Scope and content:

Information on the Chinese communities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries comes to us through books, periodicals, newspapers, and other written records as well as original source documentation such as manuscripts, photographs, drawings, and other pictorial materials. The materials are often filled with caricatures and derogatory designations. Yet these sources are still used because of the scarcity of written documentation on certain aspects of Chinese-American history. One of the richest sources of documentation can be found in the periodical literature of the time. Magazines, such as San Francisco's The Wasp and The Wave and New York's Harper's Weekly and Harper's Monthly flourished in the late 1800s and early 1900s, providing commentary on political, economic, and social events. Although often overtly distorted or opinionated, these documents illustrate what immigrants faced coming to the American West and the inter-ethnic tensions that were present. They also serve to record the specific contributions of the Chinese to commerce, architecture, and cultural and social life. By documenting specific locations, such as San Francisco's Chinatown, these publications show the historic significance of places and buildings and provide valuable information about patterns of early Chinese-American life. These illustrations document how key the Chinese communities in California were in building the industries that enabled the development of the West. They are depicted as picturesque contributors or more often problematic, misunderstood workers in a variety of scenes, reflecting their prominent roles in the building of the transcontinental railroad, the mining industry, agriculture and fishing, and a variety of important manufacturing areas. Often what is depicted in the periodicals reflects a complicated history of relations and reactions that the Chinese experienced in coming to the American West.

Materials in this section are drawn from the collections of The Bancroft Library.

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