This article focuses on children taken by Istanbulite families for upbringing and employment in the Ottoman capital during the 1800–1900 period. It suggests that domestic child labor which was shaped by the concept of ‘charity’ and economic interests during the first half of the nineteenth century progressively turned into wage labor during the second half of the century. The study claims that the nineteenth century witnessed a transformation of labor relations in the domestic service market, implying the transition from reciprocal to commodified labor. The labor of children employed in domestic services underwent a monetization process throughout the nineteenth century. Parallel to this monetization, the status of children under foster care or in domestic service came to be determined by standardized legal contracts.

Istanbul, a power nexus in the Ottoman world, witnessed a proliferation of female child labor in domestic service over the course of the 19th century. This study shows that slave ownership and the recruitment of girl domestics were highly class-sensitive phenomena. This means that 19th-century Istanbul groups of middling economic means, who could not easily access the slave market, could recruit girl domestics with lower wages. The study claims that the rising presence of girl child labor in domestic service did not in itself bring about the immediate disappearance of domestic female slaves, as these two types of labor were not substitutes for each other in the labor market. The study also shows that a diversification in the zones supplying girls after the 1840s, as well as the rising demand for girl child labor, affected the wage levels of girls, which, however, does not appear to have had a noticeable impact on the fluctuations of prices for female slaves—both for Africans and Caucasians—and ownership.