Late 19th and early 20th century in the history of Ottoman Empire is marked with efforts of westernization and reforms in various areas of social and political life including women’s status in family and society. The changes occurred in their lives gave way to a new breed of Ottoman intellectual women. This article is an attempt to take a close look at the Ottoman women of this period and shed light on the question of who they were by looking at their own memoirs, letters, literary and critical writings, the writings of female and male Occidental travelers and secondary sources. I seek answers to questions such as “What type of education did these women have, what did they read, how did they dress, what was their standard of life, which kind of families did they come from, how were they related and reacted to different political ideologies of the time, how did they regard westernization efforts in the Empire, did they have any shared concerns, how was their contact with each other and with Western men and women, and, do the Western writings of the period have anything common to say about Ottoman women?” Existing work on Ottoman women largely focuses on the issues of women’s rights and women’s movement, studies individuals or their publications or involves thematic explorations. Lack of insightful scholarship on the profiles of Ottoman women results in the recognition of some of the Orientalist presuppositions about them for practical purposes. This essay pursues a comprehensive and defining look on these women as to their identities, backgrounds, environments and aspirations through mainly first-hand accounts. While not dismissing a collective representation, this study, in general terms, aims at increasing familiarity with the late Ottoman women from high-class to middle-class, from the supporters of Abdulhamid II to the Turkists and from the graduates of colleges to those privately educated in harems.