The cotton improvement project in Turkey: The case of Adana from the 1930s

In the mid nineteenth century, the international price of raw cotton increased dramatically due to the Cotton Crisis caused by the American Civil War (1861-65). Great Britain sought alternative cotton sources, such as the Ottoman Empire, to replace the United States. Turkey also encouraged the spread of cotton cultivation, which expanded to the Southern Anatolia and Aegean regions. At the end of the nineteenth century, cotton became one of its most important exports and at the same time the import of cotton manufactures increased.