The First American School For Boys In Baghdad

The pictures of yesterday speak to us today. This photo of students, teachers, and administrators of the American Elementary School in the Baghdad district of Sayied Sultan Ali was taken in 1930. Seated in the middle is the first principal of the school, Yousif Mary (Miri). On his right with the striped tie is the founder of the school, Reverend Calvin Staudt, PhD.

In 1924, an adventurous young couple accepted a commission to open an American school for boys in Baghdad. Setting foot on Iraqi soil the very day that the Constituent Assembly convened in Baghdad to frame a constitution for the new nation, Ida Staudt and her husband Calvin witnessed the birth of this fledgling country. For the next twenty-three years, they taught hundreds of young boys whose ethnicity, religious background, and economic status were as varied as the region itself.