This thesis is a biographical microhistory of Christopher Oscanyan (1818-1895), the first known Armenian American. Sent by American missionaries from Ottoman Constantinople to New York City in 1834, Oscanyan became known across the United States as “the Oriental lecturer,” and “the Turk.” Over the course of the century, he used a range of popular media — lectures, books, newspapers, photographs, tableaux vivant, comic opera, and personal costume — to “correct [Americans’] erroneous impressions” of the “Turks” and cultivate “mutual diplomatic relations” between his two countries. Through his efforts, he sought not only to create a “friendly” relationship between the United States and the Ottoman Empire based on mutual understanding between equal nations, but also to promote political reform within the Ottoman Empire itself.

The available sources reveal a man committed to delivering instructive entertainment as well as publicly discussing Ottoman and Armenian politics. Notably, his embrace of spectacle on the lecture circuit did not preclude him from engaging seriously with such political matters. In fact, his celebrity and credibility as an expert instructor gave him the platform from which to do so. This thesis analyzes how Oscanyan’s career illuminates and animates the rise of a professional ecosystem that blended entertainment, instruction, and politics.

Finally, this thesis traces the evolution of Oscanyan’s own political views. Oscanyan’s politics and diplomatic work changed radically in the 1870s, when relations between the Ottoman Empire and its Christian populations became more fraught than ever. From the late 1870s until his death, Oscanyan worked exclusively to construct strong diplomatic relations between Ottoman Armenians and Americans, championing, especially, Armenian immigration to the United States. While he still wrote about the Ottoman Empire and its people, these writings were increasingly styled as personal memoirs of Turkey’s past – not depictions of an equal nation with which to develop a diplomatic future.