Explore documents on the culture of industry, labor and production from the Ottoman era to the Republic.
Kundura Memory Archive Catalog
Archive & Research
Kundura Memory Archive and Research Center houses its main collection, primarily from the Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory, along with other factories affiliated with Sümerbank and Etibank, focusing on the industrial history of the Ottoman and Republican periods.
Kundura Memory provides a rich resource for archival exhibitions, workshops, academic and artistic studies, aiming to develop initiatives to preserve the cultural heritage of the Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory and to create new areas for different disciplines.
Kundura Memory Archive and Library Catalogs
Provides research-focused access to sources documenting the industrial, labor, and production culture spanning from the late Ottoman period to the early years of the Republic.
Sümerbank Collection
It includes photographs and postcards documenting the industrial production and social life of various Sümerbank factories, as well as printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, and books. The collection also features notebooks, architectural and machine drawings, maps, product catalogues, correspondence, reports, invoices, and other documents, along with porcelain tableware and textile items such as pajamas. Construction work on the New Kundura Building at the Sümerbank Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory, July 1961.
Celebration of April 23rd at the Sümerbank Nazilli Printing Factory, 1938.
Construction work on the Yeni Kundura Building at the Sümerbank Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası, July 1961.
Oral History Collection
Launched in 2015 in collaboration with the History Foundation and continuing its work independently since 2017, the Kundura Memory Archive and Research Center has conducted interviews with over 200 factory workers and their families using oral history methods.
The collection includes oral history video recordings as well as nearly 5,000 photographs, documents, and objects donated as part of this project, spanning from the early 19th century to the 2000s.
Sac Ambarı Collection
It consists of approximately 4,000 objects (leather processing and production machines, steam engines, sewing machines, typewriters, hand tools, laboratory and medical supplies, shoes, etc.) used in the factory’s production and social life areas during the Ottoman and Republican periods.
Public Programs
Memory Talks
“Memory Talks” is a panel series that brings fresh, present-day perspectives to the industrialization and institutionalization efforts of the Late Ottoman and Early Republican periods, as well as to the labor, economic and cultural history of those eras.
Prepared by the Kundura Memory Archive and Research Center especially for the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Republic and the 90th anniversary of Sümerbank, the event takes its cue from the slogan “We Will Do Everything Better” of Sümerbank, which was founded in 1933 and became one of the important symbols of the history of the Republic. It focuses on the industrialization efforts undertaken from the early 19th century onward, as well as on the institutionalization and factory-building activities carried out in the early years of the Republic.
Memory Talks I: Labor
28.10.2023
Single Session
16:15 – 16:25 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (S. Buse Yıldırım)
16:25 – 16:40 Early Republican Factories: Geography, Actors and Flows (Aslı Odman)
16:40 – 16:55 The Mission of Sümerbank: Economic Independence (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Koraltürk)
16:55 – 17:10 Looking at Labor in the Early Republican Era through Sümerbank Enterprises (Dr. Hakan Koçak)
Memory Talks II: Social Life, Women’s Labor, Economics
23.03.2024
Session 1: Social Life
11:30 – 11:50 Kundura Hafıza Opening Remarks (S. Buse Yıldırım)
11:50 – 12:10 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Prof. Dr. Arzu Öztürkmen)
12:10 – 12:30 Reading the Memory of a Factory: The Case of Beykoz Kundura (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gül Köksal)
12:30 – 12:50 The Mission Undertaken by Sümerbank in Social Policy (Prof. Dr. Serkan Tuna)
12:50 – 13:10 The Daycare Center as a Blind Spot in the History of Women’s Labor in Türkiye (Dr. Tuba Demirci)
Session 2: Women’s Labor
14:30 – 14:50 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Dr. Asena Günal)
14:50 – 15:10 Women’s Labor in the Late Ottoman Empire (Dr. Yaşar Tolga Cora)
15:10 – 15:30 Women in Working Life in the Early Republic (Prof. Dr. Gülhan Balsoy)
15:30 – 15:50 Between ‘Digging a Well with a Needle’ and ‘Living On Even If the Body Dies’: Placing Women’s Labor in the Hereke Carpet (Dr. Pınar Karababa)
Session 3: Economics
16:30 – 16:50 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Prof. Dr. Hakan Yılmaz)
16:50 – 17:10 Türkiye’s Economic Policy after the 1929 World Economic Crisis, and the Place of Sümerbank and the Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası in These Policies (Prof. Dr. İlhan Tekeli)
17:10 – 17:30 The Turkish Weaving Industry and Sümerbank (Prof. Dr. Aslıhan Aykaç)
17:30 – 18:50 The Formation of the Working Class in Türkiye and Labor Historiography of the Late Ottoman – Early Republican Period (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yusuf Doğan Çetinkaya)
Memory Talks III: Industrial Heritage & the Paper Industry from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic
26.10.2024
Session 1: Industrial Heritage
14:00 – 14:20 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Prof. Dr. Gülsün Tanyeli)
14:20 – 14:40 Conserving and Reusing Industrial Heritage at the Urban Scale (Dr. Mehmet Saner)
14:40 – 15:00 The Role of the Creative Industries in the Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage (Ekin Sarıca)
15:00 – 15:20 The Transformation of the Sümerbank Kayseri Textile Factory into a University (Prof. Dr. Burak Asıliskender)
Session 2: The Paper Industry from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic
16:00 – 16:20 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hakan Koçak)
16:20 – 16:40 Chamberlain Osman Bey and the Beykoz Hamidiye Paper Factory (Prof. Dr. Nedret Kuran)
16:40 – 17:00 An Intellectual of the Republic: Mehmed Ali Kağıtçı (Dr. Mehmet Sarıoğlu)
17:20 – 17:40 The Memory of Türkiye: Seka Paper Museum (Salim Saraç)
Memory Talks IV: Archive and Library
25.10.2025
Single Session
14:00 – 14:10 Moderator’s Opening Remarks (Erdi Yüksel)
14:10 – 14:30 Çelik Gülersoy Foundation Istanbul Library (Hayri Fehmi Yılmaz)
14:30 – 14:50 The Journey of an Art Library: Vitali Hakko Creative Industries Library (Begüm Başoğlu Öner)
14:50 – 15:10 Bursa Metropolitan Municipality City Museum Archive (Dilek Yıldız Karakaş)
*The program held on 25.10.2025 was organized in conjunction with the opening of the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center.