Labor, Experience of Immigrants from the Former Ottoman Empire is a seven-part online public program series presented through Spark. The series highlights the experiences of Ottoman Greek migrants in the United States during the early 20th century. This series is the result of a collaboration between Drs. Denise Matthews and Yiorgo Topalidis.

Fieldwork Trip to Texas

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the friends we made during our visit to Texas. In fourteen days, we traveled 1023 miles, visited four cities, and had the honor of interviewing 26 sets of descendants of migrants from the late Ottoman Empire who donated a total of 263 artifacts to the OGUS archive.

Tracing Immigration from the Late Ottoman Empire to the U.S.

Return to Smyrna: Transnationalism and Citizenship in a Time of Social Collapse

The Acropolis and the Madonna: A Case Study of Refugee Deportation

The Ottoman Greeks of the United States project (OGUS) is a multifaceted endeavor to preserve and promote the history of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States. The OGUS project focuses on the chronological period of 1904 – 1924 in order to illuminate the peak in immigration from specific regions of the Ottoman Empire to the United States during that time. Those regions were Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, Imbros, Tenedos, the Marmara and Princes’ Islands.