The Ones in-Between and Building a Port City: Traders and Changing Perception of İzmir in the Long-19th Century

Social relations between Turkish dignitaries and European elites—and their extended networks—shaped the physical and cultural development of İzmir throughout the long nineteenth century. The hospitable bureaucratic settings of the multinational, multiethnic and multireligious Ottoman Empire, complemented by the 1838 Treaty of Baltalimanı between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain, broadened European merchants’ access to the Ottoman market. Its impact soon appeared in the expanding overseas trade of Ottoman traders of European descent—such as the Girauds and the Whittals—whose exports grew substantially. Their ‘Orientalist Carpet Manufacturers’ played a central role, promoting the ‘Smyrna Carpet’ and branding the city with an image of wealth and vitality through illustrated catalogues and postcards. Travel writing reinforced this portrayal; Murray’s handbooks, for example, praised local life: “How different are now my feelings towards the Turks… I have found truth, honesty, and kindness.” These deepening personal and commercial ties attracted growing interest from travelers and European migrants, including the extended families of established merchants. Among them were the Guiffrays, related to the French Giraud family and the Dussaud Brothers—renowned builders of nineteenth-century industrial ports. The Guiffrays immigrated to Izmir and were responsible for running the tramline linking the new İzmir–Aydın Railway with the industrial port. Through a micro-historical study of interconnected merchant families combined with analyses of Orientalist accounts, the writings of Mark Twain and Hans Christian Andersen, Goad insurance maps, and diaries of Gertrude Bell and Ray Turrel, a granddaughter of the Giraud Family—this paper examines how actors with “in-between” status shaped İzmir’s port-city development. It highlights their role in forming new residential quarters and in producing urban imaginaries that circulated through cultural products. By tracing the knowledge-transfer mechanisms (i.e., space, representation, practice) these elite trading families facilitated as they navigated local bureaucracies, global trade networks, and the itineraries of travelers and writers, the article foregrounds the crucial contributions of non-architects and their capacity to utilise their knowledge and mobilise resources in both site-specific development and the city’s broader urban culture.