Beirut 1878: The Drought That Drowned the Silk Trade

Long before the Civil War or the French Mandate, a natural disaster reshaped Lebanon's economy and society. In 1878, a severe drought followed by torrential rains devastated the mulberry groves of Mount Lebanon, collapsing the silk industry that had made Beirut the 'Paris of the Levant.' This episode follows the fall of the Sursock silk empire, the flight of peasants to Beirut's slums, and the first wave of Lebanese emigration to the Americas. We explore how a single ecological shock broke the feudal bonds tying farmers to landlords, accelerated the shift toward cash crops like olives and tobacco, and planted the seeds of the diaspora that would later finance the Lebanese state. Drawing on consular reports from the British consul in Beirut, George Jackson Eldridge, and the archives of the Pharaon family, we trace how the drought of 1878 triggered a chain reaction that ended the era of silk and forced Greater Lebanon to reinvent itself.

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