Author's note: I thank Kamran S. Aghaie, Yoav Di-Capua, Cyrus Schayegh, and Lior Sternfeld for their comments. I am also grateful to the anonymous IJMES reviewers, Akram Khater, and Jeffrey Culang for helping me improve this article.

¹ Ibtihaj, Abu al-Hasan, Khatirat-i Abu al-Hasan Ibtihaj (Tehran: ʿIlmi, 1996), 7–8.Google Scholar

² Najafi, Najmeh and Jones, Helen Hinckley, Persia Is My Heart (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1953), 51–52.Google Scholar

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid., 103–4.

⁵ Arnold, David and DeWald, Erick, “Everyday Technology in South and Southeast Asia: An Introduction,” Modern Asian Studies 46 (2012): 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁷ In the 1920s, a trip from Tehran to Baghdad via Hamadan took twenty-eight to forty-two days by animal transport. When an Iranian traveler left Tehran for Baghdad via Ahvaz and Basra in 1945, his journey took only fifty hours (twenty-five hours from Tehran to Ahvaz by train, eight hours to travel to Basra by car and wait at the railway station, and seventeen hours from Basra to Baghdad by train). On travel in the 1920s, see Clawson, “Knitting Iran Together,” 236–37. For the timetable of the Iranian State Railway, see “Agahi: Barnamah-i Vurud va Khuruj-i Qatarha-yi Musafiri az Tihran dar Salha-yi 1323–24,” Mardan-i Ruz, 23 May 1945. For the travelogue, see Arjumand, Muhammad, Shish Sal dar Darbar-i Pahlavi, ed. Mahdavi, ʿAbd al-Riza (Tehran: Nashr-i Paykan, 2006), 262–66.Google Scholar

⁸ I use the term “public space” in a broad sense to mean “space to which all citizens are granted some legal rights of access.” Thus, included in this definition is everything from sidewalks and parks to shopping malls, theaters, and public transportation facilities. It does not preclude a process of selection, however. While municipal governments may remove homeless people from sidewalks and parks, access to such places as cinemas and trains are restricted to paying customers through the commercial interaction of purchasing a ticket. See Light, Andrew and Jonathan Smith, M., “Introduction: Geography, Philosophy, and Public Space,” in The Production of Public Space, ed. Light and Smith (Lanham, Mass.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3Google Scholar.

⁹ Ghannam, Farha, Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002);Google ScholarWang, Di, Street Culture in Chengdu: Public Space, Urban Commoners, and Local Politics, 1870–1930 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

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¹¹ Schayegh, Cyrus, “‘Seeing Like a State’: An Essay on the Historiography of Modern Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 37–61Google Scholar. For a recent study on how ordinary people experienced nation-building projects in Turkey, see Yilmaz, Hale, Becoming Turkish: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923–1945 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2013).Google Scholar

¹² On Egyptian tramways and railways in the framework of time, see Barak, On, On Time: Technology and Temporality in Modern Egypt (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the impact of rail travel on conceptions of time and space, see Green, Nile, “Spacetime and the Muslim Journey West: Industrial Communications in the Making of the ‘Muslim World,’” American Historical Review (2013): 401–29Google Scholar. On how Middle Eastern societies interpreted other technological innovations, see Bektas, Yakup, “The Sultan's Messenger: Cultural Constructions of Ottoman Telegraphy, 1847–1880,” Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 669–96;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDi-Capua, Yoav, “Common Skies, Divided Horizons: Aviation, Class and Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Egypt,” Journal of Social History 41 (2008): 917–42Google Scholar; and Kupferschmidt, Uri, “The Social History of the Sewing Machine in the Middle East,” Die Welt des Islams 44 (2004): 195–213Google Scholar. For a recent review article on globalization and technology, see Jakes, Aaron, “A New Materialism? Globalization and Technology in the Age of Empire,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47 (2015): 369–81.Google Scholar

¹³ For recent scholarship on railway technology in India, see Goswami, Manu, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chap. 3; Bear, Laura, Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007);CrossRefGoogle ScholarAguiar, Marian, Tracking Modernity: India's Railway and the Culture of Mobility (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2011);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Prasad, Ritika, Tracking Modernity: The Experience of Railways in Colonial India, 1853–1947 (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2009).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Matthews, Michael, The Civilizing Machine: A Cultural History of Mexican Railroads, 1876–1910 (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 69–81.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Recent scholarship on the early Pahlavi period includes Andersen, Steen, “Building for the Shah: Market Entry, Political Reality and Risks on the Iranian Market, 1933–1939,” Enterprise and Society 9 (2008): 1–33;Google ScholarPaul Luft, J., “The USA and the Trans-Iranian Railway,” in Iran und iranisch geprägte Kulturen, ed. Ritter, Markus, Kauz, Ralph, and Hofmann, Birgitt (Wieshaben, Germany: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2008), 120–32;Google Scholar and Kauffeldt, Jonas, Danes, Orientalism and the Modern Middle East: Perspectives from the Nordic Periphery (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2006)Google Scholar. On the Qajar period, see John Galbraith, S., “British Policy on Railways in Persia, 1870–1900,” Middle Eastern Studies 25 (1989): 480–505;Google ScholarKazemzadeh, Firuz, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968);Google Scholar and Paul Luft, J., “The Persian Railway Syndicate and British Railway Policy in Iran,” in The Gulf in the Early Twentieth Century: Foreign Institutions and Local Responses, ed. Lawless, R. I. (Durham, N.C.: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1986), 158–215.Google Scholar For scholarship in Persian, see Mahbubi-Ardakani, Husayn, Tarikh-i Muʾassisat-i Tamadduni-yi Jadid dar Iran. Jild-i Duvvum (Tehran: University of Tehran Press, 1978);Google Scholar and Kazim Mukammili, Muhammad, Tarikh-i Jamiʿah-i Rah Ahan. Jild-i Duvvum (Tehran: Rah Ahan-i Jumhuri-yi Islami-yi Iran, Ravabit-i ʿUmumi, 2000).Google Scholar

¹⁶ For instance, while Hajji Sayyah used European railways during his global journey in the early 1860s, Sayf al-Dawlah traveled using the Egyptian train. See Sayyah, Hajji, Safarnamah-i Hajji Sayyah bih Farang, ed. ʿDihbashi, Ali (Tehran: Intisharat-i Shihab-i Saqib va Intisharat-i Sukhan, 1999);Google Scholar and Sultan Muhammad, Sayf al-Dawlah, Safarnamah-i Sayf al-Dawlah (Tehran: Nashrani, 1985).Google Scholar On the Reuter Concession in relation to railway construction, see Nashat, Guity, The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870–80 (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 90–97.Google Scholar

¹⁷ These writings include Mustashar al-Dawlah's proposals for the Tehran-Qum Railway and the Tehran-Mashhad Railway, both endorsed by the ʿulamaʾ, and Kashif al-Saltanah's treatise on the benefits of railways. For Mustashar al-Dawlah, see Adamiyat, Firaydun, Andishah-i Taraqqi va Hukumat-i Qanun: ʿAsr-i Sipahsalar (Tehran: Intisharat-i Khwarazmi, 1973), 323–30.Google Scholar For Kashif al-Saltanah, see Kashif, Muhammad, Taghyirat va Taraqqiyat dar Vazʿ va Harakat va Musafirat va Haml-i Ashyaʾ va Favayid-i Rah Ahan, ed. Javad Sahibi, Muhammad (Tehran: Nashr-i Nuqtah, 1994).Google Scholar

¹⁸ On efforts to build a railway in Iran before World War I by figures such as Saniʿ al-Dawlah and Hajji Muʿin Bushihri, see Malakuti, Mujtaba, Rah Ahan-i Iran (Tehran: Chapkhanah-i Khandaniha, 1948), 20–23.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Drawing an analogy between the human body and the national community, Kashif al-Saltanah argued that without domestic circulation of commodities and international trade, a nation (millat) would become soulless. Kashif, Taghyirat va Taraqqiyat, 29–31.

²⁰ Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 231–35. See also Foreign Office, The National Archives, United Kingdom (hereafter FO) 881/9290, “Memorandum Respecting Persian Undertakings as to British Railway Construction in Persia.”

²¹ These lines included the Julfa-Tabriz Railway, the Nushki-Duzdab Railway, and the Bushihr-Burazjan Railway.

²² A similar case was Thailand, a buffer state between British Burma and French Indochina. The French and the British attempted to construct a railway through Thailand to benefit their respective imperial transportation systems. However, the Thai state completed its first railway only in 1900, nearly four decades after the first railway opened in Java. See Kakizaki, Ichiro, Tai Keizai to Tetsudo, 1885–1935 (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha, 2000), 106–30.Google Scholar

²³ Mashruh-i Muzakirat-i Majlis-i Shura-yi Milli, Dawrah-i 6, Jalasah-i 66, 22 February 1927, accessed 11 April 2014, http://www.ical.ir/index.php?option=com_mashroohview=sessionid=21142Itemid=38, 14–16 (the page numbers correspond to the transcribed text). For Musaddiq's opposition to the bill of railway construction, see Musaddiq's Memoirs, ed. Katouzian, Homa (London: Jebhe, 1988), 10.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid., 19.

²⁵ The newspaper Khalq was published under such different names as Aflak, Nahid, and Sitarah-i Subh. After its start in 1921, it quickly became a popular newspaper known for its caricatures. See the official yearbook Salnamah-i Pars (1927–28), 64–65.

²⁶ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 1,” Khalq, 16 December 1925.

²⁷ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 9,” Khalq, 12 January 1926; “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 14,” Khalq, 16 February 1926.

²⁸ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 8,” Khalq, 9 January 1926; “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 9,” Khalq, 12 January 1926; “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 10,” Khalq, 16 January 1926; “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 11,” Khalq, 31 January 1926; and “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 12,” Khalq, 2 February 1926.

²⁹ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 4,” Khalq, 22 December 1925; “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 7,” Khalq, 5 January 1926.

³⁰ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 9.”

³¹ “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 14.”

³² De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 111.

³³ For instance, in the late Qajar period, before the 1927 imposition of the Pahlavi hat and the 1936 decree of forced unveiling, some Iranian men started to adopt European sartorial culture, while their female counterparts started to wear thinner chadors. See Chehabi, Houchang, “Staging the Emperor's New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah,” Iranian Studies 26 (1993): 210;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Chehabi, “The Banning of the Veil and its Consequences,” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London: Curzon, 2003), 194–95.

³⁴ On social life in late Qajar Tehran, see Shahri, Jaʿfar, Tihran-i Qadim (Tehran: Intisharat-i Muʿin, 1991).Google Scholar

³⁵ Marefat, Mina, Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran, 1921–1941 (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988), 84.Google Scholar

³⁶ On the police crackdown in the late Qajar period, see Pirniya, Mansurah, Khanum-i Vazir: Khatirat va Dastnivishtahha-yi Duktur Farrukhru Parsaʾi, Nakhustin Zan-i Vazir-i Iran (Potomac, Md.: Mehrian Publishing, 2007), 36.Google Scholar On the gradual acceptance, see “Khilaf va Iʿmal-i Qabihah,” Salnamah-i Pars (1929–30), 87.

³⁷ As an example of this chaos, a British botanist who visited Rasht in the 1930s noted that a policeman had stood on a platform in the middle of the street to direct traffic, which included “camels, donkeys, buses and lorries, as well as worried pedestrians.” Fullerton, Alice, To Persia for Flowers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 21.Google Scholar Cyrus Schayegh has discussed some new modes of transport in the context of the promises and perils of technological modernity. See Schayegh, Cyrus, Who is Knowledgeable is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2009), 95–103.Google Scholar

³⁸ Devos, Bianca, “Engineering a Modern Society?: Adoptions of New Technologies in Early Pahlavi Iran,” in Culture and Cultural Politics under Reza Shah: The Pahlavi State, New Bourgeoisie and the Creation of a Modern Society in Iran, ed. Devos, Bianca and Werner, Christoph (London: Routledge, 2014), 276.Google Scholar

³⁹ For instance, see “Piyadahraw-yi Khiyaban,” Ittilaʿat, 6 August 1933; untitled illustrations in Salnamah-i Pars (1930–31), 71–80; and “Aʾin-i Zindigi-yi Banuvan” and “Aʾin-i Raftar-i Aqayan,” Salnamah-i Pars (1936–37), 145–84.

⁴⁰ Poets expressed this excitement through a poem in which women demanded their husbands purchase tramway tickets for them rather than such luxurious commodities as shiny scarves and sequined shoes. Aryanpur, Yahya, Az Saba ta Nima: Tarikh-i 150 Sal-i Adab-i Farsi, vol. 2 (Tehran: Shirkat-i Sahami-yi Kitabha-yi Jibi, 1973), 156.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Siyasi, ʿAli Akbar, Guzarish-i Yik Zindigi, vol. 1 (London: Paka Print Ltd., 1988), 21.Google Scholar

⁴² An Ittilaʿat article from 1932 cited in Naficy, Hamid, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, vol. 1, The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2011), 159–60Google Scholar.

⁴³ Aguiar, Tracking Modernity, 31–32.

⁴⁴ “Ma ba Chih Libas Mashin Savari Mikunim?” Nahid, 1 March 1927.

⁴⁵ Jaʿfari, ʿAbd al-Rahim, Dar Justiju-yi Subh: Khatirat-i ʿAbd al-Rahim Jaʿfari, Bunyanguzar-i Intisharat-i Amir Kabir (Tehran: Ruzbahan, 2003), 100–1; Shahri, Tihran-i Qadim, Jild-i Avval, 337–44.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ “Yik Musafirat bih Vasilah-i Tirin,” Ittilaʿat, 8 April 1928.

⁴⁷ “Musafirat-i Chand Saʿatah,” Khalq, 22 May 1926.

⁴⁸ “Musafirat-i Chand Saʿatah”; “Ma ba Chih Libas Mashin Savari Mikunim?.”

⁴⁹ “Yik Musafirat bih Vasilah-i Tirin.”

⁵⁰ “The True Dream” mentioned creating “a carpet of seed shells” as one of the deplorable customs maintained by Iranians in public space. See “Ruʾya-yi Sadiqah: Pas az Dah Sal, 9.”

⁵¹ “Yik Musafirat bih Vasilah-i Tirin”; “Musafirat-i Chand Saʿatah.”

⁵² Shahri, Tihran-i Qadim, Jild-i Avval, 325–36; Jaʿfari, Dar Justiju-yi Subh, 101–2.

⁵³ In his recent article on print culture in early 20th-century Iran, Afshin Marashi mentions an estimate that 30 to 40 percent of Tehran's population “had some degree of literacy” by the 1940s. Marashi, Afshin, “Print Culture and Its Publics: A Social History of Bookstores in Tehran, 1900–1950,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47 (2015): 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ For a similar process in relation to sports, see Schayegh, Cyrus, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Modern Middle Class in the 1920s and 1930s,” Iranian Studies 35 (2002): 341–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the ambivalent feelings among leftist intellectuals toward the masses, see Vejdani, Farzin, “Appropriating the Masses: Folklore Studies, Ethnography, and Interwar Iranian Nationalism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (2012): 507–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁵ For examples of such travelogues, see a series of Ittilaʿat articles published in 1937–38 along the railway route from Tehran, Qum, Salihabad (Andimishk), and Ahvaz. “Dar Rah-i Qum,” Ittilaʿat, 22 October 1936; “Dar ʿAraq,” Ittilaʿat, 2 November 1936; “Dar Ahvaz,” Ittilaʿat, 25 December 1936; “Dar Salihabad,” Ittilaʿat, 27 December 1936; and “Dar Ahvaz,” Ittilaʿat, 6 January 1937. The official yearbook Salnamah-i Pars also ran long articles. For example, see “Rah Ahan,” Salnamah-i Pars (1935–1936), 223–34; and “Mazandaran va Gilan ya Zarristan-i Iran,” Salnamah-i Pars (1936–1937), 13–102.

⁵⁶ For instance, residents of Sari flocked to the new station to see the bathrooms of the first-class carriage. India Office Records (hereafter IOR) L/PS/12/3409, “Persia: Memorandum of the Commercial Secretary on the Northern Section of the Trans-Persian Railway, May 16, 1931.” For press coverage of the celebrations, see “Jashn-i Vusul-i Rah Ahan bih Varamin,” Ittilaʿat, 31 December 1936; “Jashn-i Rah Ahan dar Hazrat-i ʿAbd al-ʿAzim,” Ittilaʿat, 30 January 1937; and “Guzarish-i Jashn-i Gushayish-i Rah Ahan-i Shumal,” Ittilaʿat, 20 February 1937. Schoolchildren and civil servants were often asked to participate. Najafi, Persia Is My Heart, 52–53; Judith McComb, “Annual Report of Nurbakhsh School, 1938–1939,” Presbyterian Historical Society, RG91/20/12.

⁵⁷ “Mazandaran 10,” Ittilaʿat, 23 August 1933.

⁵⁸ “Yik Haftah dar Kinar-i Darya 2,” Ittilaʿat, 1 July 1933; “Musafirat-i Mazandaran,” Ittilaʿat, 10 August 1933.

⁵⁹ “Musafirat-i Mazandaran.”

⁶⁰ The Tehran-Miyanah Line in the northwest and the Tehran-Shahrud Line in the northeast opened in 1942. Malakuti, Rah Ahan-i Iran, 160.

⁶¹ For land disputes, see Majlis Library, Tehran (hereafter ML), 10/175/25/1/47; 11/205/11/1/8; 12/28/3/1/10; and 13/147/15/1/190. On opportunities for locals, see Mirmirani, ʿAla al-Din, Kurah Rahi dar Ghubar: Khatirat-i Safar-i Yiki az Aʿza-yi Hizb-i Tudah bih Shawravi (Tehran: Intisharat-i Nida-yi Farhang, 1998), 8–9;Google Scholar and Danishvar, Mahmud, Didaniha va Shinidaniha-yi Iran (Tehran: Dunya-yi Kitab, 2009), 15–17.Google Scholar

⁶² On the occupation period, see Jumhuri, Markaz-i Pazhuhish va Asnad-i Riyasat-i, Asnadi az Ishghal-i Iran dar Jang-i Jahani-yi Duvvum (Tehran: Khanah-i Kitab, 2010).Google Scholar

⁶³ ML 12/84/42/1/28.

⁶⁴ “Sanihah-i Istgah-i Markaz-i Garm: Shayiʿat-i Ighraqamiz Haqiqat Nadarad,” Mardan-i Ruz, 4 July 1945. An advertisement in Mardan-i Ruz six months before noted only one military train to Ahvaz per week. “Agahi az Taraf-i Bungah-i Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran,” Mardan-i Ruz, 31 January 1945. The northern line from Tehran to Bandar-i Shah had three passenger services and three mixed services for both military personnel and civilian passengers per week. Both the west line from Tehran to Zanjan and the east line from Tehran to Shahrud operated three services per week. “Agahi: Barnamah-i Vurud va Khuruj.”

⁶⁵ Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran, Amar-i Sal-i 1322–1323, 28–29. Nonetheless, though not as frequently as motorized vehicle fare, railway fare occasionally increased to meet the rapid inflation. For instance, the fare was doubled in September 1943. See Dawlati-yi Iran, Bungah-i Rah Ahan-i, Guzarish-i Natayij-i Mali-yi Hamkari-yi Bungah-i Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran ba Muttafiqin Marbut bih Dawrah-i Jang (Tehran: Chapkhanah-i Bungah-i Rah Ahan, 1946), 10.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ “Sanihah-i Istgah-i Markaz-i Garm”; “Agahi az Taraf-i Bungah-i Rah Ahan”; IOR/L/PS/12/3400/PZ4332, Khuzistan Diaries, no. 3, March 1937. As in India, traveling in freight cars was common in Iran. For instance, in the year 1945, to handle Iranian pilgrims returning from Iraq, two freight cars were added to the weekly service. By March they had carried about 2,000 passengers. “Khabarha-yi Rah Ahan: Murajiʿat-i Zuvvari ke barayi Ziyarat ʿAtabat Raftah Budand,” Mardan-i Ruz, 7 March 1945.

⁶⁷ Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran, Amar-i Sal-i 1322–1323, 31.

⁶⁸ Mirmirani, Kurah Rahi, 6.

⁶⁹ In the case of Iran, pilgrimage to the ʿAtabat was largely seasonal because of the summer heat in Iraq; additional fourth-class cars were required during peak seasons. In other Asian and Middle Eastern contexts, too, pilgrimage traffic attracted a large number of passengers. On India, see Aguiar, Tracking Modernity, 19. On Egypt, see Barak, On Time, 87. On Japan, see Uda, Tadashi, Tetsudo Nippon Bunkashiko (Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 2007), 191–97.Google Scholar On the hajj by train from across Asia, see Green, Nile, “The Rail Hajjis: The Trans-Siberian Railway and the Long Way to Mecca,” in The Hajj: Collected Essays, ed. Porter, Venetia and Saif, Liana (London: British Museum, 2013), 100–7.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Vizarat-i Turuq, Rah Ahan-i Sarasar-i Iran, 1306–1317, 100. The percentage is based on Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran, Amar-i Sal-i 1322–1323, 31.

⁷¹ Danishvar, Didaniha, 14–15.

⁷² The gendarmerie patrolled Tehran Station in search of newspaper sellers who sold Tudah-Party publications such as Rahbar and Zafar. Once found, these sellers were expelled. “Jilawgiri az Furush-i Ruznamahha-yi Azadikhah,” Zafar, 1 March 1946.

⁷³ Najafi, Persia Is My Heart, 143.

⁷⁴ Danishvar, Didaniha, 13.

⁷⁵ Harvey, David, “The Political Economy of Public Space,” in The Politics of Public Space, ed. Low, Setha and Smith, Neil (London: Routledge, 2006), 17–34.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The difficulties faced by Iranian passengers to get tickets is noted in “Dushvariha-yi Bungah-i Rah Ahan,” Mardan-i Ruz, 10 January 1945; and “Agahi az Taraf-i Bungah-i Rah Ahan.”

⁷⁷ “Agahi,” Mardan-i Ruz, 21 March 1945.

⁷⁸ “Rah Ahan ra Bayad barayi Riqabatha-yi Iqtisadi-yi Zaman-i Sulh Amadah Kard,” Mardan-i Ruz, 20 May 1945; Rah Ahan-i Dawlati-yi Iran, Amar-i Sal-i 1322–1323, 29.

⁷⁹ Studies on petitioning in Iran often focus on the Qajar period, but petitioning seems to have remained a weapon of ordinary people in the Pahlavi period, particularly after the fear of retaliation diminished with the abdication of Reza Shah in 1941. On petitioning in Turkey during the same period, see Yilmaz, Becoming Turkish, 127–37.

⁸⁰ ML14/176/18/1/263.

⁸¹ “Agahi: Jarimah-i Musafirin-i bidun-i Bilit,” Mardan-i Ruz, 31 January 1945; “Tafsil-i Hadisah-i Asafnak-i Rah Ahan,” Ittilaʿat, 21 June 1945.

⁸² “Vazifah-i Musafirin-i Rah Ahan,” Namah-i Rah, May 1940, 27.

⁸³ Ibid., 29.

⁸⁴ Danishvar, Didaniha, 8.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 11–16.

⁸⁶ Najafi, Persia Is My Heart, 148–57.

⁸⁷ Danishvar, Didaniha, 9, 20.

⁸⁸ Arjumand, Shish Sal, 261.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 262, 266. Similarly, in the context of increasing American presence, Mexican railway passengers often complained that American travelers and workers were rude. Matthews, The Civilizing Machine, 78–79.

⁹⁰ Marashi, “Print Culture and Its Publics,” 103.

⁹¹ On India, see Goswami, Producing India, 104; and Aguiar, Marian, “Making Modernity: Inside the Technological Space of the Railway,” Cultural Critique 68 (2008), 74.Google Scholar For a case in which the railway became symbolic of ethnic boundaries, see Thiranagama, Sharika, “‘A Railway to the Moon’: The Post-Histories of a Sri Lankan Railway Line,” Modern Asian Studies 46 (2012): 221–48.Google Scholar

⁹² Within one month of its establishment in 1939, the Iranian Airplane Club had 945 paying members in Khurramabad, a provincial city in Luristan. Farid Qasimi, Sayyid, ed., Asnad-i Khurramabad: ʿArizahha, Intikhabat, Gunagun (Tehran: Kitabkhanah, Muzah, va Markaz-i Asnad-i Majlis-i Shura-yi Islami, 2011), 62.Google Scholar