Department of History2024-11-0920160020-859010.1017/S002085901600047X2-s2.0-85001575153http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S002085901600047Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/8565In most cases, and particularly in the cases of Greece and Turkey, political transformation from multinational empire to nation state has been experienced to a great extent in urban centres. In Ankara, Bursa, and Salonica, the cities selected for this article, the consequences of state-making were drastic for all their inhabitants; Ankara and Bursa had strong Greek communities, while in the 1840s Salonica was the Jewish metropolis of the eastern Mediterranean, with a lively Muslim community. However, by the 1940s, Ankara and Bursa had lost almost all their non-Muslim inhabitants and Salonica had lost almost all its Muslims. This article analyses the occupational structures of those three cities in the mid-nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, tracing the role of the state as an employer and the effects of radical political change on the city-level historical dynamics of labour relations.HistoryJournal Article1469-512X390338800010Q23843