sentences:  Perkins was not only a trained missionary, but he was also an ethnically aware watercolorist whose drawings of men, women and children belonging to the various ethnic groups of northwest Iran survive in his books as well as in unpublished drawings.These provide a colorful presentation of ethnic costumes, colors and fabrics available to local populations during the mid-19th century.Perkins and other missionaries in the active Protestant mission in Urmia were probably among the first to present lectures about Iran in the United States as well as being the first Americans with whom the general Persian population had contact.