Series VII: Financial Records, 1899-1946
While this series essentially covers financial matters, it is in the form of correspondence that includes discussion of the reasons for property acquisition, new buildings, supplies, and other expenditures. It is therefore of interest apart from strictly monetary concerns.
There are a number of letters from Mary Mills Patrick and William W. Peet that discuss the 1905 fire at the Uskudar campus as well as the move from Uskudar to Arnavutköy. In one letter, dated July 31, 1911, Peet refers to a major event outside the campus. On the anniversary of the proclamation of the Turkish Constitution, July 22, two large fires broke out in Istanbul that destroyed no less than 10,000 houses and rendered 50,000-60,000 homeless. The suspicion exists, Peet reports, "that the fires are the work of incendiaries and that it is one form of reactionary protest against the present government." As a precaution, the college hired a night watchman.
Mary Patrick reports on developments at the college and also on her fundraising efforts in the United States. After her retirement in 1924, the correspondence in this series tends to deal more exclusively with financial matters. There are some useful summary documents; e.g., the construction costs of each building on the Arnavutkoy campus as of its completion in 1915 (Lucius E. Thayer correspondence to Leolin H. Keeney, June 24,1932, Box 32, Folder 16).
The records of the 1930s and the World War II era document the financial difficulties involved in operating the college during the Great Depression and the wartime years. Shortly after World War II, there is a report on the college, dated May 10,1947, by President Floyd Black on his return to the campus after a four-month absence in the U.S. (Box 32, Folder 25a).
Another document worth noting is in the file of Business Manager A. W. Sellar. It is a six-page "History of the Musurus Palace at Arnavutköy", which was built in the early nineteenth century on the site that later became part of the ACG campus. The document is dated August 7,1929 (Box 32, Folder 25c).
Box 32 Folder 1-5
General correspondence to Day, treasurer, 1899-1906
Box 32 Folder 6
General correspondence to Rutan, treasurer, 1905-1911
Box 32 Folder 7
Correspondence to George Adams, treasurer, from Patrick, 1910-1914
Box 32 Folder 8
General correspondence to Murray, 1914-1919
Box 32 Folder 9
Notes for informal report made by Haskell, 1922
Box 32 Folder 10
Correspondence to Olmstead from Bernetta Miller, bursar, 1926-1929
Box 32 Folder 11
Correspondence to Leolin H. Keeney, treasurer, from Adams, 1926
Box 32 Folder 12-15
Correspondence between Keeney and Miller, 1927-1930
Box 32 Folder 16-19
General correspondence to Keeney, 1932-l939
Box 32 Folder 20
Correspondence to Harlan Conn, bursar, from Staub, 1925
Box 32 Folder 21-25
General correspondence to Staub re financial matters, 1927-1939
Box 32 Folder 25a
Correspondence to Staub from Burns and Floyd Black, 1940-1946
Box 32 Folder 25b
Correspondence to Staub from A.W. Sellar, business manager, 1928
Box 32 Folder 25c
Correspondence to Adams from Sellar, 1929
Box 32 Folder 26
General correspondence to Elbert C. Stevens, business manager-grounds and buildings,, 1930-1933
Box 32 Folder 27
General correspondence re finances American Service Funds, 1934-1935
Box 32 Folder 28
General correspondence re salaries in depression years at ACG and RC,, 1932-1936
Box 32 Folder 29
Correspondence to Staub from Herman Kreider, bursar, 1940-1944
Box 32 Folder 30
Correspondence to Kreider and Francis Potts, bursar, from Staub, 1940-1943