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Ivy Plus Libraries' Digital Projects on East Asia

Published Projects on China

Anderson Photograph Collection of YWCA in China, 1920s-1940s

Miss Elsie Anderson spent seventeen years in China as a Secretary for Young Women's Christian Association of China (YWCA) 中華基督教女青年會 between 1920s-1940s. She went to China around 1918 and worked in YWCA organizations in various places, including Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shandong, Tianjin, etc. She was also involved with True Light Middle School in Guangzhou (真光女子中学). The private photography collection of Elsie Anderson was donated to the East Asia Library Special Collections by the relative of Miss Elsie Anderson in 2010. The collection includes more than 2900 photos, one diary and some slides and postcards. The site currently features selective photographs from the collection.

Francis E. Stafford Photographs, 1909-1933:  Photographs of scenes in China, mainly between 1909 and 1915, and 1932 and 1933

Stafford was an American missionary in China from 1909 to 1915 and 1932 to 1933. A lithographer and photographer, he arrived in Shanghai in 1909 and was hired by the Commercial Press-then Asia's largest publishing company--to manage its printing division from 1909 to 1915. During the onset of the Wuchang Uprising in October 1911, Stafford was on hand to capture remarkable photos of the Qing Dynasty's collapse.

The Chinese Deathscape, edited by Thomas S. Mullaney

In this digital publication from Stanford University Press, the Chinese historians Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, Christian Henriot, and Thomas S. Mullaney explore the topic of grave relocation and burial reform in from late Imperial China to the contemporary period. The volume features an "an augmented narrative platform" which links the reader from underlined portions of the text to interactive maps with historical and demographic layers. It also includes a colophon from the platform developers discussing the technologies used to create the volume.

Published Projects on Japan

Japanese Rare Materials related to travel

A large collection of prints from the 17th through the mid-20th century, about half of the items are available online. The later images of temples and shrines provide visual evidence of the effort to separate Shinto from Buddhism that began in the late 19th century.

Gaihozu: Japanese imperial maps

This collection of more than 300 imperial maps from the early Meiji (1868-1912) through the end of World War II covers geographical areas including Japan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines, and beyond.  An ArcGIS online interface allows you to quickly locate and access digitized items via an index map. The guide also provides history on how the maps came to Stanford and further information about the larger body of Japanese imperial maps found at other institutions.

Snapshot of Japan 2016-2018

An archive of approximately 500 websites touching on central issues of the time, including politics & economics, employment & labor issues, social issues, child care & pregnancy, academic & humanities, environment & nature, science & technology, internet & computers.  The aim of the collection is to give a preserve ephemeral websites that fall between the cracks of other collections and give an important, if complex, perspective on this three year period. A digital preview of the collection can be found here.

Published Projects on East Asia

Joseph Stilwell's Diaries, 1900-1939 and 1945-46

Joseph Stilwell began his diary in the early 1900s and kept it up, to a greater or lesser extent, until his death in 1946. Now those decades of diaries including observations on this travels through China, Japan, and the Philippines before World War II, are available on the Hoover Archives website.

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Maps Collection: China, Japan and Korea

Barry Ruderman is a prominent map dealer from La Jolla, California. His maps are all scanned, and the images are sent to Stanford for use and long-term preservation. Among its many images, the collection contains nearly 400 maps of China, 100 maps of Japan and Korea.

Hoover's Posters Collection

Documenting the wartime viewpoints and diverse political sentiments of the twentieth century, the Poster Collection has more than 300 posters from China, 150 posters from Japan and 70 posters from Korea, which can be viewed by selecting the "Place of Origin" or by "Language".

The Survey of Race Relations, 1924-1927: a survey on Asian Americans on the Pacific Coast

In the early 1920s, a group of scholars set out to make an investigation of economic, religious, educational, civic, biological, and social conditions among Chinese, Japanese and other non-European residents of the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada. Extension of the study into northern Mexico and Hawaii was contemplated as well. Completed life-history questionnaires comprise the greatest bilk and are the "raw data" of the archive. In addition, there are numerous open-ended reflections, financial records, conference reports, meeting notes, bibliographies, printed materials and miscellaneous other finding.

Ongoing Projects

Audio Interviews of Jews in China: Wendy Abraham interviews, 1985-1998

Sound and video recordings of interviews of Jews in China, relating to the Chinese Jewish community. Used as research material for the doctoral dissertation by Wendy Abraham, The Role of Confucian and Jewish Educational Values in the Assimilation of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (Columbia University, 1989)