The Red Rugs of Tarsus: A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909

The author, an American woman living abroad with her family, gives a firsthand account of life in Tarsus and neighboring districts during the massacres of Armenians, reconstructing events from letters and memories. She alternates domestic scenes and ordinary routines with the mounting signs of violence, eyewitness descriptions of attacks and sheltering of refugees, and the interventions of foreign residents, mission workers, and naval forces. The narrative examines causes and international responses, records personal loss and moral questioning, and closes with evacuation, survival, and reflection on the human cost of the upheaval.