Back	THE OTTOMAN TELEPHONE COMPANY OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND OTTOMAN MUSLIM FEMALE OPERATORS Dr. Yavuz Selim Karakışla will be joining us at the Making of Modern Turkey Seminars this month, to examine - within the framework of the foundation of the Ottoman Telephone Company of Constantinople - the admittance of women in Ottoman society into the public sector.The seminar is scheduled for Saturday, December 18, at 2:30 p.m. The first telephones arrived in the Ottoman Empire in 1881, and with the foundation of the Ottoman Telephone Company of Constantinople in 1911, as a common consortium of British, American and French capital, telephone service was established. Using as a starting point the reluctance shown by the company in hiring Ottoman Muslim women, the seminar will focus on the issue of the employment of women in the Ottoman Empire. For further information on this free seminar presented by the Ottoman Bank Museum, contact: (212) 334 22 70. Yavuz Selim Karakışla obtained both his B.A. and M.A. from the Department of History at Boğaziçi University and went on to earn his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Binghamton with a doctoral dissertation titled " Women and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (1916-1923)". His thesis also won him first prize in the doctoral dissertation category of the 2002 History of Banking and Finance Competition organized by the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre. Karakışla is currently a lecturer in the Department of History at Bogaziçi University.