Robert College and the National Geographic

TAR‹H‹M‹ZDEN
From Istanbul to the North Pole:
Robert College and
the National Geographic
MEHMET ARTEMEL
mehmet.artemel@boun.edu.tr
Professor Edwin Augustus Grosvenor,a well-travelled scholar
cum author with an in-depth knowledge of Latin and the Greek
language had the opportunity to live for over 20 years in what was
one of the most cosmopolitan European cities in the world at the
time – Istanbul. Inspired, undoubtedly by the wealth of history he
was immersed in, Professor Grosvenor, upon his return to the
United States in 1890, published in 1895 an authoritative twovolume book entitled Constantinople. [Sampson Low, Marston
and Company Limited, London, 1895, Vols. I and II]
Edwin Augustus Grovesnor: A young tutor at Robert College
Edwin A. Grosvenor was only 22 years old when he began
working as a tutor at Robert College in 1867. He was one of only
a handful of dedicated staff when the College, as George
Washburn, in his memoirs, puts it was practically identified with
Dr. Hamlin who had to fulfil the functions of a tutor as well as that
of a handyman at the same time.
‘Robert College in 1869 was a unique institution. It occupied an old
wooden house built in 1798, on the side of a steep hill in the midst of the
village of Bebec...It was generally known as Dr. Hamlin’s College. There was
one professor when I came who had already resigned and who left in July.
There were two American tutors, Grosvenor and Wilcox, and four assistant
teachers for French and the native languages. Dr. Hamlin was the College.’
[George Washburn, Fifty Years in Constantinople and Recollections of Robert
College, p.36. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, The
Riverside Press Cambridge, 1909.]
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CAMPUS HISTORY
Dr. Long and his family to live with us in the
College, while Professor Grosvenor moved
into the house in Hissar belonging to us.’
[Washburn G., p.113, ibid]
The year when George Washburn had
become acting president in 1872, Edwin
A. Grosvenor, upon his return to Istanbul
after having spent a couple of years in
the States, was appointed as Professor
of Latin and History at Robert College
where he taught until 1890 when he
resigned from Robert College to take up
a professorship at Amherst College.
[Washburn G., p.65, ibid]
It was in this house at Rumelihisar,
the village that is on the fringe of Robert
College and today the University, where
in 1876 the Grosvenor identical twins
were born. The exact location where
Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor and Edwin
Prescott Grosvenor were born was the
site of the former American Community
School at Rumelihisar. It is reported that
the boys’ birthplace was marked by a
tablet in the school building that was
destroyed by a fire in the 1980s.
The plot on which the school once
stood has been sold to a private owner,
a Bo¤aziçi University alumnus and a
graduate of Wharton School of Business,
Mr Vedat Sadio¤lu, who has restored the
building to its former glory.
The twins were both raised at
Rumelihisar and educated at Robert
College until they were 14 years old
when in 1890 the Grosvenor family
returned to the States for good. Sons of
a passionate historian and classicist, the
Grosvenor boys were exposed from a
young age to their father’s love and
interest in history and geography. For
Professor Grosvenor, it is evident that
the location of his abode at Rumelihisar,
was the inspiration for the most
romantic and descriptive passages in his
book on Constantinople:
‘In grandeur of situation and wealth of
history, no locality on the Bosphorus
surpasses Roumeli Hissar. The stern
boldness of its outline is best appreciated
A Grosvenor, destined to become a
conqueror of geography is born in the
same village where the conqueror of
Constantinople first set his foot on
In 1876, when the Ottoman Empire
was going through a period of political
turbulence, the College began to lose
many of its students and consequently
the funds that were required to ensure
the survival of the institution. This led to
the taking of drastic measures in order
to cut down costs. Washburn describes
the situation at the time as follows:
‘As the year went on and the political
troubles increased the number of our
students diminished. At the end of the year
the number of boarders had fallen from 137
to 111...As we could not suddenly reduce
our expenses to any great extent, the loss
on the current expense account was heavier
than for any previous year, amounting here
and in America to sixty-five hundred
dollars...We arranged to reduce our
expenses for the following year by taking
Leaders December 2005 • 15
TAR‹H‹M‹ZDEN
Following their departure from
Istanbul, nine years after the twins had
resumed their studies at Amherst
College, a letter sent by Alexander
Graham Bell, the inventor of the
telephone, to the boys’ father
Professor Grosvenor was to mark the
beginning of Gilbert’s vocation for life.
Bell, had difficulties turning round the
publishing business which he had
inherited from his father-in-law and
was in search of a talented and
dedicated young man who was going
to be willing to work on a full-time
basis. On the occasion of the seventh
annual banquet of the National
Geographic Society, on January 26, Dr.
Bell, in his speech, said as follows:
from the water, or from the Asiatic shore.
The sight must have been awe-inspiring
when, in remote prehistoric ages, for the
first it was gazed upon by a human eye. The
external features added by man during the
last centuries augment its impressiveness,
but they stand in a permanent contrast to
one another as startling as the shifting
pageantry of a dream...Yet the gazer can
now behold only a meagre portion of what
the promontory has seen in its centuries of
watching. Though their footsteps have left
no trace on the fleeing waters, this is the
spot where, from earliest antiquity, the
nations have crossed from continent to
continent. At this point is the natural
roadway. Nowhere else do Europe and Asia
come so near each other, till their
boundaries touch in the Caucasus and Ural.’
[Grosvenor Edwin A., p. 165, ibid., Vol. I]
Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor of Rumelihisar
sets off on his path to conquer the world
of geography
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‘As I said, in the beginning, we found it
necessary to get the proper man, but
fortunately we found him. A young man who
had made a very brilliant record at Amherst
College was engaged as assistant editor of
the magazine to stir up new ideas, and to
put new life into the scientific journal. But
the Society did not have the money to pay
for his salary; that had to be raised by
voluntary contributions from interested
members. And so Mr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor
commenced his work in 1899. He speedily
captured the Society – and incidentally he
captured one of my daughters.’ [The
National Geographic Magazine, p.274, Vol.
23, No.3, March 1912]
In the October 1963 issue, on the
occasion of the magazine’s Diamond
Anniversary, Gilbert described the day
he had met Dr. Bell’s daughter and how
that day had marked a turning-point in
both his personal and professional life.
In the article which was aptly entitled,
The Romance of the Geographic, Gilbert
wrote as follows:
“When a man looks back upon a long
lifetime, he may single out one event and
say, “This determined my course. This is
where so much began.” In retrospect he
knows that from the one event all else
followed with a fateful inevitability.
There was just one such an event in my life.
Long years ago, in the Victorian summer of
1897; I strolled hand in hand with a lovely,
laughing girl through the garden of
Alexander Graham Bell’s estate on Cape
Breton, Nova Scotia. We spoke of many
things, but mainly of youthful hopes and
dreams. In our words we found the little shy
revelations of the spirit that were the
prelude to courtship and an enduring
marriage.
That laughing girl of yesterday was Elsie
May Bell, daughter of the inventor of the
telephone. Her grandfather, Gardiner
Greene Hubbard, then served as the
National Geographic Society’s first
President, and her famous father would
succeed to that position.” [The National
Geographic Magazine, p.516, Vol.124, No.4,
October 1963]
Gilbert H. Grosvenor, turned out to
be the white knight –as the current
management jargon would have it –
who succeeded in raising the number
of the Society’s members from 1,000 in
1899 to 2,000,000 in 1952
[Cumulative Index, The National
Geographic Magazine, p.2, Vol. II, 19471951]. Gilbert was not just an astute
CAMPUS HISTORY
businessman and manager but a brave
adventurer who travelled the globe in
the quest to capture original
photographs for the readers of the
magazine. Among many of its
outstanding expeditions, the conqueror
from Rumelihisar became the first to
locate the North Pole from aerial
photos.
language such as the one in Turkey,
National Geographic Türkiye, published
since May 2001 under a licence
agreement with the Do¤ufl Group of
Companies. <
* The photographs illustrated in this article have
been reproduced from the back issues of the
National Geographic Magazine (retrieved from the
Bogazici University Archive) as indicated in the notes
to the text. The author wishes to acknowledge his
gratitude and thank the library staff for their kind
assistance.
The enduring relationship between the
Grosvenor family and Turkey
For almost a century since 1899
when Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor began
on his journey “to promote the study of
the world upon which we live” as Dr.
Bell summed up the original charter of
the Society when speaking as
toastmaster at an annual banquet of
the Society in 1912 [The National
Geographic Magazine, pp.272-3, Vol.
23, No.3, March 1912], the name
Grosvenor became inextricably linked
to that of The National Geographic
Magazine and Society. Gilbert’s son,
Melville Bell Grosvenor-who, incidentally, happened also to be a Robert
College trustee – took over from his
father in 1957 the presidency and
editorship of the magazine.
Gilbert’s grandson, Gilbert Melville
Grosvenor, was the last member of this
distinguished family who carried the
National Geographic Society flag, which
was designed by Gilbert’s wife Elsie
around the globe while the magazine
became a household name the world
over. Gilbert M. Grosvenor who today
continues to act as Chairman of the
Board of Trustees served as president of
the magazine from 1970 until his
retirement in 1996.
Now, under its President and CEO,
John Fahey, the magazine continues to
make strides by disseminating
geography on a global scale through
satellite transmission and by reaching
its target audience through the local
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