High School & Adult Level Books

Albee, Parker Bishop. Letters from Sea, 1882-1901: Joanna and Lincoln Colcord’s Seafaring Childhood. Gardiner, Maine: Tilbury House, 1999. The story of two Searsport children who were born at sea and spent a great deal of their childhood on their father’s vessel. Includes photos of Hong Kong by Joanna Colcord. The museum has an exhibit about the lives and travels of the Colcords.

Dulles, Foster Rhea. The Old China Trade. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930. Covers the period from the American Revolution through 1844. Illustrations; also Middle School.

Dulles, Foster Rhea. Yankees and Samurai: America’s Role in the Emergence of Modern Japan: 1791-1900. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Illustrations.

Howard, David Sanctuary. New York and the China Trade. Published by New York Historical Society in association with Columbia Publishing Co., Inc., Frenchtown, New Jersey, 1984. Background information and plates of exhibit items. 

Lawson, Don. The Eagle and the Dragon: The History of U.S.-China Relations. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1985. An easy to read account of China’s history and people, including the China Trade with America. Covers government in China up through the late 20th century. Also Middle School.

Liu, Kwang-Ching. Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1962. Uses papers of American and British firms to provide a view of competitive financial and business methods and their contact with Chinese merchants. 

Lockwood, William W. The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change 1868-1938. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954. More detailed economic history, with more emphasis on 20th century. Interesting tables.

Lord, Betty Bao. Spring Moon: A Novel of China. New York, Harper and Row, 1981.

Mortland, Donald (ed.) Sea Stories from Searsport to Singapore: Selected Works of Lincoln Colcord. Thorndike, ME: North Country Press, 1987.  Various short stories and selections from a novel related to Maine in the China Trade, written by Lincoln Colcord in the early 20th century. Colcord grew up at sea and was from Searsport. Excellent Chinese cultural vignettes.

Tamarin, Alfred and Shirley Glubok. Voyaging to Cathay: Americans in the China Trade. New York: Viking Press, 1976. Earliest contacts between the U.S. and China following the American Revolution until the advent of the steamship. Does not address Maine.Also Middle School, illustrations.

Smith, Philip Chadwick Foster. The Empress of China. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1984. The story of the first U.S. vessel to initiate trade with the Chinese in 1784-5. Maps, illustrations, excerpts from letters and ship documents. 

Wiley, Peter Booth. Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan. New York: Viking, 1990.