Visit to Whitman College and Northwest Archives
On August 3rd, I was with a group that visited the Whitman College and Northwest Archives to view their David Crockett Graham Collection. They have the largest archival collection anywhere on Graham, comprising 31.5 linear feet. We were particularly interested in seeing their collection of 373 glass slides that Graham used when giving talks about his research and correspondence related to his field research in archaeology and anthropology.
Yonggang Wu, Bei Huang, Hongmei Li, Yuan Bo Peng, and Joan Shen viewing glass slides.
In addition to seeing what the Whitman Archives has, I also had some significant contributions to make. I brought Graham’s two house guest books that spanned from 1933 to 1961, 26 of his diaries, and an embroidered silk tribute to Graham from two of his students when he left China in 1948. The Grahams had been one of the main hosts for dignitaries and scholars visiting West China Union University, and their guest books are a treasure trove of signatures documenting social connections and dates when people came through. There is a real mix of languages with English and Chinese being dominant, but also Tibetan, German, and languages and scripts that I don’t recognize.
Presenting gifts to the archives.
Left to right: Alexis Hickey, Chris Hoogendyk, Yanyan Chen, Yuan Bo Peng, Hongmei Li, Jay Xu, Bei Huang, and Joan Shen.
The group I was with included Yuan Bo Peng (one of our Board members) and 8 of his classmates who had graduated from West China University of Medical Sciences in 1986 and had their 40th reunion in Seattle just before this visit to Whitman College. Jay Xu (our Board President) joined us after just returning from Chengdu, and Yuan Bo Peng’s sister, Jie Peng, flew in from Chengdu to join us. Margaret Graham, DCG’s oldest daughter, had returned to China in the early 1980s and taught English at the Medical School in Chengdu. Her stories sparked her student’s interest in the Graham history behind their school. Some members of the group have multigenerational connections to West China Union University, and that lead to some real excitement as they were looking through the guest books. They found their own grandparent’s and parent’s signatures in the guest books! Their grandparents had been guests of David Crockett Graham, his daughter had taught them English, and here they were visiting the archives and viewing the David Crockett Graham Collection with his grandson!
Wei Yang reading a diary, while Hui Zhang, Beverly Wu, Joan Shen, and Hongmei Li look through a guestbook.
Alexis Hickey, the Head Archivist, was a gracious host, bringing out things our group wanted to see and ensuring that everyone knew how to handle archival items safely. We had another agenda item as well—meeting with Alexis to talk about funding a project to digitize the glass slides and upload them with descriptions and metadata to Whitman’s digital archival management system, Arminda. Jay and Yuan Bo both approved of moving ahead with this, and we hope to work out details as the new semester begins at Whitman College.
Hui Zhang, Beverly Wu, and Wei Yang looking at documents, while Chris talks with Joan Shen and Alexis Hickey.
Everyone: Yonggang Wu, Bei Huang, Joan Shen, Chris Hoogendyk, Hongmei Li, Beverly Wu, Alexis Hickey, Yuan Bo Peng, Wei Yang, Jie Peng, Jay Xu, Hui Zhang (Yanyan Chen taking picture).