The Tarbiyat Girls' School of Tehran: Iranian and American Baha'i Contributions to Modern Education
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19436149.2012.755298
ISSN1943-6157
Autores Tópico(s)African history and culture analysis
ResumoAbstract This article, which examines the thirty-year history of the Tarbiyat Girls' School of Tehran from the late Qajar to the Reza Shah period, sheds light on the nature of contact between Iranian and American Baha'is and the changing communal and organizational development of Baha'is in the early twentieth century. Through the efforts of the Persian-American Educational Society (PAES), American Baha'is financed the school and oversaw its operations and teaching staff during a period when girls' schools were first emerging in Iran. As the school grew in size, its diminishing American influence coincided with the rise of Iranian Baha'i institutions and an emerging public identity for Iranian Baha'is that clashed with the dictates of the state's centralizing, secularizing, and nationalizing reforms. Keywords: Baha'i schools Tarbiyat al-Banat female education Iranian Baha'is American Baha'is Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the following persons: Anthony Lee of the Baha'i Center Library and Archives, Los Angeles, CA; Roger Dahl of the National Baha'i Center Archives, Wilmette, IL; Sina Mosayyeb; Mehrdad Amanat; Siyamak Zabihi-Moghaddam and Afshin Matin-asgari. I also express my gratitude to the Cal State Fullerton History Department for research travel assistance. This article is dedicated to the memory of Ms. Badieh Misagieh Eshragian. Notes 1 See B. CitationRassekh (n.d.) Naqsh-e Banuvan dar payvand-e khavar va bakhtar [The role of women in connecting east and west], n.p.; A. Sabet (Citation1997) Tarikhcheh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat-e Banin [A history of the Tarbiyat Boys' School] (New Delhi: Mirat Publications); and A. A. Furutan (Citation1984) The Story of My Heart (Oxford: George Ronald). Rassekh and Sabet were students at the Tarbiyat girls' and boys' school respectively, while Furutan served as the principal of the boys' school in the early 1930s. 2 B R. Ma'ani (Citation1991) The Interdependence of Baha'i Communities: Services of North American Baha'i Women to Iran, The Journal of Baha'i Studies, 4(1), pp. 19–46. 3 R J. Armstrong-Ingram (Citation1986) American Baha'i Women and the Education of Girls in Tehran, 1909–1934, in: P. Smith (ed.) In Iran pp. 181–210 (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press). 4 M Momen (Citation2005) The Role of Women in the Iranian Baha'i Community during the Qajar Period, in: R. Gleave (ed.) Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, pp. 356–370 (London: Routledge/Curzon); and M. Momen (Citation2008) Baha'i Schools in Iran, in: D. P. Brookshaw & S. B. Fazel (eds) The Baha'is of Iran: Socio-historical Studies, pp. 94–121 (London: Routledge). 5 S Shahvar (Citation2009) The Forgotten Schools: The Baha'is and Modern Education in Iran, 1899–1934 (London: I.B. Tauris), p. 84; S. Zabihi-Moghaddam (Citation2012) Educating Girls in Early Twentieth-Century Iran: A Study of a Baha'i School, Journal of Religious History, 36(4), pp. 515–526; and S. CitationZabihi-Moghaddam (forthcoming) Promoting the Advancement of Women: Baha'i Schools for Girls in Iran, 1909–35, Iranian Studies. 6 Zabihi-Moghaddam, Advancement of Women, pp. 18–19, 21–25. 7 M Amanat (Citation2011) Jewish Identities in Iran: Resistance and Conversion to Islam and the Baha'i Faith (London: I.B. Tauris), p. 61. 8 M Amanat (Citation2011) Jewish Identities in Iran: Resistance and Conversion to Islam and the Baha'i Faith (London: I.B. Tauris), p. 61 ; and J. Cole (Citation1998) Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha'i Faith in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press). 9 Amanat, Jewish Identities, p. 63. 10 Amanat, Jewish Identities, p. 63 11 See Cole, Modernity; and Amanat, Jewish Identities. 12 See Cole, Modernity, pp. 167–187, for further discussion of Baha'ullah and Abdu'l-Baha's pronouncements about women and their rights. 13 See Cole, Modernity, pp. 84–85; and D. P. Brookshaw (Citation2008) Instructive Encouragement: Tablets of Baha'ullah and 'Abdu'l-Baha to Baha'i Women in Iran and India, in: Brookshaw & Fazel, The Baha'is of Iran, pp. 55–82. 14 On Qasim Amin, see O. Shakry (Citation1998) Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Childrearing in Turn-of-the Century Egypt, in: L. Abu-Lughod (ed.) Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, pp. 126–170 (Princeton: Princeton University Press); on Kermani, see A. Najmabadi (Citation1998) Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran, in: Abu-Lughod, Remaking Women, pp. 91–125; on Armenian girls' schools, see H. Berberian (Citation2000) Armenian Women in Turn-of-the-Century Iran: Education and Activism, in: R. Matthee & B. Baron (eds) Iran and Beyond: Essays in Middle Eastern History (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers), pp. 70–98; on Zoroastrian girls' schools, see M. Ringer (Citation2009) Reform Transplanted: Parsi Agents of Change among Zoroastrians in Nineteenth-Century Iran, Iranian Studies, 42(4), pp. 555–556; and, for an overview of modern-style private schools in this period, see J. Rostam-Kolayi (Citation2008) Origins of Iran's Modern Girls' Schools: From Private/National to Public/State, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 4(3), pp. 58–88. 15 See Najmabadi, an Educated Housewife; and F. Kashani-Sabet (Citation2011) Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 121–128. 16 See Cole, Modernity, pp. 178–181; and Momen, The Role of Women. 17 See Amanat, Jewish Identities. 18 Shahvar, Forgotten Schools, p. 202, n138. 19 Amanat, Jewish Identities, p. 69. 20 Shahvar, Forgotten Schools, pp. 75, 81. 21 See R. Hollinger (Citation1984) Ibrahim George Kheiralla and the Baha'i Faith in America, in: J. Cole & M. Momen (eds) From Iran East and West, pp. 95–133 (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press), p. 108; and P. Smith (Citation1984) Reality Magazine: Editorship and Ownership of an American Baha'i Periodical, in: Cole & Momen (eds.) From East and West, p. 139. 22 R H. Stockman (Citation1995) The Baha'i Faith in America: Early Expansion, 1900–1912, Vol. 2 (Oxford: George Ronald), p. 385. For primary source-based evidence indicating this process, see M. Gail (Citation1991) Arches of the Years (Oxford: George Ronald), pp. 53, 113. Gail's father was Ali Qoli Khan, who served as chargé d'affaires representing the Qajar government in the United States. I thank John Gazvinian for bringing Gail's book to my attention. 23 Smith, p. 117. For more discussion on the travels of Sidney Sprague and Charles Remey, see Stockman, Baha'i Faith. The first European and American Baha'is to visit Iran were Hippolyte Dreyfus and Laura Barney; see Stockman, Baha'i Faith, p. 268. 24 Star of the West, 1(5), 1910, p. 2; 1(6), 1910, p. 6; 1(7), 1910, pp. 4–7. Star of the West was a US-based Baha'i periodical. 25 Stockman, Baha'i Faith, pp. 354–355; and Persian–American Educational Society Statement, Constitution, and By-laws (1910), National Baha'i Archives, United States (hereafter referred to as NBAUS). 26 Star of the West, 1(5), 1910, p. 7; 1(17), 1911, p. 18; 2(3), 1911, p. 4; 2(3), 1911, p. 5; 4, 1913, p. 114; and 5, 1913, p. 74. 27 See PAES, Secretary's Report, 'Exhibit D, June 16–17, 1911; and Orient-Occident Unity Bulletin, 1(6–7), March–April 1912, pp. 8–10, NBAUS for a list of scholarship students and their American benefactors. 28 See, for example, C. M. Remey (Citation1914) Observations of a Baha'i Traveler, 1908 (Washington, DC: Press of J.D. Milans & Sons), pp. 105, 108–109, 118. 29 See PAES Bulletins, NBAUS. 30 This ideological difference also translated into a distancing between the two American communities in Tehran. American Baha'is and Protestant missionaries did not mix socially and appeared not to have high regard for each other. As American Baha'i Sarah Clock noted, American missionaries were not 'the kind we like anyway;' see Letter from Sarah Clock to Mrs. Platt, June 22, 1917, Tehran from 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Sarah A. Clock, 1916–18,' NBAUS. 31 See D. Tsadik (Citation2007) Between Foreigners and Shi'is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority (Stanford: Stanford University Press); and Ringer, Reform Transplanted, pp. 549–560. 32 See, for example, Gail, Arches, pp. 26, 42. 33 Stockman, Baha'i Faith, p. 265; and Gail, Arches, p. 93. 34 Armstrong-Ingram, American Baha'i Women, pp. 182, 207; and Stockman, Baha'i Faith, p. 265. 35 Stockman, Baha'i Faith, p. 359. In the early twentieth century, Chicago was the site of the largest and most organized Baha'i communities in the United States. 36 Moody gave regular contributions to Dabistan-i Dushizigan-i Vatan, a private girls' school run by an Iranian Baha'i woman. 37 Armstrong-Ingram, American Baha'i Women, pp. 204, 205. See also Shoghi Effendi's letter in Baha'i News Letter, no. 15, January 1927, p. 3. 38 Ma'ani, Interdependence of Baha'i Communities, p. 27. 39 Star of the West, 2(1), 1911, p. 6. 40 Star of the West, 2(17), 1912, p. 13. 41 Letter to Mrs. Platt, July 1, 1920, Tehran, 'Orol Platt—Letters from Sarah Clock,' NBAUS; and Susan Moody, undated letter, 'Orol Platt, Letters from Susan Moody, 1921–24,' NBAUS. 42 Letter to Mrs. Platt, November 20, 1916, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Sarah A. Clock, 1918–1918;' and Letter to Mrs. Platt, July 9, 1917, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Sarah A. Clock, 1918–1918,' NBAUS. 43 Letter to Mrs. Platt, September 17, 1923, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Susan Moody, 1921–24,' NBAUS. 44 Tarbiat School Tuition Fund—The Lillian Kappes Memorial Fund, Baha'i News Letter, November 1926, p. 6, and Letter from Sarah Clock to Mrs. Platt, November 20, 1916, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Sarah A. Clock, 1918–1918,' NBAUS. 45 Letter to Mrs. Platt from Lillian Kappes, August 31, 1920, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Lillian Kappes, 1919–20,' NBAUS. 46 Letter to Joseph Hannen, 1919, 'Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers, Box 22, PAES Correspondence, Susan Moody,' NBAUS. 47 See Tarbiat School Tuition Fund. 48 Letter to Mrs. Platt from Sarah A. Clock, June 22, 1917, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Sarah A. Clock, 1916–18;' and Programme of Exercises, Tarbiat-ol-Banat, June 18, 1917/Shaban 27, 1335, NBAUS. 49 A former Tarbiyat student reported that she did not learn English until she began attending Nurbakhsh, the American Presbyterian missionary girls' school in Tehran. Author interview with the late Badieh Misagieh Eshragian, January 23, 2011, Santa Monica, CA. 50 Genevieve Coy (1926) Educating the Women of Persia, The Baha'i Magazine, vol. 17, p. 51. 51 Coy, p. 52; and Badieh Misagieh Eshragian interview. 52 S Farman Farmaian (Citation1992) Daughter of Persia (New York: Three Rivers Press), pp. 49–50. 53 Tarbiat School Tuition Fund. 54 Armstrong-Ingram, American Baha'i Women, p. 197. 55 Baha'i News Letter, no. 6, July–August 1925, p. 8; and no. 8, November 1925, p. 3. 56 Letters from Susan Moody to Mrs. Platt, September 17, 1923; May 8, 1924; December 25, 1926, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers, Letters from Susan Moody, 1921–24,' NBAUS. 60 Tarbiat School Tuition Fund. 57 Tarbiat School Tuition Fund. 58 Tarbiat School Tuition Fund 59 Baha'i News Letter was published by the New York-based headquarters of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States and Canada. It reported on the administrative, humanitarian, financial, and educational activities of the Baha'i community on the local, national, and international level. 61 Baha'i News Letter, no. 15, January 1927, pp. 2–3. 62 Stockman, Baha'i Faith, p. 361 and Ma'ani, Interdependence of Baha'i Communities, p. 34. 63 News of Miss Adelaide Sharp and Dr. Moody in Teheran, Baha'i News Letter, no. 38, February 1930, pp. 6–7. 64 Letter to Mrs. Platt, March 4, 1931, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers—Letters from Clara Sharpe, 1931–36,' and Letter to Mrs. Platt, February 26, 1933, Tehran, 'Orol Platt Papers—Letters from Adelaide Sharp, 1933–53,' NBAUS. 65 Letter to Mrs. Platt, March 4, 1931. 66 News of Miss Adelaide Sharpe. 67 Badieh Misagieh Eshragian interview. 68 Zabihi-Moghaddam, Advancement of Women, pp. 18–19. 69 See Monthly Bulletin of the Persian-Americans Educational Society, 1(1), October 1911, p. 8. 70 Ma'ani, Interdependence of Baha'i Communities, p. 32. 71 Letter to Mrs. Platt, March 4, 1931. 72 Sharpe became the first non-Iranian woman appointed to the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran, whereas Fath-i A'zam was the first Iranian woman. 73 Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i News Letter, Special Issue, January 1929, p. 1. 74 Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i News Letter, Special Issue, January 1929, p. 1 75 Letter from Shoghi Effendi on Closing of Tarbiat Schools, Baha'i News, no. 97, January 1936, p. 1. 76 Important Events Affecting the Faith in Persia, Baha'i News, no. 90, March 1935, p. 3. 77 See Shahvar, Forgotten Schools, for a detailed discussion of events leading up to the state closure of Baha'i schools.
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