OSMANLI’DA KADIN İŞLETMECİLER: 18. YÜZYILDA İSTANBUL’UN KADIN HAMAMCILARI
OTTOMAN FEMALE MANAGERS IN THE 18TH CENTURY: FEMALE BATH MANAGERS

Summary/Abstract: Studies based on Ottoman court registers disclose that Ottoman women participated in economic activity before the modern period through various positions, one of which was bath/hammam managing. Female hammam managers/hammamcıs can be found in archival hammam registers, but our knowledge about them is still scarce. This study, therefore, aims to recognize female hammam managers more closely by examining their probate inventories. We examine eight probate inventories of women, who ran baths in Istanbul during the 18th century. The size of the legacies left by these women, the composition of the assets, and the credit relationships in these inventories were discussed and used to predict the income level of female hammam managers. The main question is whether the probate inventories provide evidence of these women’s profession. The findings raise another question of whether the probate inventories can be considered a valuable source of information to deduce professions of specific working groups in Ottoman society.

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