ABSTRACT
American missionary activity in Iran began in 1829 when Eli Smith and Timothy Dwight explored Azerbaijan for the Boston-based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. This exploration was ‘part of a broad American religious phenomenon, the ‘Second Great Awakening,’ which impelled American Protestants to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all mankind. On Smith and Dwight's recommendation, the American Board appointed Justin Perkins to establish a mission at Urmia to work with the Assyrian Christians of the region. After a generation during which schools, hospitals and an Evangelical Church were established in western Azerbaijan, in 1871 the American Board transferred the mission to the New York-based Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
