This article examines child labor in the Iranian carpet industry, from around 1890 to 1930. During this period, child labor was shaped by a combination of local and global factors, including the involvement of international organizations of various kinds. Whereas European carpet firms, under the protection of British diplomats in Iran, employed and exploited Iranian children, British missionaries attempted to alleviate the physical harm that befell child laborers and treated them in missionary hospitals. In the years following the First World War, the International Labour Organization approached the Iranian government with a direct request to curb the practice, and British diplomats supervised and reported on what they saw as an improvement in the working conditions of these children. I argue that both child labor and the attempts to curb it were intrinsically linked to children’s bodies – their abilities, health, and protection. Children’s supple fingers were considered ideal for carpet knotting, and the damage this labor caused young bodies was central to the discourse on improving their labor conditions. This article uses the lens of childhood history to shed light on some of the intricacies of the attempts to regulate child labor in Iran and to analyze Western observers’ views on this issue.

This article examines the Boy Scout Movement in Iran, under Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925–1941) and the role it played in the formation of a new elite boyhood. I argue that the movement’s emphasis on self-reliance, masculinity, and loyalty aimed to soothe adult anxieties that stemmed from changing attitudes toward and practices of modern Iranian masculinity and childhood. These adult anxieties also derived from the conflicting hopes and fears inspired by elite adolescence as a modern phenomenon. The gradual transition from child labour, as the expected constitutive experience of adolescence, to schooling as required and ubiquitous caused these mixed public sentiments on boyhood. Alongside the desire to see independent, educated, and self-reliant youth, fears of potential political activism among young Iranians drove the state to support scouting as fostering obedience and loyalty to the Shah. The article will demonstrate how scouting sought to inculcate loyalty and obedience, in order to answer the possible challenge posed by educated, strong, teenagers – namely that of political opposition to the ruler. In this manner, scouting was perceived as an antidote to the maladies of modern masculinity and childhood in Iran and solved the problem of legitimate activities of children in the outdoors.

The transition from Qajar rule in Iran (c.1789-1925) to that of rule by the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) set in motion a number of shifts in the political, social, and cultural realms. Focusing on masculinity in Iran, this book interweaves ideas and perceptions, laws, political movements, and men's practices to spotlight the role men as gendered subjects played in Iranian history. It shows how men under the reign of Reza Shah dressed, acted, spoke, and thought differently from their late Qajar period counterparts. Furthermore, it highlights how the notion of being a "proper Iranian man" changed over these decades. Demonstrating how an emerging elite of western-educated men constructed and promoted a new model of masculinity as part of their struggle for political, social, and cultural hegemony, Balslev shows how this new model reflects wider developments in Iranian society at the time including the rise of Iranian nationalism and the country's modernisation process.

"הבה נאמין בראשית העונה הקרה הוא ספר שני בעברית למשוררת האיראנית פורצת הדרך פרוע' פרח'זאד ... הספר הנוכחי ... מביא בפני הקורא העברי שיא נוסף בסגנונה הדרמטי של פרוע' פרח'זאד ומשלב תעצומות רגש עם ביקורת חברתית נוקבת." – מעבר למעטפת הקדמית.