Tahqiqāt-e Tārikh-e Ejtemā’i (Social History Studies)

The Carriage Drivers of Mashhad in Opposition to the Modernization of Transportation in the Pahlavi Period

Document Type : Research Article

Author

ali najafzadeh

Assistant Professor, Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/shc.2026.53945.2676
Abstract
The carriage played an important role in intra-city communication from the late Qajar period to the mid-Pahlavi period. As carriage drivers, the carriage drivers had a coherent social and guild structure that, together with owners, workers, and related professions, had considerable influence and reacted to the arrival of motorized vehicles. From the early Pahlavi era, when buses and then taxis began operating in cities like Mashhad, the carrige drivers opposed them, which caused a delay in modernization. Removing the carriage drivers from Mashhad's urban transportation structure became a challenge until the end of the Pahlavi period. This article, based on the press and documents, is conducted using the historical research method and attempts to examine the situation of Mashhad's carriage drivers in a descriptive-analytical manner in contrast to the modernization of urban transportation. The results of the research showed that the coherent structure, the large number of carriage drivers, related professions, and domestic production caused the carriage drivers to resist the modernization of vehicles, but the expansion of the city, the increase in motor vehicles, the decline in the quality of carriages, and their slow speed caused them to be unable to maintain their position in the urban transportation structure of Mashhad despite half a century of resistance

Keywords

Carriage-carrier
transportation
Mashhad
modernization
Pahlavi
Subjects
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Tahqiqāt-e Tārikh-e Ejtemā’i (Social History Studies)
Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 30
Autumn and Winter 2025-2026
March 2026
Pages 325-358

  • Receive Date 02 January 2026
  • Revise Date 20 May 2026
  • Accept Date 20 May 2026

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