Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

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.

Archival Collections

There are four archival components that are all currently held by the project’s founder, George Topalidis. The first archival component is an oral history archive that currently contains over 100 interviews. Next is a photograph archive that currently contains over 50,000 images. This information will be used to generate academic publications and presentations, social media publications and presentations, blog articles, op-eds, podcasts, documentaries. Please visit the OGUS Archive by clicking here (opens in new tab).

Ongoing Research

Our next research trip will be scheduled in May of 2022. Visit page for further information.

Ottoman Greeks of the United States Events and Research News

Presentations: 

Topalidis, George. Mapping Heritage: Identity Label Negotiation Through Space And Time, at the Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Kapodistrian University – Athens, Greece (Postponed – TBD). 

Topalidis, George. Residential Discrimination against Southeast Europeans in the early 20th century, at the Southern Sociological Society’s annual conference (Postponed – TBD). 

Matthews, Denise. 2019. Invisible Differences: Children of Ottoman Greek Immigrants in the US, Modern Greek Studies Association Conference. 

Topalidis, George. 2019. The Impact of Space and Time on Identity Claims of Immigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the U.S. between 1904 – 1923. Modern Greek Studies Association Conference. 

Publications: 

Topalidis, George. The Impact of Space and Time on Identity Claims of Immigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the U.S. between 1904 – 1923.               Journal of Historical Sociology (Under Review)

Topalidis, George. 2017. Expulsion of Refugees has Historic Parallels. Gainesville Sun.

• California, 2017
  In 1904 immigrants from the island of Marmara established the first mutual aid organization from the Ottoman Empire in the United States. It was established in Los Angeles, California and was named The Marmarinon Benevolent Society of Afthoni. It was officially incorporated in 1909. According to Dr. Jim Dimitriou, “There was a big Marmarinon organization ...
• Connecticut, 2017
  Update in progress Read more "Connecticut, 2017"
• Florida, 2016 – present
  Update in progress Read more "Florida, 2016 – present"
• Massachusetts, 2015, 2017
  Update in progress Read more "Massachusetts, 2015, 2017"
• Fieldwork Announcement – eastern Pennsylvania May 10 – 19, 2023
  Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis will visit communities in eastern Pennsylvania between 10 – 19, 2023 to conduct interviews with 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. Interview Scheduling Read more "Fieldwork Announcement – eastern Pennsylvania May 10 ...
• 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. Interview Scheduling Read more "Fieldwork Announcement – Florida"
• Michigan, 2017
  From left to right, these three refugee children from Buca (pronounced Bu-ja), Turkey, a town southeast of Smyrna (modern Izmir), are Irene Sklavou, Efstratia Hatziathanasiou, and Emanuel Sklavos, their brother Thanasis is not present. In an interview, her daughter Anna asked Irene to tell her story, to which Irene replied, “I will tell you my ...
• Fieldwork Texas, May 2022
  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 ...
• SPOHP’s OGUS project is cohosting a one-day virtual conference on September 10 titled, Assessing the Ethnic Groups of the Late Ottoman Empire through a Decolonial Lens 1900 -1922. The link for the event can be found here. Read more ""
• New York, 2017
  Update in progress Read more "New York, 2017"
• Oregon, 2018
  This past May I visited the Pacific Northwest to conduct interviews with descendants of immigrants from the former Ottoman Empire. During the next few weeks and months, I will share some of my findings. I would like to begin by introducing a new addition to the collection of documents which are a part of the ...
• Pennsylvania, 2023
  Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 1 Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 2 Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 3 Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 4 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 Read more "Pennsylvania, 2023"
• Texas, 2022
  Update in progress Read more "Texas, 2022"
• Tracing Immigration from the Late Ottoman Empire to the US.
      Social network analysis provides methods for visualizing social networks that allow for a deeper understanding of relationships between individuals and groups. This visualization represents the immigration patterns of 456 Greek and Ottoman Greek immigrants who immigrated to the US from the former Ottoman Empire between 1900 – 1924. This data set was collected from the ...
• Utah, 2016
  Update in progress Read more "Utah, 2016"
• Virginia, 2016.
  Update in progress Read more "Virginia, 2016."
• Return to Smyrna: Transnationalism and Citizenship in a Time of Social Collapse
  On September 13, 1922, a great fire erupted in the Armenian neighborhood of the city of Smyrna — modern Izmir — Turkey. The city’s inhabitants fled their homes in a panic and made their way to the city’s quay. There they awaited passage out of the city without any guarantee of its arrival. The stories ...
• Washington, 2018.
  Update in progress Read more "Washington, 2018."
• The Acropolis and the Madonna: A Case Study of Refugee Deportation
  The displacement of Syrian refugees to European shores over the past five years has led US public opinion to revisit themes from the academic discourse about immigration. Isolationism, nativism, and restrictionism permeate modern public opinion and in the process transport its audience through a time warp to the early-twentieth century. These themes reverberate in the ...

Ottoman Greeks of the United States (OGUS): The Acropolis and the Madonna – A Case Study of Refugee Deportation from the United States

This is our first podcast in the Ottoman Greeks of the United States (1904-1924) podcast series. It tells the story of the S.S. Acropolis, a ship that transferred Armenian and Greek refugees from the city of Smyrna to Ellis Island in the winter of 1922. Modern Syrian refugees are experiencing similar trials and tribulations as the Armenian and Greek refugees from Smyrna. This podcast highlights those similarities. It transports its listeners back to the early 20th century, and weaves together newspaper accounts of the Smyrna refugees’ story with recollections of descendants of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire.

Contact the Ottoman Greeks of the United States Project

• George Topalidis

If you or anyone you know would like to be interviewed, please contact OGUS coordinators at ogus0424@gmail.com (opens in new tab).

Follow the Ottoman Greeks of the US Project on Facebook here. (opens in new tab) Above photo from NYC Public Library, <Ethnikos Kēryx<, “Oi Ellēnes tēs Amerikēs Enischyontes to Ethnikon Komma,” October 17, 1916.