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A Panacea for the Ills of the Country: American Presbyterian Education in Inter-War Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael P. Zirinsky
Michael P. Zirinsky*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Boise State University
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Extract

Earliest contacts between the United States and Iran came about through Protestant missions. This activity resulted from the second great awakening, which, beginning in the early nineteenth century, impelled many Christians to preach the Gospel to all humankind; thus the American Protestant mission to Iran was part of a world-wide phenomenon. This mission was important to the development of Iranian and American perceptions of each other. Missionaries represented the U.S. to Iran, and they transmitted perceptions of Iran back to America. Because of the beneficent nature of their activities, especially education, many Iranians developed a favorable yet perhaps unrealistic view of the United States. This article will explore some of these early contacts and the imperfect mutual understandings they inspired. It will focus on mission personnel, schools, curricula, and students in the interwar years, as Iran tightened its control over education by initiatives taken in 1928, 1932, and 1939.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 1993 , pp. 119 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1993

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Footnotes

Research for this article was supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Idaho State Board of Education, Boise State University, and the Idaho Humanities Council, a state-based affiliate of the NEH, and was undertaken primarily at the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS), Philadelphia.

References

1. PHS, RG 91; Brown, A. J., One Hundred Years: A History of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. (New York, 1936)Google Scholar; J. Elder, “History of the Iran Mission” (ms, ca. 1960), PHS; A. Mansoori, “American Missionaries in Iran, 1834–1934” (Ph.D. diss., Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind., 1986); Zirinsky, M. P., “Presbyterians and Pahlavi Persia: Pride, Prejudice, and Power,” American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., 30 Dec. 1987, and idem, “Harbingers of Change: Presbyterian Women in Iran, 1883–1949,” American Presbyterians, Journal of Presbyterian History 70 (1992): 3Google Scholar, 173–86.

2. CMS PE G2 PE /L2, p. 213; /P2 1895, 32; and /O 1895, 105. In 1912–13 CMS agreed to Presbyterian expansion into southern Khorasan and Sistan (PHS, RG 81–13–20). CMS archives are maintained at Birmingham University Library; archives of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission are maintained at Lambeth Palace Library, London.

3. See Farmaian, S. Farman (with D. Munker), Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution (New York, 1992)Google Scholar.

4. Bill, J., The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, 1988)Google Scholar.

5. INFO Series #30, “Persia; General Situation,” 1934, National Archives, RG 59, 891.00/1596.

6. Yahya Armajani heard then First Secretary of Legation Harold Minor say this soon after the U.S. joined the war (letter, 3 Jul. 1990).

7. Mission employees who later worked for the U.S. government included T. Cuyler Young, Edwin M. Wright, Taylor Gurney, Yahya Armajani, and Joseph Rasooli; OSS agent Donald N. Wilber used missionaries as sources of information (Adventures in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions [Princeton, 1986], 187–95 el passim, and interview, 1 Jul. 1987).

8. Bany Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran (New York, 1980); Bill, Eagle and Lion.

9. Most the missionaries who served in Iran are listed in Brown, One Hundred Years; their personnel (H5) files are preserved at the PHS.

10. Files of 48 couples had enough information to pose this question. Twenty men were married to women older than they were. Among all couples studied, husbands averaged about half a year younger than their wives.

11. For the most part they came from the Midwest (63) and the middle Atlantic states (41). Ninety-six (70 percent) came from the contiguous states: Massachusetts (4), New York (9), New Jersey (7), Pennsylvania (25), Ohio (20), Indiana (5), Illinois (13), Iowa (6), and Minnesota (7).

12. G. F. Zoeckler, Hamadan, 26 Sep. 1910, BFM, Missions Correspondence and Reports, Microfilm Series, reel #273.

13. Tehran Boys' School superintendent S. L. Ward, 12 Jun. 1895, CMS PE G2 PE L2, p. 171.

14. Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza, Mission for My Country (London, 1960), 134, 240Google Scholar.

15. Elder, History, 19, 68. BFM and State Department archives (NA, RG 59, 84) contain much information about war-time Iran. Missionaries organized relief, many died, some engaged in activities incompatible with missionary status. William A. Shedd became U.S. consul at Urmia, accepted charge of defense, and raised the U.S. flag over the mission compound; he died of cholera while fleeing the Ottomans with the Assyrian army in August 1918. Dr. Harry Packard helped organize police forces. See M. P. Zirinsky, “Massacre 1919: American Missionaries and the Disintegration of Iran” (paper presented to the Idaho Historical Conference, 3 Oct. 1992).

16. The Moslem World, January 1927, 7; Mansoori, “Missionaries,” 129; Winifred Shannon, Tehran, 1939–10 report, PHS, RG 91–20–16.

17. PHS, RG 91–19–25.

18. Second Century Deputation report, 5 May 1939, PHS, RG 81–9–8.

19. Mary Gardner, Hamadan, Faith Hubbard Boarding Department report, 1933–34, PHS, RG 91–19–26.

20. Jane Doolittle, Tehran, “Annual Report of Nurbakhsh School, Sage College, July 1, 1934-June 30, 1935,” PHS, RG 91–20–12; c.f., Farman Farmaian, Daughter of Persia; M. ‘A. Jamalzadeh, Isfahan is Half the World: Memories of a Persian Boy hood, trans. W. L. Heston (Princeton, 1983); and Mottahedeh, R., Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

21. Zirinsky, “Harbingers.”

22. Mary C. Johnson, Tabriz Girls' School Report, 1927–28, PHS, RG 91–20–10. The costumes were designed by Mrs. Edwin Wright.

23. Martha Bullert was faculty adviser to The Torch and Marie Gillespie was principal of Furough School, Rasht, 1939, PHS, RG 91–20–4.

24. Y. Armajani, “Sam Jordan and the Evangelical Ethic in Iran,” in Miller, Robert J., ed., Religious Ferment in Asia (Lawrence, Kan.: 1974), 27Google Scholar.

25. “Statement of Educational Policy of East Persia Mission,” authorized by Annual Meeting, 1918, submitted by C. H. Allen, Chairman of the Educational Committee, Hamadan, 19 Oct. 1918, PHS, RG 91–14–8. The next several paragraphs are based on this document.

26. Fisher, Hamadan, 1936–37 report, PHS, RG 91–19–25.

27. 30 Jun. 1932, PHS, RG 91–20–2.

28. 1938–39 Hamadan Middle School report, PHS, RG 91–19–25.

29. Hugo A. Muller, Hamadan, 1938, PHS, RG 91–19–25. 30. Second Century Deputation report, Hamadan, 5 May 1939, PHS, RG 81–9–8.

31. PHS H5; New York Times, 25 June 1952; Armajani, “Jordan,” 22–36; William McElwee Miller, PHS MS C272; Arthur C. Boyce, “Alborz College of Tehran and Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan,” in ‘A Pasha Saleh, ed., Cultural Ties between Iran and the United States (Tehran, 1976), 155–234Google Scholar; Jordan, S. M., “Constructive Revolutions in Iran,” Moslem World (1935), 347–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Armajani, “Jordan,” 31.

33. PHS microfilm #189, no. 2, cited in Armajani, “Jordan,” 29; F. L. Bird, “Modern Persia and Its Capital; and an Account of an Ascent of Mount Demavend, the Persian Olympus,” National Geographic Magazine (April, 1921), 353–400Google Scholar; a photograph of Jordan atop Damavand taken by ACT instructor Bird appears on p. 399.

34. Jordan, “Revolutions,” 350–51.

35. C. B. Fisher, 31 Mar. 1932, PHS RG 91–19–25.

36. C. B. Fisher, 30 Jun. 1939, PHS RG 91–19–25.

37. Report of the Mashhad Boys' School, 30 Jun. 1932, PHS RG 91–20–2.

38. Marie Gillespie, Rasht, 1936, PHS, RG 91–20–4.

39. Huldah Bryan, Hamadan, 1937, PHS RG 91–19–26.

40. Jordan, “Revolutions,” 351.

41. Ibid., 352–3.

42. Fisher, Hamadan, 7 Aug. 1927, PHS, RG 91–2–12.

43. Edwin M. Wright, Hamadan, 1936, PHS, RG 91–19–25.

44. C. B. Fisher, 30 Jun. 1939, PHS, RG 91–19–25.

45. Girls' Boarding and Day School report, Tabriz, Oct. 1932, PHS, RG 91–20–10; Faith Hubbard Boarding Dept. report, 1934, PHS, RG 91–19–26.

46. Mary C. Johnson, Tabriz, 23 Jun. 1936, PHS, RG 91–20–10. Girl Scout work in the Tabriz school was supervised by Miss Pease.

47. In criticism of an earlier paper, Armajani strongly denied any implication that Presbyterian-sponsored scouting supported Reza Shah's militarism. However, he noted that he himself was one of three translators of the Handbook for Boys into Persian, and that he was appalled by the government's forced militarization of scouting.

48. Jordan, “Revolutions,” 347–8.

49. Philip, Tehran, 8 June 1926, D.102, USNA, RG 59, 391.1164 Am 3/—.

50. For a full discussion of Iranian government pressure to scale back mission schools, see the ensuing article.

51. Samuel M. Jordan, Philadelphia, 10 Oct. 1934, PHS, H5.

52. The cabinet included: Forughi (prime minister), Soheili (foreign minister), Hekmat (industry), Ahi (justice), Mer'at (health), Sajjadi (roads), Golshayan (commerce), Ahmad Kakhshavan (war), Jahanbani (interior); Naficy (finance), Sayyah (posts and telegraph), ‘Ali Kakami (agriculture), and Sadiq (education) (Jordan, Pasadena, Calif., Oct. 28, 1941, letter to Dodds, PHS, RG 91–22–19).

53. PHS, RG 91–19–25; Washington Post, 31 Jan. 1981; Oberlin College Secretary's report, 15 May 1932, and biographical form supplied by Rasooli, November 1966; Oberlin Alumni Magazine (Summer 1981), 48Google Scholar; “The Story of Saeed,” (New York, n.d.); Rasooli, J. M. and Allen, C. H., The Life Story of Dr. Sa'eed of Iran: Kurdish Physician to Princes, Peasants, Nobles and Nomads (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1957Google Scholar); Wilson, J. Christy, “A Persian Apostle—Dr. Sa'eed Kurdistani,” Moslem World (1943), 129–39Google Scholar; Yonan, I. M., The Beloved Physician of Teheran (Nashville, Tenn., 1934)Google Scholar.

54. H. A. Muller, Avicenna School 1937–38 report, PHS, RG 91–19–25.

55. Washington Post, 31 Jan. 1981. Rasooli died in January 1981.

56. PHS, Armajani, H5.

57. For example, C. B. Fisher noted, “Average enrollment has never exceeded 300” (Hamadan, report 1939–40, PHS, RG 91–19–25).