Photos of China, 1917-1932

lostinasia
 July 10, 2008, 12:02 PM posted in General Discussion

At a Duke University archive you can see around 5,000 different photos of early 20th century China. They're from the Sidney Gamble collection. Also, you can search by keyword - Shanghai, Beijing, funeral, etc.

A more different world than we can probably even imagine.

The Shanghai Bund, 1917-1919:

 

(Hat tip James Fallows of the Atlantic, who I won't link to because I believe they're kept out by the Great Firewall.)

 

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wolson
 July 11, 2008, 03:45 PM

Thank you for providing the link to these. Many of the historical buildings and pagodas no long exist because of the destruction perfromed during the Cultural Revolution.

It really too bad that about 90% of previous historical artifacts in the larger citiies were destroyed or defaced. China lost a great deal of its heritage in this wanton act of destruction simply because Chinese newspapers would not print Mao's criticism of the Ming play, "Hai Rui Dismissed from Office". While the Revolution was more than this, i.e., restoring Mao to the Presidency, the damage that resulted has crippled the Chinese ability to relate physically to their heritage.