Civilizing Missions and Early Childhood Education in the Late Ottoman Empire: The American Missionary Kindergarten in Trabzon (1885-1922)

Abstract

This article reinterprets the American missionary kindergarten in Trabzon (1885-1922) as a focal point of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' (ABCFM) broader civilizing mission in the late Ottoman Empire. It argues that the kindergarten functioned not only as a site of religious instruction but also as a vehicle for socio-cultural transformation and moral reform. Drawing upon Ottoman archival documents, ABCFM records, and missionary periodicals, the study shows how Western pedagogical models, particularly those inspired by Friedrich Fröbel, were localized to reshape moral education, gender roles, and conceptions of childhood in a multi-ethnic imperial context. By situating the Trabzon kindergarten within the discourse of the civilizing mission, the article reveals how American missionaries translated Protestant ideals of discipline and domestic virtue into the Ottoman milieu, demonstrating that early childhood education operated as a subtle form of cultural negotiation rather than overt domination.