A Few Choice Photographs from China (Summer 2009)

In Summer 2009, I spent two months conducting preliminary archival work in China. The extent of the archival base truly blew me away. Let me share a few of the highlights.

The photograph below was taken at the Commercial Press in Shanghai, which gives a glimpse of what was, it turns out, a major operation for the press.

Having learned a great deal about the IBM Chinese typewriter prior to my trip, I gathered materials that help detail the machine’s reception in China in the 1940s.

 

A new genre of source – one that I had desperately hoped to exist/to find – has opened up entirely new avenues of inquiry for me: the Chinese typewriter manual. I have since uncovered an extensive network of Chinese typing schools in the Republican period.