It has been long recognized that the constitutional movement in early twentieth century Iran laid the grounds for a new political and cultural discourse in general. While on the one hand, the advantages of constitutionalism and the rule of law became hotly debated issues of concern, on the other, progress, and the role that learning in general, and the printed word, in particular, played in bringing it about gained increasing resonance among a growing number of people. It was in such a context that in the year that followed the promulgation of the constitution by Mozaffar al-Din Shah, newspapers proliferated in an unprecedented way, as did reading rooms that were established ostensibly to support reading and learning. In the pages of the newspapers that appeared following the granting of the constitution, for example, an increasing number of advertisements heralded the opening of new reading rooms and printing-houses.
However, in the studies that have been done on constitutional Iran, little attention has been paid to these reading rooms. What shape did these reading rooms take? Who frequented them? How popular were they? What kind of activities took place in them? What kind of reading material was provided in them? What was the nature of the link between reading rooms, newspapers, and the network of printing-houses? What became of their fate in the aftermath of the failure of the constitutional movement? Basing itself on a close examination of a selection of constitutional newspapers as well as memoirs and journals of the time, this paper hopes to put forth answers to some of these questions.
