Ideal Family, Citizenship, and Hygiene: Representations of Electric Household Appliances in Early Republican Turkey
By Nurçin İleri
Enacted in 1930, the Public Health Law (Umumi Hıfzıssıhha Kanunu) was a key regulation through which the state reshaped its relationship with society around health and hygiene in early Republican Turkey.[1] This comprehensive law encompassed a wide spatial network; from cities to towns, from neighborhoods to coastal areas, from homes to schools, from workplaces to brothels and prisons, aiming to extend hygiene policies to all segments of society without drawing a strict boundary between public and private spheres. The first article of the law articulated the state’s responsibility for public health as follows:
“It is among the general duties of the State to improve the sanitary conditions of the country, to combat all diseases or other harmful factors detrimental to the nation’s health, to ensure that future generations are raised in a healthy manner, and to provide the people with medical and social assistance.”[2]
Standing out as one of the key texts that shaped the biopolitical orientations of the early Republican period, this law was designed in line with the ideal of a “healthy nation,” encompassing not only the existing society but also future generations. The concept of hıfzıssıhha; which can be defined as “the totality of measures to be taken for maintaining a healthy life,” thus represented a multilayered semantic field that included both individual health precautions and a broader understanding of public hygiene. This conception emphasized the necessity of a social discipline that shaped not only medical supervision but also all aspects of daily life: habits, spatial practices, and modes of consumption.
The concept and practices of hıfzıssıhha were not new to the early Republican period. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, debates surrounding germ theory and bacteriology had triggered a paradigmatic transformation within the medical world.[3] This transformation also influenced Ottoman medicine. Particularly in the 1880s and 1890s, with the spread of contagious diseases such as cholera, plague, and typhoid, issues of hıfzıssıhha became one of the state’s top priorities.[4] During this period of far-reaching transformations in health policies, what Ruth Rogaski has termed “hygienic modernity” in the context of imperialist and nationalist China, urban infrastructure interventions such as water supply networks, sewage systems, ventilation practices, and waste collection services were planned and implemented in the Ottoman Empire. These efforts continued in early Republican Turkey as integral components of public hygiene.[5] At the same time, health knowledge was being popularized: various pamphlets, manuals, and books were published in an effort to disseminate a culture of hıfzıssıhha throughout society.[6]
In the early Republican period, hygiene functioned as an ideological framework central to the reconstruction of national identity and the formulation of civic norms. The image of a clean, healthy, and self-disciplined individual was promoted both as a moral obligation and as a prerequisite for the ideal modern citizen. Attention to physical and mental health was understood not as a matter of personal choice but as a collective responsibility, indeed, a national duty. The imagined linear progression from the healthy individual to a healthy society, and from there to a strong nation, lay at the very core of the Republic’s vision of social transformation.

The ideological transformation that extended beyond public spaces was also constructed through domestic interiors and family life.[7] Within the project of architectural modernization, the modern home (asri ev) emerged as a spatial and social ideal grounded in cleanliness, order, and efficiency. More than a dwelling, it was conceived as a site of health where bodies, habits, and family relations were to be disciplined. As Cansu Değirmencioğlu observes, this shift occurred through “architectural prescriptions” that transformed houses into “sanitary” spaces aligned with the ideals of the modern family and woman (see Image 1).
The functional separation of rooms, regular ventilation, controlled water use, and dust-resistant furnishings reflected the hıfzıssıhha norms of the era. Within this ideal of the sanitary home, women’s roles were redefined around cleanliness and childcare, binding the identities of the modern mother and housewife to the ideologies of health and hygiene.[8]

As Değirmencioğlu notes, electricity was central to these architectural prescriptions, serving both to ensure hygiene and to rationalize everyday life. Beyond lighting, heating, and ventilation, electrical appliances like vacuum cleaners, irons, stoves, and refrigerators were promoted as essential symbols of hygienic modernity. They were presented not merely as tools of convenience but as markers of a healthy, orderly, and civilized life. Yet this vision was largely aspirational: in the early 1920s, about 94 percent of Turkey’s population still lacked access to electricity. By 1929, despite the construction of 97 power plants, domestic use remained limited, concentrated mainly in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.[9] As a result, electrical household appliances primarily addressed the upper and upper-middle classes, categorized as luxury consumer goods.

Nevertheless, these appliances circulated widely across diverse media; from electricity company advertisements to women’s magazines, architectural journals, newspapers, and exhibitions, as indispensable symbols of a civilized, efficient, and hygienic life (see Image 2, 3, and 4).[10] Often adapted from Western imagery and targeting female consumers, such representations shaped collective imaginaries of modern living regardless of how few households actually owned them.
Plenty of Air, Plenty of Light
Founded in the 1920s as the Société Anonyme Turque d’Installations Electriques (SATIE), the Tesisat-ı Elektrikiye Türk Anonim Şirketi formally defined its operations in a 1924 agreement. The company specialized in importing, producing, and installing electrical devices and systems, as well as trading related materials. In 1925, it launched the journal Amelî Elektrik (Applied Electricity), distributed directly to subscribers as part of its promotional activities.[11]

A March 1929 article titled “Modernizing the Home” (Evi Asrileştirmek İçin) claimed that outdated houses could become modern through the installation of electricity. While the impact of such promotional discourse is uncertain, electricity’s entry into homes was driven by a fundamental human desire for light.[12] Once connected to urban power networks, consumers gradually began adopting other electrical household appliances.[13]
Proper use of electric light was central to aligning the modern home with rationality, efficiency, and cleanliness. Well-lit rooms were promoted for their physical and mental health benefits, while poor lighting was said to cause myopia or eye strain. Guidance detailed suitable light sources, direction, and technical properties for each room (see Image 5). As noted, “poor illumination tires the eyes excessively,” whereas “good light” protects vision and enhances life’s pleasures.[14]


As Değirmencioğlu notes, the “house with plenty of air and sunlight,” rooted in hygienic concerns, became a key principle of residential design in both popular literature and architectural debates.[15] Dark, damp, and dusty homes were believed to spread diseases like tuberculosis, making ample sunlight essential. A 1934 Yedigün article, “The Reign of the Sun,” contrasted the gloomy, oil-lit rooms of the past with bright, glass-filled spaces of the present.[16] This ideal also positioned electric lighting as a means to mimic daylight and illuminate every corner of the home (see Image 6).

In this ideal home, where electric light revealed every corner, the kitchen became both the space where appliances were most needed and a symbol of modernity. As Oldenziel and Zachmann note, it was not just for cooking but a site of technological progress and new consumption habits.[17] In 1930s Turkey, modern kitchens with white cabinets, motorized brushes, and double sinks, were likened to laboratories, often referencing Europe’s Frankfurt Kitchen as a model, as Bahar Emgin observes (see Image 7).[18]

The kitchen, central to hygiene, was presented as the ideal space for motherhood and housewifery. Good lighting was linked to the healthiness of food and the family’s well-being, especially “where work continued late into the evening.”[19] In 1931, Amelî Elektrik noted, “Only from a clean kitchen can healthy meals emerge,” while a lamp ad urged, “Illuminate your kitchen better! Work will be done better and faster,” (see Image 8).[20] The housewife was thus cast as a scientifically informed supervisor, and the modern kitchen became a rational, efficient production space.

Ventilation was another key element of good kitchen design. As Gökhan Akçura notes, a 1925 Kadın Yolu (The Woman’s Path) article, “Women’s Duties at Home: Food, Kitchen,” outlined the essential conditions of the modern kitchen:
The kitchen must be bright both day and night. Special attention should be paid to ensuring that areas where meat is cut and vegetables are cleaned are not dim. Air circulation must also be taken into consideration. For this reason, the placement of windows and doors should be carefully planned, and if necessary, a fan should be installed to create airflow. In short, the kitchen, too, requires plenty of air and light.[21]

A 1933 article, “Modern Ventilation” (Asri Havalanma), highlighted the impact of modern ventilation on daily life.[22] It opened with a cook struggling in a steamy, smoky kitchen, suffering both physically and psychologically. The electric fan was presented as the solution: cooling air, repelling flies, airing beds, refreshing hospital rooms, and boosting productivity in offices (see Image 9 and 10). By controlling airflow, this device rationally regulated health and productivity beyond domestic sphere. The “modern comfort” offered by electrical technology thus aspired not only to transform spaces but also bodies, moods, and daily rhythms.

The Vacuum Cleaner that Captures and Banishes Dust
The electric vacuum cleaner was the most visible symbol of domestic hygiene in the early Republican period. A 1927 ad, “Dust Is the Enemy! It Spreads Epidemic Diseases!”, portrayed dust as a hidden health threat and the vacuum as the solution (see Image 11). With specialized attachments for carpets, furniture, curtains, and more, it was hailed as a “microbe hunter,” promising to clean every corner of the home and replace outdated cleaning practices. Thus, the electric vacuum cleaner was poised to sweep away not only dust but also the “primitive” cleaning habits of the past.
A 1932 advertisement, “Thanks to the Electric Vacuum Cleaner, You Will Have Strong Lungs,” highlighted the link between contemporary hygiene, health, and domestic technology. Traditional cleaning tools like straw and feather brooms were depicted as not only inadequate but unhygienic, unable to meet the demands of the “modern age of hygiene” (asr-ı hıfzısıhha). Unlike old brooms that stirred dust into the air, the electric vacuum cleaner was presented as the ideal device that “captures and banishes dust.”[23]


During this period, the electric vacuum cleaner emerged not only as a functional device but also as a symbolically charged object. The AEG “Vampire” model, for example, was depicted as a creature that “sucked up and annihilated” germs, turning dust removal into a battle against invisible threats (see Image 12 and 13). As Emgin notes, such naming and advertising transformed the vacuum into the centerpiece of a fantastical narrative.[24] Through visual cues; dark shadows, moving hoses, gleaming metal, the machine embodied a power that was both formidable and contained.
These machines, intended to replace domestic servants in upper- and upper-middle-class homes, played a key role in reshaping household labor and class relations. Despite being relatively affordable – Akçura notes that in 1933 a refrigerator sold for about 600 liras and a vacuum cleaner for around 75 – wealthy families often viewed the vacuum cleaner as an “extra” to assist, rather than replace, servants.[25] For many housewives, it was considered an unnecessary expense, and the technology faced both economic and cultural resistance.

An ironic reflection of this resistance appeared in June 1941 in Son Posta, which published a translated short story titled “The Electric Vacuum Cleaner,” (Image 14).[26] Centered on a cleaning dispute between a married couple and their maid Mari, the story humorously critiqued contemporary hygiene norms. The wife insists on meticulous cleaning, warning that dirt breeds germs. As Mari continues using a traditional broom, the husband declares: “With that primitive tool, you’ll blow dust back and forth. Now we have electric vacuum cleaners; they collect the dust. Remarkable!” The wife resists, prompting the husband to send the dust for laboratory analysis. The results confirm the home’s dustiness but also reveal traces from the husband’s jacket, exposing his infidelity to his wife. Beyond its humor and Western-style narrative, the story’s appearance in a daily newspaper signals that efforts to promote the electric vacuum cleaner were still underway.
The Safe of Your Health: The Refrigerator

After the electric vacuum cleaner, the refrigerator emerged as the second key appliance claiming to ensure hygiene in the early Republican home. As medical historian Ceren İlikan-Rasimoğlu shows, public health policies and biopolitical regulation became central to nation-building, with raising healthy, productive generations a primary goal of modernization.[27] Within this framework, refrigerators were framed not merely as convenient tools but as essential instruments for fostering a healthy society.
At a time when tuberculosis, dysentery, and childhood illnesses were widespread, the refrigerator became one of the household appliances most closely linked to medical authority. Advertisements paired it with symbols of modern medicine; microscopes, laboratories, and doctors, presenting it as a guarantor of both individual hygiene and public health.[28] As Değirmencioğlu notes, this visual language relied on an audience familiar with such imagery, shaped by years of public health campaigns and bacteriology education.[29]
A 1934 Kelvinator advertisement exemplified this approach, visually comparing food left exposed under a microscope with the same food stored in a refrigerator, showing how cold air inhibited microbial growth (see Image 15). That year, a Frigidaire ad linked technology to maternal duty: a mother declared, “If you knew how quickly milk spoils… My doctor showed me this under a microscope,” framing the refrigerator as essential to children’s health.[30] Such advertisements spoke directly to mothers, equating ideal motherhood with the use of health-promoting technologies.


Advertisements often featured images of robust or sickly children, frequently overseen by watchful mothers, to dramatize the link between food freshness and illness (see Image 16). Headlines like “All these illnesses are caused by food not being fresh” emphasized that foods left on shelves or in damp pantries spoiled in the heat, threatening health (see Image 17). The refrigerator, in contrast, provided a scientific solution: cold, dry air inhibited microbial growth, safeguarding the health of family members.

Thanks to Frigidaire’s effective advertising, the refrigerator became popularly known as the “Frijder,” though for most it remained an unattainable luxury.[31] Promoted with slogans like “The Safe of Your Health,” it was widely desired through newspapers and women’s magazines. At fairs and exhibitions, the refrigerator was presented not just as a household appliance but as a marker of national development and Westernization. Celebrated as the “Frigidaire admired by all,” it came to symbolize civilized living and prosperity.
Some advertisements emphasized not the refrigerator itself but its contents, showcasing the lifestyle it represented. Open refrigerators displayed butter, creams, bottled drinks, and specialty desserts; refined, Western, and costly items (see Image 18). SATIE marketed its appliance as preserving these delicacies in a “healthy and economical” way, making it both a tool of hygiene and a marker of cultural privilege. With the slogan “Comfort Knocks at Your Door,” SATIE ads suggested domestic convenience while signaling the class boundaries that determined access.
The refrigerator thus reinforced the image of the Republican woman as modern, hygienic, and maternal, while also functioning as a symbol of social distinction. As Emgin notes, this form of “conspicuous consumption” shows that domestic technologies
shaped not only hygiene and household economy but also social belonging and class identity.[32]



Conclusion
I have traced how early Republican discourse on hygiene-focused modernization intersected with the visual and rhetorical representations of electric household appliances; from lamps and fans to vacuum cleaners and refrigerators. These examples extend to kitchen and bathroom designs, hot water systems, and later, washing machines. Even from the examples discussed, it is clear that in the early Republican period, electric appliances functioned less as everyday tools than as material and symbolic markers of an imagined modernity.
Shaped primarily by visuals, slogans, and lifestyle ideals borrowed from Western sources, these representations projected a normative vision of the future rather than reflecting local realities. Their precise social impact or uptake remains difficult to assess. Nonetheless, they aligned closely with the Republic’s public health policies and citizenship regime. Ideals of cleanliness, order, and hygiene conveyed through electric appliances were intimately tied to biopolitical strategies disciplining bodies, spaces, and daily habits, in line with the vision outlined in the 1930 Public Health Law.
Women’s roles within this representational universe are particularly notable. Electric appliances rendered domestic labor more technical and invisible, positioning women as central subjects of a modern citizenship discourse defined by cleaning, care, and hygiene. While these technologies ostensibly eased women’s labor, they simultaneously disciplined it, making women both carriers and regulated figures of modernity. Yet, with electricity still limited and largely a luxury, these representations predominantly glorified upper- and upper-middle-class lifestyles, highlighting the tension between the Republic’s inclusive claims and the class realities of access, and revealing the social and symbolic inequalities embedded in the modernization project.
The issues explored in this essay resonate strongly with contemporary debates on hygiene, sanitation, and public health, particularly in the context of global epidemics and renewed attention to domestic cleanliness. Just as early Republican authorities promoted electric appliances as tools for managing health and disease, today we see how technologies; from air purifiers to sterilization devices, mediate ideas of safety, hygiene, and bodily care. Examining these historical practices offers insight into how societies have long intertwined domestic technologies with broader public health goals, shaping both daily routines and social norms, while also highlighting enduring questions of access and inequality.
I would like to thank Cansu Değirmencioğlu for contributing to the development of this article, and Başak Deniz Özdoğan and Seçil Yılmaz for helping me access some of the sources. This essay is an updated version of a piece originally published in Toplumsal Tarih (no. 381) in the special issue “Material Culture of Hygiene: Objects, Spaces, and Users,” edited by Zehra Betül Atasoy and Zeynep Akçakaya (September 2025), pp. 58–65.
Notes
[1] “Umumi Hıfzısıhha Kanunu,” Kanun No. 1593, Resmi Gazete, no: 1489, 6 May 1930.
[2] “Umumi Hıfzısıhha Kanunu,” 1. For a comprehensive analysis of this law in the context of eugenics debates see, Murat Arpacı, “Erken Cumhuriyet Türkiyesinde Kamu Sağlığı ve Öjenik (1923-1946),” Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar 17 (2014): 129-156.
[3] Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) and Christoph Gradmann, Laboratory Disease : Robert Koch’s Medical Bacteriology, Elborg Forster (trans.) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).
[4] There is a rich literature on epidemic diseases and public hygiene debates in the Ottoman Empire; for some of these studies, see, Mesut Ayar, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kolera: İstanbul Örneği (1892-1895) (İstanbul: Kitabevi, 2007); Nuran Yıldırım, “A History of Healthcare in Istanbul: Health Organizations, Epidemics, Infections and Disease Control, Preventive Health Institutions, Hospitals, Medical Education,” (Istanbul: Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture, 2010); Seçil Yılmaz, “Bakterilere Yakından Bakmak: Bilim ve Siyaset Arasında Bakteriyolojihane-yi Şahane,” HayatSağlık 13 (2015): 54-59 and İbrahim Halil Kalkan, “Public Hygiene and Social Control in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” Journal of History School 50(2021): 1-24.
[5] Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity (Berkeley: University of Californias Press, 2004), 22. For local examples of these practices, see, Ufuk Adak, “Water, Sewage, and Sanitation: Infrastructure Projects and Public Health in Izmir in the Late Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 24, no. 2 (2022): 263-284 and Can Gümüş-İspir, “Kent Hijyeni, Emek ve İktidar: Hasköy’den Sağmalcılar’a Tarihsel Bir Bakış,” Ayrıntı Dergi 47 (2024): 93-105.
[6] The Nevsâl-i Âfiyet health yearbooks, written between 1315 and 1322 (1899–1906) by Besim Ömer Akalın, a scholar who worked on population and health policies in the late Ottoman and early Republican periods, are among the most significant examples of this literature. For a detailed analysis of public health books published during the early Republican period, see, Arpacı, “Erken Cumhuriyet Türkiyesinde Kamu Sağlığı ve Öjenik,” 129-156.
[7] For a general discussion on domestic electricity use, referred to as the ‘domesticating electricity,’ see, Graeme Gooday, Domesticating Electricity: Technology, Uncertainty and Gender, 1880–1914 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008).
[8] For studies on the Republican regime’s conception of the modern home, the ideal family, and womanhood, see, Deniz Kandiyoti, “Gendering the Modern: On Missing Dimensions in the Study of Turkish Modernity,” Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey içinde, (eds.) Sibel Bozdogan and Reşat Kasaba (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1997); Sibel Bozdoğan, “‘Sıhhatli, Konforlu, Kullanışlı Evler’: 1930’lar Mimarlığında Modernlik Söylemi”Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Problemler, Araştırmalar, Tartışmalar: 1. Uluslararası Tarih Kongresi içinde (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998), 344–52 and Gülsüm Baydar, “Tenuous Boundaries: Women, Domesticity and Nationhood in 1930s Turkey” The Journal of Architecture 7, no. 3 (2002): 229–44.
[9] Tevfik Çavdar, Türkiye’de Enerji. In Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1983), 691. See also İstatistik Yıllığı, İstatistik U. M. Neşriyatından: 5 (21) (İstanbul: Devlet Matbaası: 1931–1932), 225.
[10] For a rich study on the discursive framework, both historical and contemporary, surrounding electric household appliances and their use, see, Leyla Bektaş Ata, Defne Karaosmanoğlu and Bahar Emgin, Bu Ev İşlerini Kim Yapıyor Kuzum? Asrileşmeden Robotlaşmaya Ev ve Kadınlık (Ankara: Idealkent, 2022).
[11] The magazine was sent to approximately 42,000 subscribers in 1933, see, Gökhan Akçura, “Ameli Elektrik Dergisi,” In Elektrik ve İstanbul: Elektriğin Geçmişten Günümüze Serüveni, Cengiz Kahraman (ed.) (İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 2021), 287-295. For a comprehensive analysis of the magazine’s marketing content, see, Fulya Lale Dalfes, Elektriğin Pazarlanması: Ameli Elektrik Dergisi (1925-1934) ve Elektriğin İki Dünya Savaşı Arası Dönemde Bir Tüketim Nesnesi Olarak Sunulması (İstanbul: EnerjiSA Üretim, 2023). For a study that analyzes the magazine from a graphic design perspective, see, Ardan Ergüven, “Elektrik ve Grafik Tasarım: Ameli Elektrik Dergisi Kapaklarının Görsel Analizi,” Atatürk Üniversitesi Güzel Sanatlar Enstitüsü Dergisi 27, no. 46 (2021): 231-240.
[12] “Evi asrileştirmek için,” Ameli Elektrik (34), (Mart 1929): 97.
[13] Nurçin İleri and Cansu Değirmencioğlu, “Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiyesi’nde “Asri Ev Tartışmaları ve Elektrikli Tenvirat,” ViraVerita 12 (2020): 92-126.
[14] “İyi bir tenvir elde etmek için,” Ameli Elektrik (54) (March-April 1932), 40-41; “Gözlerinizi Koruyun,” Ameli Elektrik (54) (March-April 1932).
[15] Değirmencioğlu, “Prescribed Modernity,” 80-139.
[16] Haydar Fevzi, “Güneşin Saltanatı,” Yedigün (39), 1934, 10-11.
[17] Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachmann (eds.), Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: The MIT Press, 2009). See also, Joy Parr, “Modern Kitchen, Good Home, Strong Nation.” Technology and Culture 43, no. 4 (2002): 657–67.
[18] For a comprehensive study on this topic, see, Bahar Emgin, “Hizmetçi Prenses: Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Evin Elektriklendirilmesi,” In Bir Cereyan Hâsıl Oldu: Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e İstanbul’da Elektrikli Yaşam, Nurçin İleri (ed.) (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2024), 177-201.
[19] “Mutfak,” Ameli Elektrik (51) (September-October 1931), 315.
[20] “Mutfakta Elektrik Ziyası,” Ameli Elektrik (53) (January-February 1932) 15-16.
[21] Cited from Kadın Yolu magazine see, Gökhan Akçura, “Elektrikli Ev Aletleri,” In Elektrik ve İstanbul: Elektriğin Geçmişten Günümüze Serüveni, (ed.) Cengiz Kahraman (İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 2021), 378.
[22] “Asri Havalanma,” Ameli Elektrik (62), (July-Aug. 1933,) 79-81.
[23] “Elektrik süpürgesi sayesinde kuvvetli ciğerlere malik olursunuz,” Ameli Elektrik (54), March-April 1932.
[24] For a comprehensive discussion on anthropomorphism and mythologization in representations of electric household appliances, see, Bahar Emgin Şavk, “Servant Princess of the Modern Home: Domesticity and Femininity in Turkey after Electrification, 1923-1950,” Yayımlanmamış Doktora Tezi, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent Üniversitesi, 2014, 89-112.
[25] Akçura, “Elektrikli Ev Aletleri,” 366.
[26] “Elektrik Süpürgesi,” Son Posta, 26 June 1941, 5.
[27] Ceren İlikan-Rasimoğlu, “Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Sağlıklı Bireyin Inşası: Pronatalist Politikalar, Çocuk Sağlığı ve Verem,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Sosyoloji Dergisi 39, no. 2 (2019): 329–57.
[28] Experts and doctors seeking to realize the ideal of the healthy citizen acted as a bridge in translating knowledge of disease and health from the laboratory to the public. Exhibitions and popular media created a new visual universe by emphasizing the possibilities offered by these new technologies. For an analysis of medical developments and the visual communication language created in the early Republican period, see, Cansu Değirmencioğlu and Nurçin İleri, “Doğanın Gözlerden Sakladığı Gizemlerin Keşfi: Mikroskop ve Röntgenin Erken Cumhuriyet Türkiyesi’nde Kültürel Temsilleri,” Journal of Turkish Studies 55 (2021): 117-151.
[29] Cansu Değirmencioğlu, “Healthy Homes: Hygiene, Disease Prevention, and Domesticity During the 1930s in Turkey” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 8, no. 2 (2021): 337–44.
[30] “Çocuk Bugün İyi Yedi Mi,” Hakimiyeti Milliye, 15 Temmuz 1934, 8.
[31] Akçura relates this success to Burla Biraderler’s placement of their advertisements in Yedigün, the bestselling weekly magazine of the period, see, Akçura, “Elektrikli Ev Aletleri,” 361.
[32] Emgin, “Hizmetçi Prenses,” 201.
About the Author
Nurçin İleri received her PhD from the Department of History at Binghamton University in 2015. Her dissertation, A Nocturnal History of fin de siècle Istanbul, casts light on the social and material geographies of night that went beyond the dichotomies of the ‘city of glittering leisure and consumption,’ or the ‘city of indigence and vice.’ Her dissertation research has led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals including Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Journal of the Ottomanand Turkish Studies Association, Etudes balkaniques, and New Perspectives on Turkey. Between 2020-2023, she was a EUME Fellow associated with the IGK Work and Human Life Cycle in Global History (re:work) of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. With the financial support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, she continues to be a an affiliated EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin and visiting researcher at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.
Citation: Nurçin İleri, Ideal Family, Citizenship, and Hygiene: Representations of Electric Household Appliances in Early Republican Turkey, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 25.11.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/62593
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (November 25, 2025). Ideal Family, Citizenship, and Hygiene: Representations of Electric Household Appliances in Early Republican Turkey. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved December 6, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/157f6


