Beirut 1887: The Silk Boom That Built a City

Before the civil war, before the French Mandate, Beirut was a boomtown built on silk. This episode follows the rise and fall of the Lebanese silk industry — the mulberry groves of Mount Lebanon, the French spinning mills in the Matn, and the thousands of women who worked the looms. We meet the great silk merchant families like the Sursocks and Pharaons, explore the impact of the 1860 massacres on the industry, and trace how a tiny worm shaped Beirut's architecture, banking, and cosmopolitan identity. Along the way, we uncover the collapse of the sector after World War I, the shift to citrus and tobacco, and how the memory of silk still haunts the old souks. A story of capital, craft, and catastrophe — told through the thread of a single export.

#LebaneseSilk #BeirutHistory #MountLebanon #1887 #OttomanEmpire #SursockFamily #PharaonFamily #MulberryTrees #Sericulture #Khadra #RueBecharaElKhoury #1860Massacres #Industrialization #FrenchMills #SilkWeaving #EconomicHistory #History #FexingoHistory

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