Gertrude Bell: The Khatun Who Created Iraq?

Abstract

This thesis will explore to what extent Gertrude Bell can be considered the architect of Iraq, considering her need to balance gender expectations and the personal beliefs of a 19th-century woman with interwar state-building apparatuses to create the Iraqi Mandate. By tying in her personal background as a historian and field trained archeologist, the structure and style of British museum culture and the state of global antiquities law can be compared to Bell’s approach to building the Baghdad Archeological Museum’s collection as a social and state shaping apparatus. Throughout this investigation, I will argue that her permanent place in political Iraqi history stems from her writing of the Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia White Paper, her position as a political and social analyst, and her advisory relationship with King Faisal, while her efforts to create the definition of a centralized national identity through the national museum and public programming cements her in the state’s sociological history.