Presbyterian missionaries in Iran under the rule of Reza Shah had a more contentious relationship with the state than did their Congregationalist counterparts in Turkey under the Kemalist government. By the 1920s, American Board missionaries in Turkey decreased their emphasis on religious education in response to several factors: the failure to convert Muslims, the loss of Christian student populations brought about by World War I, the increasing secularization of Christianity in the United States, and the Kemalist government’s centralization of education under state auspices. The schools focused instead on educating women to pursue university degrees, to pave new professional roads, or to be well-educated mothers. Schools for girls such as the American Collegiate Institute in Izmir were, to a degree, in concert with the Kemalist rhetoric of creating the “new woman.” In Iran, Presbyterian educators at the Tabriz Girls’ School, and the Iran Dokht School in Hamdan embraced similar goals for its women students. The Presbyterians, however, maintained their efforts to provide opportunities for all students to learn about Christianity despite the government’s ban on proselytizing Muslim students. This persistence led to government expropriation and elimination of nearly all of the Presbyterian mission schools in Iran by 1940, whereas some American Board schools in Turkey continue to function as a part of the state educational system still today. This paper will examine the relationships between selected mission-run girls’ schools and the Turkish and Iranian governments with particular reference to the presence of religious in curricular and extra-curricular activities. It will also examine the degree to which these mission schools addressed the governments’ goals in educating women to fulfill the “new woman” ideals as defined by each state. Sources include primary documents of principals and teachers in the American Board of Foreign Commissioners papers at the Houghton Library, Harvard University and in the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. Secondary literature on American missions by D. Robert, M. Zirinsky, U. Makdisi, C. Amin, S. Mahdavi, and others will also be consulted.