“Chinese Children” and “Family group with Asian woman” Photographs

By Tasmia Jamil

The “Chinese children” and “Family group with Asian woman” are cabinet card photographs found within the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, a collection of pictures from professional and amateur photographers from the 1840s to the mid-twentieth century at the Clements Library.¹ Both photographs from the collection reveal the role of missionary work and its influence in shaping China’s history.

Edwin B. Bigelow took the “Chinese children” photograph in Jackson, Michigan, presumably in 1883. The picture shows four children in traditional Chinese clothes. The back of the photo lists the children’s Anglicized names as well as the organizations and individuals who supported them, with a signature stating “Kiu Kiang, China.” At a first glance, the details in the images can be confusing, but a study by Fusun Coban Doskaya and Halim Onur Andac into the missionary activities in China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) helps explains the children’s roles, clothing, and the writing on the back.²

One of the first things that stands out in the photograph is the attire of the children. The children photographed here wear traditional Chinese clothes, whereas Native American children were forced to attend assimilation schools and wear Western attire during this period. Doskaya and Andac explain that the constant tensions between the Chinese government and the American missionaries limited the missionaries’ power and gave the locals flexibility over the extent to which they wanted to adopt the ideas promoted by missionaries.³ This shows a significant difference in the control Americans had over Native Americans compared to the Chinese locals, limiting the extent to which the missionaries interacted with locals. They evangelized the locals through their frequent interactions at the hospitals and schools while simultaneously spreading American values, whether initially intended or not.

One example of the impact of such interaction is Sun Yat-Sen, the first president of the Republic of China and a product of mission schools. He traveled back and forth between the U.S. and China⁴ before attending the American board’s Oahu college.⁵ His American education was reflected in his memoir, where he mentions Abraham Lincon’s “three principles of people”: nationalism, democracy, and social welfare and their influence in shaping revolutionary views in China.⁶ Given the extent to which these principal ideas align with the prominent values in the United States, the alignment demonstrates how the education in mission schools molded the ideals of the younger generation, the main forces in the revolution, and left a lasting impression on China’s governmental history and policies.

Ida Howe eventually attended the University of Michigan before returning to Kiu Kiang as a medical missionary with the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The missionary work created a younger generation, educated in Western ideals, who had the ability to connect with the commoners and share those ideals with them. Although it might not have been the primary purpose of the missionaries, their work helped expand America’s sphere of influence as the values spread through the children are embedded in certain parts of Chinese history. Although Doskaya and Andac provided further context to the “Chinese children” photo, questions about the children’s presence in Michigan, the purpose of the photograph itself, and the “Family group with young Asian woman” remains.  

Bradford D. Jackson took the “Family group with young Asian woman” photograph in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1883.¹¹ The picture shows a young Asian woman in traditional Chinese clothing sitting next to a family of four. The events around the same time period contextualize the image. A clipping from Good Housekeeping magazine in 1891 mentions the increase in Chinese immigrants as house servants because they were cheap labor, especially Chinese men. The employers did not have to provide them with a separate room; they would sleep in any space provided to them. They were also viewed as better laborers compared to white women house helpers.¹² This establishes the pattern of Chinese immigrants being hired as housekeepers, increasing the possibility that the young Asian woman in the photo could be a maid or a nanny. However, given that Chinese males were the more convenient house helper, a Chinese woman as a helper would create similar problems as hiring white women regarding their housing so uncertainty about her role remains.

Did the family employ her as a housekeeper or a caregiver? Was she a family friend? Or did the family adopt her? Why would she be included in a family portrait? In the midst of violent tensions between Chinese immigrants and Americans that culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, ¹³ her presence in Michigan leaves us with more questions than answers.

References: