Title:

[Wa Sung Athletic Club baseball team photographs and records]

Creator/Contributor:

Wa Sung Athletic Club (Oakland, Calif.), creator, creator.

Creator/Contributor:

Bowen, Clifford, photographer.

Creator/Contributor:

Bowen, Ed, compiler.

Creator/Contributor:

Nix, C. J., photographer.

Collection includes 2 photograph albums and various papers pertaining to the Wa Sung Athletic Club, a Chinese-American semi-professional baseball team based in Oakland in the 1920s and 1930s. One album, untitled, compiled by team manager Ed Bowen, contains action poses and group portraits of the team's players and coaches from 1926 to 1928. Richly annotated with the names of players and their positions, the album depicts Ed Bowen, George Bowen (catcher), Al Bowen (pitcher), Henry Bowen, Alfred Wong (mascot), Al Hue (head coach) and Wye Gay (coach), among many others. One image in this album depicts a scene from a baseball game. The other album, titled Wa Sung Athletics [sic] Club Baseball Team Photo Book, 1926-1932, similarly depicts the club's players in action poses and group portraits (though few individuals are identified) and a few scenes from games against other local teams. Among the accompanying papers is a typescript chronicle of the team's games and other events held from 1927 to 1930 which provides a noteworthy glimpse of regional semi-professional baseball activities at this time, including teams representing other minority communities of the Bay Area and beyond -- e.g. Merritt Japs, Filipino All Stars, Fruitvale Outlaws, Nanking A. C., East Oakland Tigers, Crystal Laundry, Fresno Chinese, Sacramento Japs, etc. Another group of papers includes hand-written player, team and game statistics from the 1931 and 1932 seasons, a team roster, newspaper clippings pertaining to a few baseball games, and signed uniform issue agreements. All papers were removed from a binder bearing the hand-lettered title: Wa Sung A. C. Baseball Records. The binder has been retained and is housed in a separate folder.

Date:

1926 (issued)

Subject:

n-us-ca

Wa Sung Athletic Club (Oakland, Calif.) -- Photographs

Wa Sung Athletic Club (Oakland, Calif.) -- Records and correspondence

Baseball teams -- California -- Oakland -- Photographs

Baseball players -- California -- Oakland -- Portraits

Chinese Americans -- California -- Oakland -- Photographs

Semi-professional baseball -- California

Title devised by cataloger.

Includes many photographs taken by Clifford Bowen and at least two group portraits by the professional studio of C.J. Nix.

Wa Sung Athletic Club baseball team photographs and records, BANC PIC 2019.008, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Per the website of Wa Sung Community Service Club, the Wa Sung Athletic Club semi-professional baseball team was formed in 1926 by Chinese boys and young men from Oakland affiliated with the Chinese 9 social club and sponsored by Maxwell Hardware Store. The club disbanded in 1938 and was revived in the 1950s as a community service organization now known as Wa Sung Community Service Club.

All captions, annotations and manuscripts in English.

Type:

graphic

Photograph albums.

Portraits.

Group portraits.

photoprint

approximately 150 photographs in 1 box : gelatin silver prints ; sheets 26 x 21 cm or smaller + various papers

English

Origin:

California