Format: Web Page
Finding aid URL: https://archivesspace.lafayette.edu/repositories/2/resources/6
Born in San Francisco in 1901, Crawford supervised the design and purchasing of some 250 kilometers of railroad and the development of the port at Bandar Shapour located on the Persian Gulf. He served as Acting Assistant Chief Engineer and Officer Engineer for the Imperial Railways of Persia. The album documents the experiences of an American engineer in Iran in the decade before World War II, and the contribution of American engineering to Iranian modernization. Begun in 1927 and finished in 1938, the 850 mile-long Trans-Iranian Railway was a major initiative directed by the Persian monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi, following the First World War. Most of the photographs appear to be commercially produced. Images include: views in and around Ahwaz, a city in southwest Iran; railway bungalows; sand filter beds; railway offices; chlorinating and water pumping plants; train crew living quarters; a machine shop; a soda ash water treatment plant; water tanks; supplies depot; passenger equipment sheds; and automotive repair sheds. While most of the photographs focus on Crawford’s engineering and construction work, a handful of photographs feature other subjects. These include the Karun River; Iranian children in the desert; Crawford and his fellow engineers in the field; bridges; railroad buildings; the mosque at Fatima at Kum; and Bandar Shapour jetty. A laid-in magazine illustration shows three British locomotives in Ahwaz carrying fuel and munitions to the Soviet armies. Included with the album are two copies of a typed letter by Crawford (unsigned) dated December 1938 with CV and addressed to George T. Seabury, Secretary of the American Society of Civil Engineers