An intersection from history of Turkey: Philanthropic activities legitimizing the visibility of women in public sphere in 1950-1980: Example of Dermancıoğlu family

This study focuses on the history of women's visibility in Turkey with the example of Dermancıoğlu Family between the years of 1950 and 1980. This intersection also includes many women stories in the public sphere, and the oral history method is very effective to make their own experiences visible. Accordingly, oral history interviews conducted with Dilek Dermancıoğlu are underlying for this study. The philanthropic activities of Sabahat Dermancıoğlu and Dilek Dermancıoğlu, which are considered significant in building their own identities, have a critical role in both their private and public life. Understanding the continuity of the mother-daughter generation is a considerable accumulation for the presence in the public and private spheres. This study concentrates on the problem of women's visibility in historical documents, hence it diversified its resources and benefited from family archives, items, ephemera, archive documents, periodicals, city maps, various books, and articles. This study is also the narrative of this accumulation, continuity, ruptures, and the visibility of women extending from the private to the public, which is transferred from generation to generation and from period to period, is a remarkable contribution to women's history. Keywords Women in the public sphere, oral history, Dermancıoğlu Family, philanthropy, women visibility