Items

• 1905-1913 Building the Canadian Methodist Mission Hospital, Chengdu
  The missionaries involved in the construction of the Canadian Methodist Mission (CMM) teaching hospital between 1905 and 1913 have left a rich record of its construction in both images and text. This is their story.
• 1910-1911 Alice Estabrook’s First Yangtze River Journey
  Alice Lessing Estabrook set said for China under the Women’s Missionary Society (of Canada) banner, reaching China on November 29th, 1910. Travelling up the Yangtze River with other new women missionaries and one seasoned missionary, she reached Chengdu on March 8th, 1911. In total, Alice spent over three months on steamboats and houseboats in the interior of China on her way to her mission field in West China. Images in this Event document her journey, many of them with interesting captions by Alice herself.
• 1944 Dujiangyan Opening of the Waters Ceremony
  Don Willmott took this series of photographs during WWII while he was teaching English at the Ming Hsien School. Ming Hsien was a Christian high school sponsored by Oberlin College, Ohio, that had moved from Shansi to Jintang County northwest of Chengdu in 1940. This Opening of the Waters Ceremony took place in April of 1944.
• 1978 Canadian School Delegation - Dujiangyan Visit
  In 1978 a group of Canadian school in West China alumni visited China in a delegation led by Bill small. One of the stops on the trip was at the famous Dujiangyan waterworks. This is Part One of two Event series based on this trip. The photographs in this series document the many changes to the waterworks system made by the Chinese government in the early 1970s. Part Two focuses on temple architecture and lattice work at Dujiangyan.
• 1930s Willmott Family Mt. Omei Journeys
  This series of images depicts trips the Willmotts took from Chengdu to Faerymorn, their summer cottage in the Mt. Emei region, down the Min River and up the mountain with trunks and baskets full of their summer gear.
• 1924-1926 David Crockett Graham Mt. Omei Treks
  By 1924, DC Graham was working as a field collector for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. The 1925 and 1926 field collecting seasons were adversely affected by the turbulant political climate in China, so Graham was not able to travel very far to make his natural science collections. He didn't let this slow him down. Instead, he collected nearby the missionaries' summer cottages at Mt. Omei (Emeishan). The images in this event series represent the beginning of Graham's systematic study of religion in Sichuan, which he would publish for the Smithsonian in 1926. However, while Graham published some of these images in his monograph, Religion in Szechwan, he didn't actually discuss them much in that publication.
• 1913 Graham's First Yangtze River Journey
  David Crockett and Alicia Graham left Boston for West China on Sept. 14th, 1911, and sailed from San Francisco on Oct. 4th, 1911. When they reached Shanghai, however, they encountered the aftermath of the Republican Revolution and the missionaries who had evacuated West China on account of it. They therefore spent their first year in China in nearby Shaohsing and Mokanshan learning the Sichuanese language. The Grahams embarked on their first voyage up the Yangtze River to Sichuan on January 1st, 1913. It is not known how many of David Crockett Graham’s photographs of the Yangtze River were taken during this voyage. Many of his photographs of the Yangtze River were no doubt taken on later voyages during furloughs and evacuations. We do know that Graham’s Kodak camera was stolen by a “Chinese pick-pocket” in Wuchang before they got to Hankow. The camera was later found in a second-hand store and sent back to Graham, but we will never know how many pictures were lost thereby. The photographs in this series represent those that Graham most likely took on that first voyage in the order of locations they visited or passed.
• 1916 WCUU Sports Day
  A series of photographs taken by Alfred Johns at the annual Athletic Meet at WCUU, 1916. Johns was himself a soccer coach at WCUU and WCUU Middle School, so he was intensely interested in the sports events on display in these images. The image for this Event Record is the WCUU logo.
• 1953 Photo Transparencies Sent to Mrs. R.E. Outerbridge
  Fifteen small photographic prints were in an envelope that was addressed and delivered to Mrs. R.E. Outerbridge (Margaret) on Nov. 20th, 1953.
• 1939 Dujiangyan Opening of the Waters
  Ralph Outerbridge's photographs of the annual Opening of the Waters ceremony on April 7th, 1939. He was attending along with other new missionaries in the Missionary Training School.
• 1939 Buddhist Initiation Ceremony
  In 1939, Ralph and Margaret Outerbridge witnessed the annual Buddhist Initiation Ceremony at Wenshuyuan Temple just inside the Chengdu north wall.
• 1947 Dayfoot Wedding, Chengdu
  Rev. Arthur Dayfoot and Bessie Julien got married on the WCUU campus on April 19th, 1947. Although they were both from Ontario, they met for the first time at Behludin the year before. This series of photos comes from Rev. John Stinson, who had served as best man at the wedding.
• 1911 Johns' Mt. Omei Trek
  During their first summer in Sichuan, Alfred and Myrtle Johns joined a party of missionaries on a trek up to the Golden Summit of Mt. Omei, passing numerous scenic temples and natural features on their way.
• 1911-1912 Nationalist Revolution Evacuation
  This event covers the Johns' evacuation down the Yangtze River to Shanghai in Dec. 1911 to Jan. 1912 due to the Nationalist Revolution. It covers the Johns' first weeks in Shanghai, and then concludes with their return up river in Dec. 1912. For concurrent activities during this period of evaculatiuon, see the Event "1912 Famine Relief."
• 1911 Revolution in Chengdu
  This event begins with news that the Chengdu Yamen has ordered all missionaries to move inside the city walls. It continues with the Johns' confinement in the Canadian Methodist Mission's new hospital (Sept. 6th - Nov. 17th, 1911) to the various activities around Chengdu on November 25th, 1911, which include the induction of new leadership and Walter and Lottie Small's wedding.
• 1912 Famine Relief
  In the winter and spring of 1912, while the West China missionary community was evacuated to Shanghai and beyond, missionaries of all denominations answered the call to help in famine relief work in the nearby provinces of Nganhwai [Anhui] and Kiangsu [Jiangsu]. Alfred Johns was among those who undertook the work and, fortunately, he documented it with photographs and narrative. Many missionaries survived the famine relief work and returned to their stations, but at least three missionaries died of typhus and smallpox contracted from the famine victims.
• 1906-1907 Bowles' First Yangtze River Journey
  Bowles was a member of the "Victoria Eight," graduates of Victoria College at University of Toronto who pledged to become missionaries in China. These six did so, several of them featuring prominently in Bowles' narrative.
• 1910-1911 Johns' First Yangtze River Journey
  Alfred and Myrtle Madge Johns of the Canadian Methodist Mission took their first trip to West China leaving Vancouver on the Empress of Russia in 1910 and travelling up the Yangtze River in December 1910 through January 1911. Alfred took photographs of scenes and stops along the way, documenting their progress from Shanghai up through the Yangtze Gorges to Chongqing in great detail.
• 1941 Graham's Giant Panda Hunt
  After the death in the Bronx Zoo of Pandora and Pan in 1941 and 1940, respectively, officials at the zoo began to search for another pair of Giant Pandas to replace them. On June 17, 1941, Dr. Frank Price, on behalf of the Chinese government, asked David Crockett Graham to procure them. As the first diplomatic gift of pandas from the ruling party of China to a foreign nation, Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mei-ling) presented them to the American people as a symbol of solidarity between the two nations.