The documents and photographs in this collection form the basis of the interdisciplinary research project undertaken at Boğaziçi University by Alan Duben, Cem Behar and their students between 1982 and 1988, culminating in the book Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility 1880-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 1991). Focusing on the social and cultural transformations during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, the project was the first systematic historical study of Turkey and the Middle East that combined social anthropology, historical demography and social history.