Lebanon's Silk Industry: The Mulberry Boom That Built Beirut

In this episode of The Story of Lebanon, we trace the rise and fall of the silk industry that transformed the country from a sleepy Ottoman backwater into a Mediterranean trading hub. We start with the mulberry tree — the humble plant that fed the silkworms and fueled an economic revolution. We follow the silk from the terraced hills of Mount Lebanon to the bustling port of Beirut, where French merchants from Lyon and Marseille controlled the trade. Along the way, we meet the Khoury family, whose fortunes were built on silk, and the women who did the painstaking work of reeling the threads. We explore the social upheaval as the industry triggered a shift from subsistence farming to cash crops, and how it created a new class of wealthy Lebanese merchants who would later shape the country's politics. We also examine the dark side: the pollution of the Litani River, the exploitation of workers, and the industry's collapse in the 1930s due to Japanese competition and synthetic fibers. Through it all, we see how silk wove itself into the fabric of Lebanese identity, leaving a legacy that still resonates today.

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