Foreign Missions Library Lantern Slide Collection

Lantern slides, undated, some hand-tinted, assembled by the Foreign Missions Library of New York City to document missionary activities in Iran, probably during the early part of the twentienth century. Included are images of missionaries and evangelists, Fiske seminary, The American High School for Boys in Tehran, the Memorial School for Boys in Tabriz, the Red Cross, orphans, place views and architecture, a house interior, daily activities such as rug weaving and plowing, livestock, and people such as Kurdish women and a dervish. The slides are hand-colored and black and white, and many are captioned.

The Iran Mission was established by the U.S. Presbyterian Board of Mission in 1870, taking over the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Hundreds of the organization's missionaries were stationed in Iran. The first missionary to arrive was Justin Perkins (1805-1869), active in Persia from 1835 to 1869, establishing the Nestorian Mission at Urmia. Samuel Martin Jordan (1871-1952) arrived in Iran in 1898 and spent 43 years there, establishing among other institutions the Alborz High School (American College of Tehran). The Mission's functions were transferred to the Evangelical Church of Iran in 1965, until missionaries were ultimately removed from the country in 1969.

FSA A1991.04

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

Red Cross

New York (N.Y.)

Iran

Tehran (Iran)

Iran -- Tehran -- Tehran

Missionaries -- Iran

Donated by Alan O. Bellak, 1991

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Lantern slides

Foreigh Missions Library Lantern Slide Collection, FSA A1991.04 National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Images divided into the following section: market scenes, daily living, carpets, missionaries, the Red Cross, hospitals, schools, orphans, pre-Islamic rock reliefs, buildings, railroads, city views, villages, caravans and caravansaries, animals, farmers and fields, mountains, women and men.

Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.

Lantern slides

Collection is open for research.