Asian History

"Hoover’s many Chinese collections document political, economic, and social developments during the revolution of 1911, the warlord period, the civil war, and the post-1949 period. Holdings on pre-1949 Republican China, including Nationalist government documents and Chinese Communist Party materials, are particularly robust. Also available are accounts of non-Chinese public servants, military officers, engineers, journalists, and scholars who shaped or witnessed developments in China." Parts of the collections have been digitized.

The OAC is a website that provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary source collections (artwork, manuscripts, papers, historic photographs, and so on) maintained by more than 200 libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California -- including collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.

Rev. Carter D. Holton was an American missionary working in Northwest China from 1923 to 1949. Over 5,000 photos taken by him were digitized by Harvard Yenching Library and can be browsed online.

These photographs were taken during the late 1920s and early 1930s by John B. Shackford during his travels and tenure as an English teacher in southern China.

Over 5,000 photographs, primarily of China, 1908-1932. Sidney D. Gamble (1890-1968), an avid amateur photographer, began taking pictures in China during his first trip to the country with his family in 1908. He returned three more times between 1917 to 1932 and continued photographing the daily life of Chinese citizens. A sociologist and renowned China scholar, he traveled throughout the country to collect data for social-economic surveys and to photograph urban and rural life, public events, architecture, religious statuary, and the countryside

"A research and resource platform on the history of Shanghai from the mid-nineteenth century to nowadays. It incorporates various sets of documents: essays, original documents, photographs, maps, quantitative data, etc. The objective of the project is to write a history of the city through the combined mobilization of these various types of documents." Collection no longer updated.

Visualising China is a JISC-funded project that allows users to explore and enhance more than 8,000 digitized photographs of China taken between 1850 and 1950.

464 postcards, collected and digitized by the Institut d'Asie Orientale (IAO) in Lyon, France.

This mainly image based database is developed by Shanghai Library. The website contains chronology, image collections of Shanghai and famous actors/actresses, old films, and old film magazines.

This database was developed by The Kyoto University Library. It contains 295 digitized documents from the Qing and the Republican periods, most of them are personal trade documents and official files.

This is an open access database for 69 titles of old Chinese newspapers from Late Qing and Republican-Era. These titles cannot be found from other commercial databases. You may browse by titles and issues, or do keyword search to access the full-text.

Ling long women's magazine, published in Shanghai from 1931 to 1937, was popular during a time of dramatic material, social, and political change in China. Today, the magazine offers researchers a unique glimpse into women's lives in Republican-era (1911-49) Shanghai. This site features Columbia University's collection of Ling long magazine, one of the most complete holdings outside China.

The Center for Research Library has digitized their holdings of this English language newspaper, published in Shanghai from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Interface in English or Chinese; content in English or Chinese.
The Old Hong Kong Newspapers Collection is a selective collection of major old Hong Kong Newspapers published from early Hong Kong to nowadays, aiming at preserving historical news reporting of Hong Kong for reference and research. Focuses on 19th and 20th centuries.
Open Access.

The Ailing Zhang papers is a special collection hold at the USC library. It consist of six boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and journal articles, photographs, and essays, articles, and speeches (written by Zhang Ailing). 138 letters, 45 photos, 5 articles and 2 manuscripts are digitized and can be accessed online.

A search for memoirs, diaries, journal, letters, and other personal narratives about the Republican Era (1910s, 1920s, and 1930s) held in Boston College collections.

The Needham Research Institute (UK) has collected about 1,000 photos that were taken by Joseph Needham during this trip to China from 1942-1946, when he was preparing his project on the history of Chinese science and technology.