Research Guides: HIST/EALC 346: Race and Ethnicity in Modern East Asia (HC): Primary Sources: Texts and Images

Primary Sources

Primary sources can take many different forms. Letters, accounts and other kinds of documents written at the time of an event or era allow a nuanced and detailed understanding of historical issues. Material below explains ways to locate primary sources in Tripod. Worldcat and the Web. To find additional primary sources, historical studies in books and journal articles will often offer the best recommendations. Check footnotes and bibliographies for references to material written in the period of time you are researching.

Primary Source Databases

Adam Matthew Explorer
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Search across 63 primary source databases from Adam Matthew covering historical, cultural and political topics from around the world. The databases reproduce letters, diaries, government records, illustrations and other materials drawn from museum and library collections.
Sample search: protest* AND tiananmen
Relevant individual databases within the collection include:
China, America and the Pacific
China: Culture and Society
China Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1931-1952
Meiji Japan

Asian Digital Library
Provides archival documents many of which are available open access. Note in particular the extensive records of the Shanghai Police, 1849-1949, which are in English.
See also the book, journals, films and other resources on the website.
Japan Center for Asian Historical Records
Online archive sponsored by the Japanese government. Includes material in English as well as Japanese. See the web exhibitions for examples of the documents and images available.

Finding Printed Copies of Primary Sources

Primary source translations that are in the Tricollege libraries will often be listed in Tripod under subject terms using the word "sources" or "early works." For example, the search

(race OR ethn* OR minorit* OR diaspora* OR immigra*) [Keyword] AND (sources OR memoir* OR autobiog*) AND (china OR chinese) AND history [all Subjects] produces books including the first three listed below.

This search for sources, with differing literary forms specified, can provide additional titles:

(sources OR memoir* OR diar* OR personal OR letter* OR correspondence) [Subject] AND 20th AND (china OR japan OR korea) [Subject]

Try these and additional searches in WorldCat for many more primary sources including website as well as books that you can request.

Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco by Judy Yung
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 0520922875
Publication Date: 1999-11-24
Unbound Voices brings together the voices of Chinese American women in a fascinating, intimate collection of documents--letters, essays, poems, autobiographies, speeches, testimonials, and oral histories--detailing half a century of their lives in America. We hear the voices of prostitutes and domestic slavegirls, immigrant wives of merchants, Christians and pagans, homemakers, and social activists alike. We read the stories of daughters who confronted cultural conflicts and racial discrimination; the myriad ways women coped with the Great Depression; and personal contributions to the causes of women's emancipation, Chinese nationalism, workers' rights, and World War II.
Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China by Irene Eber (Editor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 1282239554
Publication Date: 2009-08-19
When Hitler came to power and the German army began to sweep through Europe, almost 20,000 Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai. This is a collection of the letters, diary entries, poems, and short stories composed by these refugees in the years after they landed in China.
Marginalization in China by Joseph Tse-Hei Lee (Editor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780230614239
Publication Date: 2009-07-14
This collection of historical and contemporary accounts of minority formation debunks popular misconceptions about China's highly centralized state and homogeneous society. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and field work, it documents how state and citizens meet in a politics of minority recognition. Includes quotations from primary sources as well as citations to printed historical works
Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples (Huang Qing zhigong tu): A Cultural Cartography of Empire by Laura Hostetler and Xuemei Wu
Publication Date: 2022
Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor in 1751, the Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples is a work of art and an ideological statement of universal rule best understood as a cultural cartography of empire. This translation of the ethnographic texts accompanied by a full-color reproduction of Xie Sui’s hand-painted scroll helps us to understand the conceptualization of imperial tributary relationships the work embodies as rooted in both dynastic history and the specifics of Qing rule.
Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780393920857
Publication Date: 2013-06-26
The new edition of this outstanding documents collection displays a stronger blend of social history-pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture-and political history-critical proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts. Many of the documents are translated into English for the first time and available only in this book. Informative headnotes accompany the selections, providing context and helping students with unfamiliar names, places, and events. This collection is the perfect source for a firsthand look at modern Chinese history.
The Chinese Human Rights Reader by Stephen C. Angle; Marina Svensson
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 0765606933
Publication Date: 2001-07-31
Representative selections from China's twentieth-century human rights discourse, rendered into fluid and non-technical English. The documents are arranged chronologically, and each is preceded by a brief introduction dealing with the author and the immediate context. The book also includes a glossary in which translations of key terms are linked to their Chinese equivalents.
Twentieth Century China by R. Keith Schoppa
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 0195147456
Publication Date: 2004-09-16
In its period of slow decline from the late 18th into the early 20th century and throughout its 20th century revolution, one of the most important problems facing individual Chinese and China as a nation was choosing appropriate political, social, cultural, and economic identities. This book offers government edicts, political cartoons, poetry, political manifestos, essays, fiction, magazine covers and advertisements, wills, trial transcripts, speeches, statistics, press releases, and even Chinese rock lyrics.

Primary Sources from Japan

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873 by Kume Kunitake; Graham Healey (Editor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 4901617001
Publication Date: 2002-03-03
The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture.
Modern Japanese Diaries: The Japanese at Home and Abroad as Revealed through their Diaries by Donald Keene
Publication Date: 1995-03-01
These diaries were written by Japanese who journeyed to America, Europe, and China from 1860-1920. It begins with the first Japanese to be sent abroad when the country was opened after more than two hundred years of isolation. These narratives also provide insight into Japanese society through the diarists' reactions to alien customs, their distaste of "barbarian music", their admiration for American democracy, and their curiosity about the philosophy of Christianity.
Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique by Michele M. Mason (Editor); Helen J. S. Lee (Editor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Publication Date: 2012-03-28
This book aims to deepen knowledge of Japanese colonialism(s) by providing translated Japanese sources and analytical essays that illuminate Japan's many colonial projects. The documents highlight how central cultural production and dissemination were to the colonial effort, while accentuating the ways colonialism permeated every facet of life.
Sources of Japanese Tradition by Wm. Theodore de Bary
ISBN: 0231518129
Publication Date: 2005-04-13
This is an authoritative sourcebook for readers and scholars interested in Japan from the eighteenth century to the post-World War II period. Now greatly expanded to include the entire twentieth century, it presents writings from modern Japan's most important philosophers, religious figures, writers, and political leaders. The volume also offers extensive introductory essays and commentary to assist in understanding the documents' historical setting and significance.

Newspapers and Magazines

If you have the name of a newspaper or magazine, search for it first in Tripod. If not listed there, check Google for accessible digitized issues. If you are searching for articles but have no newspaper or magazine name, see the indexes below.

General Periodical Indexes

American Periodicals Series Online
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Search through 1,800 magazines and journals published in the United States between 1740-1940. Includes early scientific publications, trade journals, popular magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, and journals such as Puck, The Dial, and McClure's.
Readers' Guide Retrospective
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America.

Selected Individual Magazines and Newspapers

Chinese Repository
Missionary journal published 1832-1851. Note the print index volume available to search by subject.
Life Magazine
Covers the years 1936-1972. Notable for the many high-quality photographs included in articles.
Mission Periodicals Online
Yale University Library makes online access available for many newspapers including:
China's Millions, English Weekly, and the West China Missionary News.

New York Times
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to news articles, blog posts, videos, images, and multimedia features. Coverage from 1851-present.
Time Magazine
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Time Magazine is the first weekly news magazine in the United States. Coverage - 1923 to the present.

EastView's Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers
The Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers collection provides invaluable perspective on this critical period. The press of more than twenty cities is represented, spanning the Chinese mainland and the entire half century. The collection provides researchers a richly comprehensive perspective on Chinese life, culture, and politics throughout the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the years of provisional government and civil war, and the birth of the People’s Republic.

The Times Digital Archive
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text and full-image articles from The Times of London for the years 1785-2019.

Visual Resources

JSTOR Images (formerly Artstor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A digital library that provides access to thousands of digital images derived from a variety of museum, library and archival collections. Images support a variety of disciplines including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design.

Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art
This is a continuation of the Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages. The site features over 5,000 posters searchable by keyword.
MADSpace
This database, Mapping Advertising Space, focuses on the history of advertising in China in the first half of the 20th century. Contents include images of ads, maps, and photos as well as analyses of data.
Virtual Beijing
Brings together historic photos, maps, films, texts and references concerning the history of the city, primarily in the first half of the 20th century.
This is part of a larger collection of websites .
See the Other Cities tab for links to projects on Hankou, Saigon, Shanghai, Suzhou and Tianjin.

The Brittle Decade: Visualizing Japan in the 1930s by John Dower (Text by);
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Publication Date: 2012-07-31
Modernity took many forms in 1930s Japan, but it was most visibly associated with a glittering consumer culture in Tokyo with department stores and movie theaters. This book examines the ways in which designers and artists visualized what it meant to be modern in Japan. Its 160 full-color illustrations of paintings, textiles and graphic arts are astonishing not only for their great visual impact but also for the insight they provide into a rapidly transforming nation.
The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China by Laikwan Pang
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 1435666429
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Analyzes the multiple and complex ways in which urban Chinese subjects saw themselves interacting with the new visual culture that emerged during the turbulent period between the 1880s and the 1930s. The media and visual forms examined include lithography, photography, advertising, film, and theatrical performances.
The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art by David Bindman (Editor)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780674504394
Publication Date: 2017-02-27
The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art asks how the black figure was depicted by artists from the non-Western world. This volume focuses on the figure of the black as rendered by artists from Africa, East Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific by Shu-mei Shih
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780520224513
Publication Date: 2007-06-19
Shu-mei Shih inaugurates the field of Sinophone studies in this vanguard excursion into sophisticated cultural criticism situated at the intersections of Chinese studies, Asian American studies, diaspora studies, and transnational studies. Arguing that the visual has become the primary means of mediating identities under global capitalism, Shih examines the production and circulation of images across what she terms the "Sinophone Pacific."