Iranian Craft Industries in the Age of Factorization: Large-Scale Industrialization and Small-Scale Industries in Isfahan during the 1930s

Iranian craft industries, particularly textiles, experienced a major setback at the face of the European economic penetration from mid-nineteenth century onwards though later in the century they showed signs of recovery in the competition for the domestic market while at the same time some craft industries, particularly carpet weaving, mainly produced for exportation. Lack of protective economic measures and the unfavorable tariffs furthered the negative impact of the imported ready-made goods.

However, encompassing both guild-based and cottage types of production small-scale manufacturing survived the competition by finding cost reducing solutions such as the use of imported yarn and dyestuffs as well as the employment of cheaper workforce to wit females but particularly children. Especially from early twentieth century onwards there has been much debate about the excessive imports and the consequent trade deficit. Generally speaking, however, the insistence on the perennial deficit on visible trade was used as the culprit of country’s economic plight to stress the principal problem i.e the decline in craft industries. The successive governments throughout 1910s and 1920s fell short of finding any viable solution to this problem.

Yet with the gradual consolidation of the Pahlavi modernization from mid-1920s onwards the new economic policies which were uncompromisingly biased towards large-scale industrialization dealt the actual blow at craft industries. This was doubled by the monopolies formed, new infrastructural projects undertaken and the new taxation system introduced which gradually furthered the state authority to the remote areas of the country.

This paper discusses how crafts people reacted, negotiated and accommodated to this process which reached its peak in 1930s. Instead of reproducing the narrative of a hegemonic state power against a passive and receptive society the paper investigates the survival strategies of the Iranian subalterns living on craft industries. It argues that the economic policies adopted during this period were more challenging for them than the European economic domination of the previous decades. It also argues that through their seemingly deferential attitudes crafts people survived the ever-increasing economic penetration of the central authority by at the same time engaging with it in a unique way.