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NATIONAL SOCKS AND THE “NYLON WOMAN”: MATERIALITY, GENDER, AND NATIONALISM IN TEXTILE MARKETING IN SEMICOLONIAL EGYPT, 1930–56

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2011

Nancy Y. Reynolds
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Abstract

The specific ways that cloth—“foreign silks,” “durable Egyptian cottons,” and “artificial silks”—emerged as a potent and visible symbol through which to contest the relations of colonialism and establish national community in Egypt varied with the changing realities of Egypt's political economy. The country's early importation of textiles despite its cultivation of raw cotton, the growth of its state-protected local mechanized industry working long- and medium-staple cotton for a largely lower-class market, and that industry's diversification into artificial silk technologies all helped structure a shift from “foreign silks” to “the nylon woman” as tropes in popular and political discourse defining the limits of the national community and the behaviors suitable for it. Although artificial fibers considerably lowered the cost of hosiery and other goods, thereby expanding consumption, the use of synthetics like nylon rather than cotton subverted the goal of national economic unity between agriculture and industry.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 49 - 74
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I am grateful to the following people for their helpful comments on various drafts of this article: Jean Allman, Joel Beinin, Khaled Fahmy, Dan Klingensmith, Zachary Lockman, Mary-Louise Roberts, Aron Rodrigue, Mario Ruiz, and participants of a research workshop at the Kevorkian Center, New York University. I also thank Beth Baron, Sara Pursley, and the anonymous IJMES reviewers for their insightful suggestions on how to sharpen my arguments. The research was made possible by an award from the Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the U.S. Information Agency, grants from Stanford University's School of Humanities and Sciences, and research funds from Washington University in St. Louis.

1 Tignor, Robert, Egyptian Textiles and British Capital, 1930–1956 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1989), 8–17Google Scholar; Sidney H. Wells, “L'Industrie du tissage en Egypte,” parts I and II, L'Egypte contemporaine (4 November 1910): 578–84; (5 January 1911): 52–73; and Owen, Roger, The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914 (New York: Metheun, 1987), 94Google Scholar.

2 H. Clayton Hartley, “Some Aspects of the Prospective Establishment of Textile Factories in Egypt,” L'Egypte contemporaine, no. 110 (July 1928): 599; Arminjon, Pierre, La Situation économique et financière de l'Egypte (Paris: Librarie générale du droit, 1911), 207Google Scholar; al-Rafiʿi, ʿAbd al-Rahman, Fi Aʿqab al-Thawra al-Misriyya, 3rd ed., vol. II, 1947–1951, reprint (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1987), 308Google Scholar; and Eman, André, L'Industrie du coton en Egypte (Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1943), 1Google Scholar.

3 Mulock, E. Homan, Report on the Economic and Financial Situation of Egypt, April 1923 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1923), 35, 48Google Scholar. See Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 57.

4 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 46–47.

5 Davis, Eric, Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920–1941 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tignor, Robert, State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

6 For an example of privileging mechanization, see Egypt, La Commission du Commerce et de l'Industrie, Rapport (Cairo: Imprimerie Nationale, 1918)Google Scholar. Davis, Challenging Colonialism, attributes the development of Bank Misr and its industrialization plan to the desire of some cotton growers to control the market.

7 Interview with al-Ahram, 31 July 1935, reprinted in Harb, Muhammad Talʿat, Majmuʿat Khutub Muhammad Talʿat Harb Basha, vol. 3 (Cairo: Imprimerie Misr, 1957), 161Google Scholar.

8 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 11–17.

9 The Indian case was complex and had been followed for a number of years in Egypt. See Noor-Aiman Khan, “The Enemy of My Enemy: Indian Influences on Egyptian Nationalism, 1907–1930” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2006). The early 1930s witnessed a new spate of comparisons. See “The Meeting of the Wafd and the Present Political Situation,” al-Ahram, 2 March 1931, in FO 141/770/515, U.K. National Archives; confidential note from Keown-Boyd to Commercial Secretary, 4 May 1932, in FO 141/711/465, U.K. National Archives; Hartley, “Some Aspects,” 599; and back cover cartoon of Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 332, 2 July 1934. On the Indian campaign, see Bayly, C. A., “The Origins of Swadeshi (home industry),” in The Social Life of Things, ed. Appadurai, Arjun (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 285–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Trivedi, Lisa, Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modern India (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. China had a similar “national products” campaign in the 1920s; see Gerth, Karl, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The United States provides another obvious example: see Zakim, Michael, “Sartorial Ideologies,” The American Historical Review 106 (December 2001): 1553–586CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Eman, L'Industrie du coton, 201. See also Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 46.

11 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 46. The factories also tended to select the shortest domestic raw cotton available, although growers were slow to switch away from long-staple varietals.

12 See Fairchilds, Cissie, “The Production and Marketing of Populuxe Goods in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. Brewer, John and Porter, Roy (New York: Routledge, 1993), 228Google Scholar. Fairchilds defines “populuxe” goods as “cheap copies of aristocratic luxury items.” One of her main examples is the market in silk stockings, which by the end of the 18th century had become a mass-consumption item in France. Many Egyptian cartoons featured stores littered with merchandise in the late 1940s and 1950s. See al-Ithnayn wa-l-Dunya (hereafter al-Ithnayn), no. 673, 5 May 1947, 37; al-Musawwar, no. 1263, 24 December 1948, 55; al-Musawwar, no. 1244, 13 August 1948, 7; and Almanach du progrès égyptien (1953): 123.

13 ʿAshur ʿUlaysh, “Imraʾt Nylun,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 1026, 11 February 1948, 33–34.

14 This article is part of a larger study on commerce and consumption in Egypt in the first half of the 20th century, for which I read representative segments of the Egyptian press, in Arabic, French, and English, from the 1910s through the 1950s in various libraries in Cairo. Although I examined some fifty different journals and newspapers, I focused on Ruz al-Yusuf, al-Musawwar, al-Ithnayn, and al-Ahram, especially in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, because of their relative significance in terms of circulation and the importance of the interwar years to my study. In my reading, I concentrated on issues of consumption, marketing, trade, and politics, as well as advertising. My primary state-archival sources are holdings from the department of corporations, the palace, and the council of ministers at the Egyptian National Archives in Cairo, and foreign affairs, claims, and trade correspondence in French and British archives. See Nancy Y. Reynolds, “Commodity Communities: Interweavings of Market Cultures, Consumption Practices, and Social Power in Egypt, 1907–1961” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2003).

15 See Shechter, Relli, “Press Advertising in Egypt: Business Realities and Local Meaning, 1882–1956,” Arab Studies Journal 10/11 (2003): 44–66Google Scholar; and idem, “Reading Advertisements in a Colonial/Development Context,” Journal of Social History 39 (Winter 2005): 483–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On visual literacy, see Baron, Beth, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar. On advertising in the pre-1922 period, see Russell, Mona, Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 61–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Baron, Beth, The Women's Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), esp. 69, 94Google Scholar.

16 Shechter, “Press Advertising,” 49. This was still a small fraction of the Egyptian population, which stood at roughly nineteen million in 1947.

17 Shechter, “Reading Advertisements,” 485. He discusses the correlated expansion of readership on pages 485 and 486.

18 See, for example, Alfred Dennis, “Economic Conditions and American Trade Possibilities in Egypt,” Commerce Reports, no. 30, 5 February 1921, Washington, D.C., in Afrique 1918–1940: Egypte 63, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (hereafter MAE); Department of Overseas Trade, Report of the United Kingdom Trade Mission to Egypt, February–March 1931 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1931)Google Scholar; and U.K. Board of Trade, Report of the United Kingdom Trade Mission to Egypt, the Sudan, and Ethiopia, February 1955 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1955)Google Scholar.

19 See Tignor, Egyptian Textiles. In this book, Tignor aptly documents many changes in the textile sector from the point of view of business administration, the Egyptian state, and British industrialists. I have drawn extensively from his narrative in writing about the cultural history of the period.

20 See United Arab Republic, Twelve Years of Industrial Development, 1952–1964 (Cairo: Government Printing Offices, 1964)Google Scholar.

21 See, for example, Anis, Mahmoud Amin, A Study of the National Income of Egypt (Cairo: Société orientale de publicité, 1950)Google Scholar; Issawi, Charles, Egypt at Mid-Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954)Google Scholar; O'Brien, Patrick, The Revolution in Egypt's Economic System (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Mead, Donald C., Growth and Structural Change in the Egyptian Economy (Homewood, Ill.: Richard Irwin, 1967)Google Scholar; Hansen, Bent, “Income and Consumption in Egypt, 1886/1887 to 1937,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979): 27–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hansen, Bent and Marzouk, Girgis A., Development and Economic Policy in the UAR (Egypt) (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 1965)Google Scholar. Amin, Galal, in Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000)Google Scholar and Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians? (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004), views consumption as an index of social health.

22 Owen, Roger, Cotton and the Egyptian Economy, 1820–1914 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Tignor, Egyptian Textiles; Mitchell, Timothy, The Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 8 on wheat and sugarcane; and Shechter, Relli, Smoking, Culture, and Economy in the Middle East: The Egyptian Tobacco Market, 1850–2000 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2006)Google Scholar.

23 Examples of new studies include Quataert, Donald, ed., Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922 (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Exertzoglou, Haris, “The Cultural Uses of Consumption,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003): 77–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grehan, James, Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Doumani, Beshara, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Singerman, Diane and Amar, Paul, eds., Cairo Cosmopolitan (New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2006)Google Scholar, esp. contributions by de Koning, Kuppinger, and Ghannam.

24 Halevi, Leor, “Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper,” Speculum 83 (October 2008): 917–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Starrett, Gregory, “The Political Economy of Religious Commodities in Cairo,” American Anthropologist 97 (March 1995): 51–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hirschkind, Charles, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

25 Thompson, Elizabeth, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Halevi, “Christian Impurity.”

26 Baron, Woman's Awakening; Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman; Pollard, Lisa, Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt, 1805–1923 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shechter, Relli, ed., Transitions in Domestic Consumption and Family Life in the Modern Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See, for example, Abaza, Mona, Changing Consumer Cultures of Modern Egypt (Boston: E. J. Brill, 2006)Google Scholar; and Kupferschmidt, Uri, The Orosdi-Back Saga (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2007)Google Scholar. Ann Stoler and Frederick Cooper argue that this is a general problem in the study of colonial states, and they call for a colonial history that is both attentive to cultural constructions and grounded in “specific relations of production and exchange.” See Stoler, and Cooper, , “Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Stoler and Cooper (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997), 18Google Scholar.

28 Exceptions include Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman; and Abu-Lughod, Lila, “The Romance of Resistance,” American Ethnologist 17 (1990): 41–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Appadurai, Arjun, “Introduction,” in The Social Life of Things, ed. Appadurai (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lucie Ryzova has tracked the circulation of personal journals and photographs, among other commodities, in 20th-century Egypt. See Ryzova, “‘I Am A Whore, But I Will Be A Good Mother’: On the Production and Consumption of the Female Body in Modern Egypt,” Arab Studies Journal XII.2/XIII.1 (2004–2005): 80–123.

30 The boycott was organized by upper-class women. Al-Rafiʿi, Aʿqab al-Thawra, 341; Baron, Egypt as a Woman, 170–77.

31 Davis, Challenging Colonialism, on Bank Misr; and Badrawi, Malak, Ismaʿil Sidqi (Richmond, U.K.: Curzon, 1996)Google Scholar.

32 See Bordereau d'envoi, 20 April 1931, including a letter from Grandguillot to Ministere du Commerce et de l'Industrie, Cairo, 20 March 1931, a/s “Egypte: Exposition agricole et industrielle,” Afrique 1930–1940: Egypte 107, MAE; see also “al-Sinaʿat al-Wataniyya fi al-Maʿrad,” al-Musawwar, special issue, 8 March 1931, 12.

33 See al-Rafiʿi, Aʿqab al-Thawra, 340–41.

34 See Selous, G. H., Economic Conditions in Egypt, July 1935 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1935), 52Google Scholar; and idem, Report on Economic and Commercial Conditions in Egypt, May 1937 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1937), 104–105Google Scholar. See also Tignor, State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change, 135–36.

35 Al-Rafiʿi, Aʿqab al-Thawra, 342. See al-Ahram, 28 October 1951. On the fate of the factory, see also Ibrahim el-Mouelhy, “Le Tarbouche et son histoire,” Almanach du progrès égyptien (1953): 68; and Jankowski, James, Egypt's Young Rebels: “Young Egypt,” 1933–1952 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), 12Google Scholar.

36 See Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 329, 11 June 1934, 52; “Fi ʿAlam al-Sinaʿ,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 328, 4 June 1934, 34; advertisement, al-Ahram, 29 October 1938, 6.

37 In his study of Bank Misr, Davis treats the retail company only briefly. See Davis, Challenging Colonialism, 135, 187. On the company's main store opening, see “Fi Dar al-Sharika al-Jadida,” al-Ahram, 4 January 1933, 7.

38 Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 264, 6 March 1933, 21; and Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 316, 12 March 1934, 27. See also Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 291, 11 September 1933, 14.

39 Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 316, 12 March 1934, 27.

40 Al-Ahram, 25 February 1933, 5. Similar characteristics marked clothing as Chinese in this period as well. Gerth, China Made, 120.

41 Unless otherwise noted, all information on the Tanta opening, including quotations from speeches, is from the article “Yawm Tanta al-Mashud,” al-Ahram, 13 February 1937. It was the fourteenth branch of the store to open.

42 “Formation of a Committee for Encouraging Native Manufactured Goods,” a notice appearing in al-Fallah, 3 March 1931 and al-Dia, 3 March 1931, FO 141/770/515, U.K. National Archives.

43 Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 221, 9 May 1932, 5. Ruz al-Yusuf was pro-Wafd and strongly nationalist in this period.

44 Al-Rafiʿi, Aʿqab al-Thawra, 341.

45 ʿAli Pasha Mubarak described, for example, the chief Maliki mufti in such terms in the 1880s. See Gesink, Indira Falk, “‘Chaos on the Earth,’” The American Historical Review 103 (2003): 722Google Scholar.

46 Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna, trans. and annotated by Charles Wendell (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1978), 19, 83, 86, 124. Grehan, Everyday Life, argues that religious elites accepted silk blends more easily in 18th-century Damascus, even though many Islamic jurists considered silk “morally dubious” (p. 214). The Muslim Brothers in Egypt did found a short-lived and small textile mill (the Muslim Brothers’ Company for Spinning and Weaving) in Shubra in 1947, as well as a commercial company in 1952 at al-Mahalla al-Kubra. The commercial company, according to Richard Mitchell, “produced textiles, household goods, clothing—ready-made men's clothing and accessories, including ties and scarves—notions, office and school supplies, and electrical equipment.” Although it is highly likely that ties, scarves, and other items were made of silk, the Brothers’ economic institutions were designed to promote the national economy and better the situation of the “poverty-stricken masses,” which suggests they produced affordable, modest cotton textiles. Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 272–77Google Scholar; see also Beinin, Joel and Lockman, Zachary, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 374–75Google Scholar.

47 Qutb, Sayyid, al-ʿAdala al-Ijtimaʿiyya fi al-Islam (1953; Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1975), 145Google Scholar. See also idem, Social Justice in Islam, trans. Hardie, John B., revised translation and introduction by Hamid Algar (1953; New York: Islamic Publications International, 2000), 160Google Scholar. On silk as a distraction from the worship of God, see also Bayly, “Origins,” 290.

48 Qutb, al-ʿAdala, 138–46, esp. 143–44.

49 M. Lefeuvre-Meaulle, “L'Egypte: Rapport de M. Lefeuvre-Meaulle, attaché commercial en Orient,” 60, enclosed in Lefeuvre-Meaulle à Selves, Paris, 28 July 1911, in Nouvelle Série 118, Egypte, MAE.

50 The memoirs were composed in colloquial Arabic while he was imprisoned in the late 1950s and early 1960s for labor activism. Although composing memoirs was not a typical activity of the average textile worker, Joel Beinin has argued for the authenticity of al-Khuli's text because of its uniqueness as a memoir, especially because it does not follow the accepted ideological canon of communist memoirs. See Beinin, Joel, Workers and Peasants in the Middle East (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), chap. 4, esp. 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 al-Khuli, Fikri, al-Rihla, vol. I (Cairo: Dar al-Ghad, 1987), 46Google Scholar.

52 Al-Khuli, al-Rihla, 172. He makes at least four references to this on pages 174 through 177.

53 M. El Darwish, “Where Egyptian Cotton Scores,” The Manchester Guardian Commercial, special issue on Egypt, 19 March 1931, 35.

54 Tignor, State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change, 129.

55 Advertisement in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 306, 25 December 1933, 50; see also Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman, 64.

56 Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman, 62.

57 See, for example, the illustrations of “Ziyy Sharqi Hadith” accompanying the article on “Azyaʾ al-Sayyidat,” Majallat al-Maraʾ al-Misriyya 6, no. 8, 15 October 1925, 436–38; and “Ahdath al-Azyaʾ,” Majallat Misr al-Haditha al-Musawwara, no. 4, 25 January 1928, 28.

58 Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman, 61.

59 Shechter, “Reading Advertisements,” 486.

60 Shechter, “Press Advertising,” 51.

61 On early nationalist advertising in the 1920s, see Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman, 72–78.

62 Shechter, “Press Advertising,” 53–54.

63 See, for example, al-Nahhas advertisement, Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 221, 9 May 1932, 15; and Misr Company for Silk Weaving advertisement, Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 290, 4 September 1933, 27.

64 Advertisement in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 306, 25 December 1933, 50. A similar advertisement depicting workers carrying bolts of fabric from the factory up a series of steps made by piles of other bolts of fabric ran in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 303, 4 December 1933, 49.

65 Advertisement in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 307, 1 January 1934, 47.

66 Interview with Harb in Misr, 19 December 1936; and press statement in May 1938 reprinted in Harb, Majmuʿat Khutub, 138, 173, 141.

67 Fédération égyptienne de l'industrie, Foreign Trade of Egypt (Cairo: Société orientale de publicité, 1955), 221–26Google Scholar. Many of the trademarks had been in use for a number of years. See Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 248, 14 November 1932, 32; and La Femme Nouvelle, March 1949.

68 Lane, Edward, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836; reprint, London: East–West Publications, 1989), 40Google Scholar.

69 Lefeuvre-Meaulle, “L'Egypte,” 45; see also Kupferschmidt, Uri, “Who Needed Department Stores in Egypt? From Orosdi-Back to Omar Effendi,” Middle Eastern Studies 43 (2007): 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 See, for example, the following advertisements for Holeproof Hosiery: al-Musawwar, no. 50, 25 September 1925, 11; al-Musawwar, no. 51, 2 October 1925, 14; al-Musawwar, no. 85, 28 May 1926, 11; Majallat Misr al-Haditha al-Musawwara, no. 4, 25 January 1928, 33; and Majallat Misr al-Haditha al-Musawwara, no. 5, February 1928, 81. Holeproof Hosiery was listed, along with a number of other British brand-name products, as an advertiser in the Egyptian press in Mulock, E. Homan, Report on the Economic and Financial Situation of Egypt, June 1926 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1926)Google Scholar.

71 Misr al-Haditha al-Musawwara, January 1928, 33; and al-Lataʾif al-Musawwara, 22 November 1926, 15.

72 Al-Lataʾif al-Musawwara, vol. X, no. 469, 4 February 1924, 17.

73 See “Qism al-Triku,” al-Ahram, 5 October 1935.

74 Philipp, Thomas, The Syrians in Egypt, 1725–1975 (Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner, 1985), 140Google Scholar. These included the “Shurbaji, Qabbani, Mardini, Halbuni, Abu ʿAuf, and Kasm families.”

75 Eman, L'Industrie du coton, 115.

76 Selous, Report on Economic and Commercial Conditions, May 1937, 105.

77 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 58.

78 Cited in Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 56.

79 “Note sur le marché de la bonneterie en Egypte,” April 1954, 3–4, le Caire-Ambassade 602/253, Centre des archives diplomatiques-Nantes.

80 See “Masaniʿ al-Shurbaji bi-Imbaba,” al-Ahram, special issue 1950, 34; and “al-Mudhakkira” (Note), n.d., “Bunuk: 1945–99,” Abdin: Maliyya no. 264: Bunuk wa-Sharikat, 1909–1949, Dar al-Wathaʾiq al-Qawmiyya, Cairo (Egyptian National Archives, hereafter DWQ). Nearly LE 300,000 was transferred from factories outside Egypt to the Shurbaji Brothers in Egypt through various accounts in the Ottoman Bank and Bank Misr in 1941 and 1942.

81 L'Egypte nouvelle, no. 161, 16 May 1947, 387; and Levy, Clement, Stock Exchange Year-Book of Egypt, 1957 (Cairo: Stock Exchange Year-book of Egypt, 1957), 714–15Google Scholar.

82 This could be because the local press was predominantly owned and run by Syrians resident in Egypt. It is worth noting that the Shurbaji plant was renowned for its unjust treatment of its workers. See Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 434, 392.

83 “Masnaʿ Jawarib Shurbaji,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 358, 31 December 1934, 35; and “Sinaʿat al-Jawarib fi Misr,” al-Musawwar, no. 572, 27 September 1935, 2. See also advertisement in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 307, 1 January 1934, 27.

84 Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 343, 17 September 1934, 18.

85 “Masnaʿ Jawarib Shurbaji”; and Shurbaji advertisement in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 307, 1 January 1934, 27.

86 “Masnaʿ Jawarib Shurbaji.”

87 “Masaniʿ al-Shurbaji li-l-Shurrabat!” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 347, 15 October 1934, 28.

88 “Ziyara li-Masnaʿ al-Shurbaji,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 328, 4 June 1934, 26.

89 Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 301, 20 November 1933, 29; another ad depicted the same three people dressing: Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 307, 1 January 1934, 26.

90 Al-Musawwar, no. 534, 4 January 1935; see also al-Balagh, 10 October 1942. Although Bata opened stores in Egypt starting in the early 1930s, it would not open a local factory until 1938.

91 See 1956–1957 Egyptian Trade Index (Alexandria, Egypt: Middle East Publishing Company, 1957), 451. See also advertisements in al-Ithnayn: no. 680, 23 June 1947, 29; no. 685, 28 July 1947, 31; no. 662, 17 February 1947, 28.

92 For example, see advertisement for the Egyptian Clothing Company, al-Ahram, 1 February 1931, 13.

93 See Turner, M. A. E. and Larkins, L. B. S., Economic Conditions in Egypt, July 1931 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1931), 48Google Scholar.

94 Eman, L'Industrie du coton, 201.

95 Subhi Shurbaji to the Egyptian Finance Minister, dated Alexandria, Egypt, 10 April 1942, in ʿAbdin, Maliyya, no. 264: Bunuk wa-Sharikat, 1909–1949, DWQ. See also Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 58. Despite Shurbaji's claims, there is no evidence that existing fibers were necessarily deficient or inadequate.

96 See “Masaniʿ al-Shurbaji bi-Imbaba,” 34.

97 Ibid.

98 In 1952, imports of stockings made from pure artificial silk, and artificial silk blends reached 144,560 dozen pairs. “Note sur le marché de la bonneterie en Egypte,” 4.

99 Selous, Report on Economic and Commercial Conditions, May 1937, 76–77.

100 Turner and Larkins, Economic Conditions, July 1931, 48.

101 Selous, Report on Economic and Commercial Conditions, May 1937, 116.

102 Interview with Harb in Misr, 19 December 1936, reprinted in Harb, Majmuʿat Khutub, 173.

103 Ibid.

104 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 55–56. See also Davis, Challenging Colonialism, 144.

105 Tignor, Egyptian Textiles, 56.

106 Politi, Eli, Annuaire des sociétés égyptiennes par actions, 1955 (Alexandria, Egypt: Imprimerie du commerce, 1955), 415Google Scholar.

107 Official Report of the International Cotton Congress Held in Egypt, 1927 (Manchester, U.K.: Taylor Garnett Evans and Co., n.d.), 38; and “Haya Kulaha Nylun,” al-Ithnayn, no. 678, 9 June 1947, 10.

108 “Al-Tawsiʿa fi al-Istikhdam al-Khuyut al-Sinaʿiyya,” al-Misri, special issue on cotton, 1950, 71.

109 A pair of fine silk stockings cost between PT 45 and PT 60, whereas more common types of cotton mesh or muslin stockings cost PT 7 to PT 15.

110 Handley, Susannah, Nylon (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 48Google Scholar.

111 “Where We Get the Silk for Our Jumpers and Frocks,” The Egyptian Gazette, 3 June 1925; and al-Musawwar, no. 686, 3 December 1937, 19.

112 Al-Musawwar, no. 686, 3 December 1937, 19.

113 See Sidnawi advertisement for Van Raalte stockings in Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 304, 11 December 1933, 38; and The Egyptian Gazette, 5 October 1934, 6. See also The Egyptian Gazette, 2 November 1934, 6; 5 October 1934, 6; and 19 October 1934, 6; and al-Musawwar, no. 686, 3 December 1937, 19; al-Musawwar, no. 559, 28 June 1935, 29. Although some other luxury goods were advertised without prices, this was most pronounced with silk stockings.

114 G. de R., “Bas de Soie, Bas de Fil,” L'Egypte Nouvelle, no. 9, 22 May 1942, 18.

115 Jean Schatz, “Le Commerce Extérieur de l'Egypte pendant les Deux Guerres Mondiales,” L'Egypte contemporaine, no. 228–29 (1945): 796 (tables); “Note sur le marché de la bonneterie en Egypte,” 4.

116 Commercial reports rarely break out nylon from overall hosiery production. See “Note sur le marché de la bonneterie en Egypte,” Appended statistique on imports and pp. 3–4; and “Masaniʿ al-Shurbaji bi-Imbaba,” 34.

117 Anecdotal evidence suggests that even for middle- and upper-middle-class women, nylon stockings were a splurge item in the 1950s. A 1955 article explains in detail the differences of gauge, durability, and flexibility of different types of nylon stockings (those for work, leisure, or evening wear) and opens with a panicked lament of a woman consumer who has just torn a new pair of nylon stockings. “Shurrabi . . . Shurrabi!” Hawwa al-Jadida, special issue, 1 May 1955, 67. See also the Shurbaji store advertising in al-Musawwar in the winter of 1957 to 1958.

118 Chemla advertisement, Akhir Lahza, no. 74, 31 May 1950, 2.

119 See, for example, al-Musawwar, no. 1258, 19 November 1948, 39; and al-Musawwar, no. 1686, 1 February 1957, 37. See also Shurbaji advertisement, in special issue of al-Ahram, July 1959, 71; Gabary Store advertisements, in al-Ahram, 22 November 1951, 2 and Bint al-Nil, December 1954, 80; Bata stockings (silk and artificial silk), al-Ithnayn, no. 562, 19 March 1945, 22; Kayser nylons, Images, no. 170, 9 February 1952; 14; and Cameo nylons ad, Hawwa al-Jadida, no. 11, 1 November 1955, 70.

120 Al-Ahram, 20 November 1951, 1.

121 Al-Musawwar, no. 1655, 29 June 1956, 32.

122 All quotes from the opening are taken from Marzuq Hilal, “Ahyaʾ al-Qahira fi Diyafat al-Zamalik; Rigal wa-Nisaʾ Yahtafun: la Ghalaʾ baʿd al-Yawm wa-la Sinaʿa Ajnabiyya bayn al-Qawm,” al-Musawwar, no. 1730, 6 December 1957, 22–23. See also “Nuwab al-Shaʿb maʿa Abtalna alladhina Hatamu al-Hisar al-Iqtisadi,” al-Musawwar, no. 1735, 10 January 1958, 35.

123 Hilal, “Ahyaʾ al-Qahira.”

124 Handley, Nylon.

125 On social unrest in the 1940s, see, for example, Abdalla, Ahmad, The Student Movement and National Politics in Egypt (London: al-Saqi Books, 1985)Google Scholar; and Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile.

126 ʿAshur ʿUlaysh, “Imraʾt Nylun,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 1026, 11 February 1948, 33–34. See also the graphics of “al-Tawsiʿa,” 71.

127 ʿUlaysh, “Imraʾt Nylun.” The pun on nylon-attired legs being a “piece of meat” perhaps alludes to gawz kawāriʿ (sheep's trotters) as slang for “a pair of pretty legs.” See Bayram al-Tunisi, Fawazir Ramadan, no. 44: al-Shurrab, in Ashʿar Bayram al-Tunisi, ed. Muhammad Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi (Cairo: Madbuli, 1985), 313.

128 Akhir Saʿa, no. 697, 3 March 1948.

129 Stowasser, Barbara Freyer, Women in the Qurʾan, Traditions, and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 54–55Google Scholar; see also 50. As a lover of Joseph, who was Jewish, Zulaykha may also refer to the increasing politicization of industry after the 1948 war in Palestine and the implementation of the 1947 company law, which sought to Egyptianize joint-stock companies registered in Egypt, many (but by no means most) of which were owned by locally resident Jews. On the complexity of the identities of locally resident Jews, see Beinin, Joel, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

130 Wheelock, Keith, Nasser's New Egypt (New York: Praeger, 1960), 139–40Google Scholar; and Vatikiotis, P. J., The History of Egypt, 3rd ed. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 391Google Scholar.

131 Ahmad Husayn in al-Shaʿb al-Jadid, 4 June 1951, cited in Gordon, Joel, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1996), 27–28Google Scholar.

132 Faraj, Samir, Nariman: Akhir Malikat Misr (Cairo: Ahram Publishing, 1992)Google Scholar.

133 R. T., “La Journée du 26 janvier,” Almanach du progrès égyptien, 1953. On the Cairo fire, see also “Maʾsat al-Qahira fi 26 Yanayir 1952,” al-Ahram, 12 February 1952, 1–3; Confidential report from Stevenson to Eden, “Damage to British Interests in Cairo in the Riots of 26th January, 1952,” dated Cairo, 5 February 1952, in FO 371/96957, PRO; al-Sharqawi, Jamal, Hariq al-Qahira (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al-Jadida, 1976)Google Scholar; and Kerboeuf, Anne-Claire, “The Cairo Fire of 26 January 1952 and the Interpretations of History,” in Re-Envisioning Egypt, 1919–1952, ed. Goldschmidt, Arthur, Johnson, Amy J., and Salmoni, Barak A. (New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2005), 194–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

134 “Extremists’ Role in Riots,” The Times, 29 January 1952, 4.

135 The text appears to be misprinted as “Shaykh Manluf.” I appreciate the assistance of Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. on this issue. It is also possible this alluded to shaykh Hasanayn Makhluf, state mufti until 1954. See also Muhammad Husayn, “Imraʾa fi Shariʿ Fuʾad,” Ruz al-Yusuf, no. 1023, 21 January 1948, 34.

136 Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement, 196.

137 Bardenstein, Carol, “The Role of the Target-System in Theatrical Adaptation,” in The Play Out of Context, ed. Scolnicov, Hanna and Holland, Peter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 146–62Google Scholar.