1892: The Cleanness of Shops in Chicago's Chinatown Dec 8 2004
Historical descriptions of Chicago contain several comments about the cleanliness of its Chinese restaurants and the neatness of its Chinese shops. Here is one:
"One recognizes Chinatown [on Clark Street] by the curious signs over the shops. The Chinese are industrious and economical and peaceable - never molest anybody who lets them alone. . . In a typical Chinese shop, all is scrupulously neat and clean. It seems as if, by some magic, the smoky, dusty atmosphere of Chicago had been excluded from this unique interior, which looks like the inside of a bric-a-brac cabinet, with bright colors, tinsel and shining metals. On the walls are colored photographs, showing the proprietors beautifully dressed in dove-colored garments. In a kind of shrine stands a “Joss table” or altar, with what is probably a Confucian text hanging over it, and lying on it some opium pipes. In a room behind the shop a “fan-tan” game is going on upon a straw-matted table, around which gather interested Celestials three deep. In the shop is a freshly opened importation, barrels and boxes of Chinese delicacies, pickled fish of various kinds, with the pungent odor which belongs to that kind of food the world round and the seas over. The men are clothed in Chinese fashion - great, broad cloaks, loose trousers, felt-soled shoes, etc. -- but in American felt hats."
Joseph Kirkland, “Among the Poor of Chicago,” Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 8, 1892. The author, an expert on poverty,
was highly critical of living conditions among other poor Chicagoans -- for instance, Italian-Americans. He treats the Chinese-American community as an exception.
RESEARCH: BEFORE 1900 美州中部華人歴史: 1900 以前
Here we present the results of research into Chinese-American and Chinese-Canadian history in the interior of North America, between the East and West Coasts. The coastal regions have been well studied by historians of Chinese America; the region in between has not.
This page covers the period from the first arrival of Chinese in the Midwest to the end of the 19th century. It was a time of poverty, hard labor, legal disability, bullying by non-Chinese, and in spite of all this, progress. For the 20th century, click on RESEARCH 1900-1949.
This is not meant to be a timeline, by the way. We are simply putting the results of our own and others' new research on Midwestern Chinese into chronological order. Many important facts and events are omitted, and we have included some facts and events that may be unimportant but are -- to us -- fascinating.
Chinese-American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC)
Raymond B. and Jean T. Lee Center
Celebrating the Chinese-American cultural heritage of the Midwest
1869: The First Californian Chinese in Chicago Dec 5 2004, revised Feb 28 2005
Some books and articles suggest that the first Chinese to settle in Chicago were three brothers named Moy, said to have arrived in 1878. And yet Chinese individuals did visit and stay in Chicago before that. Aside from the above-mentioned John Dorming, Charley Pang, and Ah Mei, a good many laundrymen set up shop in the city from 1872 onward. Most came via the new transcontinental railroad that was completed in 1869. The same year saw the arrival of one of the earliest visitors from the West Coast: Choy Chew, described as a merchant, who gave a speech to a Chicago (businessman's?) group. Modern readers may find that the speech, as reported in Scientific American, is overly ingratiating. But, as the magazine's writer implies, the speech does show that Choy Chew was a talented linguist as well as a merchant of sufficient stature to be invited to give a speech at a European-American banquet.
A later article in Harper's Weekly (Sept 4, 1869, page 574) states that Choy Chew was a San Franciscan. After visiting Chicago with a fellow merchant, Sing Man, he traveled onward to New York. Local businessmen there regarded the two as "representatives of Chinese industry and commerce" and may well have invited them to give more speeches.
"A Chinaman on the Chinese Question
"Whatever may be the average intellect of the Chinese, there can be no doubt of the intellect of the man who made the following speech. The remarks were delivered by Choy Chew, a Chinese merchant at a recent banquet in Chicago:
" 'Eleven years ago I came from my home to seek my fortune in your great Republic. I landed on the golden shore of California, utterly ignorant of your language, unknown to any of your people, a stranger to your customs and laws, and in the minds of some an intruder -- one of that race whose presence is deemed a positive injury to the public prosperity. But gentlemen, I found both kindness and justice. I found that above the prejudice that had been formed against us, that the hand of friendship was extended to the people of every nation, and that even Chinamen must live, be happy, successful and respected in 'free America." I gathered knowledge in your public schools; I learned to speak as you do; and, gentlemen, I rejoice that it is so; that I have been able to cross this vast continent without the aid of an interpreter; that here in the heart of the United States I can speak to you in your own familiar speech, and tell you how much, how very much, I appreciate your hospitality; how grateful I feel for the privileges and advantages I have enjoyed in your glorious country; and how earnestly I hope that your example of enterprise, energy, vitality, and national generosity may be seen and understood, as I see and understand it, by our Government ...
" ' We trust our visit, gentlemen, may be productive of good results to all of us; that the two great countries, East and West, China and America, may be found forever together in friendship, and that a Chinaman in America, or an American in China, may find like protection and like consideration in their search for happiness and wealth.' "
Scientific American, new series, vol. 21, no. 9, p. 131 (August 28, 1869)
1890: The Rapid Rise of Chinese Laundries 衣裳舘的興起Dec 11 2004
This cartoon, by E.W. Kemble, appeared in Century Magazine in 1890 (vol. 40, no. 1, p. 480). It is interesting as a double ethnic joke or insult: Chinese writing is presented as being amusingly incomprehensible and the Irish couple, with stage Irish accents and comical appearances, is shown as being laughably ignorant of both Chinese characters and Western musical notation. Mary asks "And what do the notes be, Andy?" Andy replies "I can't tell thim off, but if I had me flute I c'u'd play thim."
Although published in New York, the magazine had a national readership. In 1890, the editors clearly expected that most of its readers would be familiar with Chinese laundries, showing that Chinese-Americans had already occupied that economic niche in much of the country.
In Chicago, the first Chinese laundry did not appear until 1872, but by 1890 there were 263 such laundries, in competition with a roughly equal number of laundry establishments run by English- and German-Americans. Irish-Americans, at least in Chicago, rarely entered the laundry business.
1874: The First Use of the Terms "Chinatown" and Chinaman?" Feb 13 2005, revised Oct 28 2005
As far as we can find, the term "Chinatown" or "China Town" is American in origin. According to what historian Anthony Lee tells us, it was already used in local San Francisco publications in the 1850s. Yet the term was not widely known outside California until twenty years later. One of its first appearances in a national publication was in an article by General George Custer of Little Bighorn fame, published by him in The Galaxy Magazine in 1874. In it he quotes a letter written to him by one California Joe, who described his arrival back in Sacramento and how eventually he "slid out across to chinatown and they smelt like a kiowa camp in august with plenty buffalo meat around ..."
The term appeared again a few times in 1875 and 1876 -- for instance, in 1875 in an article in Scribner's Monthly and in 1876 in the Chicago Tribune (referring to the Chinesedistrict of Virginia City, Nevada) -- and rapidly gained in popularity after that. By 1890, it was used in thousands of articles and books per year.
We do not know whether the term came into California English from some other language. One possibility is Malay, which frequently uses terms like Kota China and Kampung Tionghoa (both meaning China Town) and where many Chinese miners worked in the 19th century. Another possibility is one of the Chinese languages or dialects -- Cantonese, Taishanese, Chaozhounese, Minnanese, Hakkanese. We are still looking for early Chinese newspapers or other documents that might refer to overseas Chinese communities as Chinatowns.
The term was not regularly used to refer to the Chinese community in Chicago until the 20th century. Before 1890, the earliest such community, the one around Clark and Van Buren, was rarely if ever called ":Chinatown" in contemporary newspapers.
"Chinaman" also may be American in origin. The first use cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is in a letter by the Bostonian intellectual Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in his Letters and Society, 1854. Emerson did not use it in a pejorative way. However, this is much later than "China-man" as used by the English sea captain John Meares in 1789 (see above).
Anthony Lee teaches in the Program in American Studies, Department of Art History, Holyoke College
G.A. Custer, "Life on the Plains," The Galaxy, vol 18, no 4, p 471; Thomas J. Vivian, "John Chinaman in San Francisco," Scribner's Monthly, vol 12, no 6, pp 865, etc.; Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar 4 1876, p 3
1880: Comparing Japanese and Chinese Students at U.S. UniversitiesDec 28 2004
There were 70 Japanese and 108 Chinese in American universities in 1880, compared with a dozen Japanese and just about no Chinese in European universities.
The Japanese students were mostly privately financed and unsupervised, while the great majority of Chinese students were financed by the imperial government and supervised by government representatives. However, the supervisors did not attempt to dictate what the students studied: "in the selection of his studies, great liberty is allowed each student."
The key figure in persuading the Chinese government to pay the students' expenses was Yung Wing
who had graduated from Yale in 1850. Originally from Nanping in Xiangshan [now Zhongshan] county, Guangdong province, Yung was not only a pioneering overseas student himself but a good judge of talent. Many of the students he hand-picked for his American high school and university program were to become leaders in China's drive to modernization. The first group arrived in 1872. Most or all of that group were from Guangdong.
Charles Thwing noted in 1880 that Yung Wing's students were doing well. Unlike their Japanese peers, who wore western-style clothes "in excellent taste," the typical Chinese student "still braids his cue [pigtail] and wears his loose trowsers and blouse." He also "learns the English language with greater ease, and uses it with greater facility, while the [Japanese student], after a residence of even five or six years, experiences, in the case of not a few individuals, difficulty in conducting an ordinary conversation. Both [Chinese and Japanese] manifest much deference to authority, and are models of decorum and politeness. The Japanese belong relatively to a higher caste; the majority of the Chinese students are from the middle class of the empire."
In reality, however, the Chinese students had also begun to wear western clothes, date western girls, and absorb anti-imperial notions. The Qing government ordered all of them back to China in 1881. As the New York Times (July 3, 1881) commented, "It is unreasonable to suppose that the bright young men like those educated in the U.S. at the cost of the Chinese government should content themselves with absorbing the principles of engineering, mathematics and other sciences remaining, meanwhile, wholly irresponsive to the political and social influences by which they are surrounded. China cannot borrow our learning, our science, and our material forms of industry without importing with them the virus of political rebellion. Therefore she will have none of these things."
No more Chinese government-funded students were to come to America until 1909, when the U.S. government decided that the Boxer Indemnity -- the penalty payments exacted from the Qing government after the Boxer Rebellion of 1902 -- should be used for educating Chinese students. Many hundreds came after that. In the Midwest, these attended most of the universities mentioned in the immigration records analyzed by Christoff (see below, "Early Interracial Marriages") -- the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Lake Forest Academy, the Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), North Central College, the Lewis Institute, the University of Illinois, Valparaiso University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, Hope College in Michigan, Garrett Biblical Institute, Taylor University in Indiana, Purdue University, and others.
All of the pre-1881 government-funded students probably passed through Chicago on the way to the East Coast schools and universities where Yung Wing had arranged for them to study. None of them is known to have stayed in the Midwest. But what about other, privately-funded or missionary-funded students, before or after 1881? We know that such students existed between 1881 and 1909 -- a famous example is Charlie Soong (Song Yaoru), the father of the sisters who married Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, who graduated from Tennessee's Vanderbilt University in 1885-6. But we do not have data showing that privately-funded students studied in the Midwestern states in pre-Boxer Indemnity times.
Current research in the Immigration Service's archives, which contain a great deal of historical data on Chinese students at Midwestern universities, should tell us about any who came before 1909. Stay tuned ... Yes! Drs. Mary Stone and Ida Kahn, both of them Chinese from China, studied at the U. of Michigan in the early 1890s.
T. K. Chu Symposium, 150 years of Chinese Students in America, Harvard China Review, 2002
Ko Kun-hua, Collected Writings, ed. by Zhang Hongsheng (Jiangsu Guji Publishers, Nanjing, 2000) [in Chinese]
Charles F. Thwing "Chinese and Japanese Students in America," Scribner's Monthly, 1880, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp 450-3.
Another important academic link was provided by Ko Kun-hua, who in 1879 was hired by Harvard University to teach Chinese to American students. He was supported by a fund organized by Francis Knight, a Boston businessman who thought that young Americans needed to know Chinese in order to do business in China. As Anhui native who had worked for the British and American consulates in Ningbo and Shanghai, Ko already knew some English and was a good traditionally-trained scholar. He arrived in Cambridge with his wife, five children, two servants, and an interpreter, to teach at the then-princely salary of.$200 per month. He seems to have fitted in well at Harvard where he joined local poetry clubs and made friends with European-American intellectuals. Ko died of flu in 1882 but before his death at least one student from Yung Wing's program, a Zhejiang native named Ting Sung-ki, had come to Harvard to study with him.
1857: The First Chinese in St. Louis踏足美州中部的第一個華人 Dec 29 2004, revised Feb 19 2007
Until we read Goldsworthy's article (see above), we thought that St. Louis had been ahead of Chicago in getting its first Chinese resident. The following note, which was written two years ago, should now be corrected to take account of the facts that Gioldsworthy has discovered.
In her new book, Dr. Huping Lo of Missouri's Truman State University writes,
"In 1857, Alla Lee, a twenty-four-year-old native of Ningbo, China, seeking a better life, came to St. Louis, where he opened a small shop on North Tenth Street selling tea and coffee. As the first and probably the only Chinese there for a while, Alla Lee mingled mostly with immigrants from Northern Ireland and married an Irish woman. A decade later, Alla Lee was joined by several hundred of his countrymen from San Francisco and New York who were seeking jobs in mines and factories in and around St. Louis."
When she writes that "a decade later, Alla Lee was joined by several hundred of his countrymen," Dr. Lo probably means after 1869, when the completion of the transcontinental railroad brought the first Chinese to Chicago and other parts of the Midwest. But this does not affect St. Louis's claim to having had the earliest Chinese resident. Alla Lee may have come up the Mississippi from New Orleans. As other essays on this website show, he was not the only early Chinese-American to have an Irish wife.
Huping Lo, Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004).
Ca. 1880-1935: A Chinese Soldier in Nebraska Jan 06 2005
The state of Nebraska has at least two claims to fame among Chinese-Americans. First, in 1898 it hosted a world fair in which at least 177 Chinese participated (see Midwestern World Fairs). And second, it was the home of a truly remarkable Chinese immigrant, Edward Day Cohota.
Found as a 4 year-old stowaway on the American sailing ship Cohota en route from Shanghai to Massachusetts, he was adopted by the ship's captain, Silas Day, and named after Day and the ship itself. In 1864 he joined the Union Army and fought in several battles of the Civil War. He rejoined the Army after the War. After serving at various military posts in Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Illinois (at Fort Sheridan, in suburban Chicago), he settled at Fort Niobrara near Valentine, Nebraska. He and his Swedish-American wife, whom he married in 1883, had six children. He died in 1935, ninety years after leaving Shanghai.
In 1929, an article in the Rapid City Daily Journal paid tribute to him:
"It is not an uncommon thing to see a grand old gentleman at the national sanitarium standing uncovered and at attention at 'flag-down.' This refined, splendid looking old gentleman, who stands with such reverence and respect for the flag of his adopted country, is Edward Day Cohota, the only native-born Chinaman who went through the Civil War."
We now know that other Chinese fought in the American Civil War (1861-1865) too. There were at least sixty. None were Californians, a few were Southerners, and the rest lived on the East Coast. As far as we know, the only Chinese in the Midwest during the Civil War was Alla Lee in St. Louis (see above, 1857), and there is no evidence that he fought on either side..
For more information on Chinese in the Civil War, see Gordon Kwok's excellent web site, http://hometown.aol.com/gordonkwok/accsacw.html.
See also http://www.rootsweb.com/~necherry/Cohota.htm
The following data comes from a preliminary look through early Annual Directories of Chicago, as preserved on microfilm at Chicago's central Harold Washington Library. As will be seen, there are still many gaps in the data. But interesting patterns in local Chinese-American history are starting to come to light. We thought that we would present the data here now, with a warning that continuing research will not only fill some of the gaps but may show that some of our current conclusions are wrong.
Laundries Restaurants Stores Illinois Chinese
(US Census)
1870-1 0 0 0 1
1872 1 0 0 -
1874-5 18 0 1 -
1876-7 27 0 0 -
1880 69 0 ? 209
1885 217 0 ? -
1890 263 0 4 740
1893 - 1 - -
1895 319 1 13 -
1900 247 2 18 1503
1901 - 7 - -
1903 - 23 - -
1905 261 39 19 -
1910 325 - 40 2103
1911 - 68 36 -
1912 - 78 - -
1915 456 118 52 -
1920 - - - 2776
The census was not at all complete. In 1883, a well-informed Chinese linguist named Charles Kee told a newspaper reporter that there were 700 Chinese in Chicago, including a single Chinese woman. In the mid-1920s, T. C. Fan found that there were about 4500 Chinese in Chicago -- many more than the total reported by the Census Bureau. One presumes that, then as now, illegal immigrants did not wish to be counted.
The directories did not begin listing Chinese stores separately until the late 1880s; before then, the only way to tell how many such stores existed would be to make a careful page-by-page search of each year's directory. The same is true of Chinese laundries before 1885 and Chinese restaurants before 1905, but here the search is easier because the directories have general sections for laundries and restaurants. Even without separate Chinese subsections, searching for Chinese names in these general sections is easy.
Most striking is that the sheer number of establishments providing work for Chinese increased rapidly and steadily from 1872 through 1915. This increase must have been matched by a steady expansion of Chicago's Chinese population. T.C. Fan was told by Chinatown residents in 1926 that the average laundry employed three men, and that the average restaurant and store employed nine. If this was true earlier, it would mean that in 1915 these three kinds of businesses together provided work (and presumably food and housing too) for about 3000 men.
The 1890 and 1900 totals are for China-born Chinese only; the Census did not list US-born Chinese.
Census data is from the U.S. Census website, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056.html
Lakeside Annual Directories of the City of Chicago, 1876-1915. Microfilm copies in Harold Washington Library, Chicago.
Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb 9 1883. ProQuest Historical Newspapers on-line service, courtesy of Newberry Library, Chicago
See also Paul C. P. Siu, The Chinese Laundryman, New York: New York University Press, 1987
and Ting C. Fan, Chinese Residents in Chicago, PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1926
Credits: The research for this article was done by Ben Bronson and Chuimei Ho
1874: The First Chinese-Owned Business in Chicago Jan 10 2005
The Lakeside Annual Directory for 1874-5 contains this advertisement:
Chinaman's Tea House. Kwang Lee and Ah Hen Jackson, Proprietors. Dealers in all kinds of Teas, Coffees and Spices, 35 West Madison Street.
We believe this to have been the first Chinese-owned business in the city and perhaps in Illinois. We would love to know who Kwang Lee and Ah Hen Jackson were. Chicago had many other tea and coffee dealers at that time. Although these other dealers' shops often had Chinese names, the dealers themselves all were European-
1898: A Chinese Magician's Tragedy (and Triumph) in Omaha
魔術大師朱連魁來中部獻技Jan 13 2005
On August 1, 1898, during the World Fair in Omaha, a Chinese magician who would become famous suffered a personal tragedy. His 10 year-old son died without warning. Despite the tears in his eyes he gave his regular performance that day. "The hearts of the Chinese performers are filled with sorrow for the little athlete..." (1)
The magician was Ching Ling Foo, whose real name was Zhu Lianhui 朱连魁. In 1899 he was interviewed through an interpreter for a New York show-business newspaper. Zhu told the reporter that he had been born in Beijing in 1854. He had begun to study magic as an amateur while working for a large mercantile firm with branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and San Francisco. He did not turn professional until 1897 when, during a business trip to San Francisco, he agreed to join a group of Chinese performers who were going to the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha. This must have been when he adopted Ching Ling Foo as a stage name.
Zhu/Ching performed at the Exposition for several months. During that time he was noticed and signed up by an agent for New York's prestigious Vaudeville theater circuit, which featured magicians as well as actors, acrobats, and other performers. His growing fame protected him from the Immigration Service. "Shortly after the Omaha fair was over the authorities tried to have Ching and his company sent back to China under the Exclusion Act, but it was proven that he and his companions were artists and not laborers, and they were allowed to remain. Ching says he will remain in America for good, as he likes the country and the people very much." (2)
Zhu/Ching became an international star. He toured European and U.S cities many times over the next two decades. The great magician Houdini was a colleague and admirer. With reference to Zhu/Ching's magic acts, Houdini commented on the "subtle artistry that marks all the work of this super-magician." (3)
(1) Omaha Public Library: http://www.omaha.lib.ne.us/transmiss/bee/august1.html
(2) New York Dramatic Mirror, June 3, 1899; http://www.illusionata.com/mpt/view.php?id=73&type=articles
see also http://hk.geocities.com/chinesemagichistory/chinglingfoo
(3) Harry Houdini, The Miracle Mongers: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/mmong10.txt
1896: Dr. Shi Meiyu comes from Michigan to Chicago Jan 17 2005
Shi Meiyu (English name Mary Stone) was born at Jiujiang in Jiangxi, eastern China, in 1873. She studied under Miss Gertrude Howe at a Methodist girl's school in Jiujiang and later accompanied Miss Howe to the United States where in 1892 she became a student in the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. After getting her MD degree in 1896, she went to Chicago to intern at hospitals there before returning to Jiujiang in the same year to establish the new Danforth Memorial Hospital in partnership with Dr. Kang Cheng 康成 (English name Ida Kahn).
Dr. Kang, Shi Meiyu's girlhood friend, graduated from the University of Michigan in the same year. The two were the first Chinese women to receive a medical degree in the United States. They may also have been the first Chinese women to graduate from a Midwestern university.
Dr. Shi in particular played a major role in the development of modern medicine in China. She founded and superintended two hospitals. Reading between the lines, she was an able administrator and fundraiser with excellent missionary connections in the U.S.
We hope eventually to discover which Chicago hospitals Dr. Shi worked at. She seems to have stayed in Chicago for less than a year.
1895: Just about Nobody Immigrates to the Midwest -- about 900 Chinese come to the West Coast and 900 transit to Latin America, while only 55 go on to the East Feb 11 2005
Another important on-line resource for American immigration studies is the website of the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, which thus far has entered the passenger lists for 7000 ship arrivals in the United States during the 19th century. Most of the lists are for the 1880s and 1890s. The Exclusion Act of 1882 required ship captains to hand in special lists of Chinese passengers when arriving at U.S. ports. 1895 was the first year that all such lists had to include not only the passengers' names but the cities they were going to.
Altogether, the San Francisco immigration office allowed 922 Chinese to enter the U.S. in 1895. Most stated that they planned to stay in California, and only 55 of the 922 gave destinations east of the Rocky Mountains. 10 were going to the East Coast, 10 to Louisiana and Mississippi, 12 to the Midwest outside Illinois, and 23 to Illinois, in and around Chicago.
In 1895 San Francisco had a total of 40 ship arrivals from the Far East. Eight steamships took part, the White Star Line's ships Gaelic, Coptic, Belgic, and Oceanic, and the Pacific Mail Line's ships China, Peru, City of Peking, and City of Rio de Janeiro. Each needed about two months for the round trip and brought an average of about 25 US-bound Chinese along with another 25 in transit to Latin America.
Chinese did reach the Midwest by other routes in the 1890s. Judging by NARA's records of re-entry permits for Chinese residents, at least some entered the country by crossing the Canadian border in Minnesota or North Dakota and then making their way south by railroad to Chicago. And passengers who gave their destination as California did not necessarily stay there. Chinese migration from the West to the Midwest continued through the 1920s, spurred by racist violence in California, Washington, Wyoming, and other western states..
http://www.immigrantships.net. For an introduction to NARA's archives (which will be used in future notes on these Research pages), see Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Tracking the "Yellow Peril," (Rockport, Maine: The Picton Press, 2001)
1891: Early Immigrant Smuggling I: Julian Ralph's Investigation
記者饒爾夫研究早期偷渡移民 Feb 27 2005
Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, it was theoretically impossible for Chinese laborers (as distinguished from merchants, students, etc.) to enter the US. One way around the law was to use someone else's documents to establish citizenship. Books about Chinese-American history make frequent mention of these "paper sons."
