Ever-looming controversy: the fight over the “Armenian Orphan Rug”

 Gabi Gage

In the 1920s, 400 Armenian girls spent 18 months making an elaborate woven rug by hand to show their gratitude to the United States for its efforts to ease their suffering as the survivors of the world’s first modern genocide – an event commemorated each year on April 24 by the global Armenian diaspora. The Ghazir Rug, or the Armenian Orphan Rug, ended up in President Calvin Coolidge’s White House in 1925 until the end of his term.

Much Ado About a Little Book

 Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

That little book by Dr. Hagop Martin Deranian continues to provoke debate, now even in Germany. The slim volume, President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug, released last fall by the Armenian Cultural Foundation, unleashed broad discussion in the US, because the story it tells raises questions about the 1915 Genocide, questions which a pro-Turkish lobby finds increasingly uncomfortable as the centenary draws near. The story is about an oriental rug woven by Armenian orphan girls in Ghazir, Lebanon (then Syria) as a gift for then-President Coolidge back in 1925, a token of gratitude for the assistance lent by the American government and people to the orphans of the Genocide. Controversy arose when requests came to the White House to release the rug for public showing. (See Armenian Mirror-Spectator, March 1, 2014.)

Armenian Cultural Foundation Releases Second Edition of Orphan Rug Book

On April 29, the Armenian Cultural Foundation (ACF) in Arlington, Massachussetts announced the release of the second edition of Dr. Hagop Martin Deranian’s book, President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug. When this little volume first appeared in the fall of 2013, plans were well underway for an exhibition of the Ghazir rug, also known as the Coolidge rug, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Armenian Cultural Foundation and the Armenian Rugs Society.

Author Deranian Discusses Evolution of Orphan Rug Story

Gabriella Gage

 

The Armenian Cultural Foundation’s recent publication, President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug, sheds light on a little-known piece of American history. It also currently stands at the center of a political debate surrounding the White House’s refusal to release the rug featured in the book for an exhibit and book launch at the Smithsonian. However, for the book’s author, Dr. Hagop Martin Deranian, the work represents another chapter in a son’s lifelong journey to honor the memory of his mother and her battle to survive the Armenian Genocide.

White House Urged to Display Armenian Orphan Rug Commemorating Genocide

Richard Simon

In a new twist to efforts to call attention to the Armenian genocide, a group of lawmakers has accused the Obama administration of blocking a Smithsonian display of a rug woven by orphans of the mass killings about a century ago.

The lawmakers have written President Obama urging him to make available the rug, presented in 1925 to President Calvin Coolidge and in storage as part of the White House collection, for exhibition. The bipartisan group includes more than a dozen representatives from California, which has a large Armenian American population.