In 1910 the United States and the Ottoman Empire began an unprecedented era of friendship. The Ottomans had undergone some major changes in the preceding years. A party of reformers calling themselves the Young Turks had swept into power, proclaimed a new constitution and deposed of the autocratic Sultan Abdulhamid II, and instituted a new era of government. Many Americans saw new opportunity to extend ties. Richard Gottheil, the chair of the Semitic Languages department at Columbia, had just spent a year in the Ottoman Empire, primarily in Palestine. By his account, only Germany seemed to see the potential in the market there and that the Americans had a large opportunity. Speaking to a group of Columbia students in September of 1910 he noted that the Young Turks were removing barriers to Jewish immigration to Palestine and setting up new irrigation system. A couple of months later at a round table at Teachers College on the same issue he claimed that reasons for all these positive signs could be traced to three sources: the new generation of literati, the role of American Colleges, especially Robert College in Istanbul, and the clear influence of women. Though we know in hindsight that the Ottoman Empire would only last another decade, for many at that time there was no end in sight. Many had noted its recent fall in fortunes, with massive loss of territory in the Balkans, but it had been around for 800 years and it seemed to be newly reinvigorated.