Transatlantic Connections in the Making of a Socialist–Feminist Framework for Social Welfare in Turkey

Abstract

Sabiha Zekeriya Sertel (1895–1968) was one of Turkey’s most prominent advocates for the rights of children, women, the working class, and the poor. This article focuses on her training in community organizing at the New York School of Social Work in the early 1920s and her subsequent shift to social realist journalism and political advocacy in Turkey. Sertel’s biography offers evidence of transatlantic connections during the early years of professionalization and an early critique of liberal paradigms for addressing social welfare in the United States and Turkey.