During the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922) missionary educators of the American Board of Foreign Commissioners (ABCFM) sympathized with Christian Greeks. By the end of the Ataturk era in 1938, however, missionary sympathies lay with the Kemalist regime; indeed, missionaries had become allies of the state in implementing social change. This paper will argue that the conversion of missionaries to Kemalism occurred because many of the Westernizing reforms elided with the missionaries’ sense of cultural superiority and because of their adaptation to changing American perspectives on mission work. In the 1920s, missionaries locked horns with the new republican government over issues such as Bible teaching, Turkish-language instruction, religious holidays, and centralized control over the curriculum. The missionaries’ attempts to countermand government control in some aspects of education transitioned in the 1930s to a more accommodating attitude toward significant Kemalist social reforms aimed at veiling, increased opportunities for women, the introduction of surnames, and educating a workforce for the future. The shift in attitudes of missionaries in the field in Turkey reflected the key debates about the goals and methods of mission work that was taking place in the U.S. in the 1930s. The debate among American mission groups centered on Re-Thinking Missions, a 1932 report on Protestant foreign missions, that advocated shifting from an emphasis on seeking converts through proselytizing toward seeking to spread Christian influence in indigenous societies through active involvement in social change. The American Board was an early adopter of the latter view. Thus, the confluence of Kemalist reforms and the shift toward a secularized social activist model led missionaries in Turkey to embrace the Ataturk revolution. By drawing heavily on personal letters and archival documents from the American Girls School in Bursa, the American Collegiate Institute in Izmir, and the Üsküdar American Academy, as well as correspondence between the mission and its Boston-based Board, and secondary sources on the American debate over mission work, this paper will examine the rationales and processes that led to the conversion of missionaries to Kemalism.