Maine and the Orient

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Blumburg, Rhoda. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1985. Illustrated. Middle school.

Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Cricket and the Emperor’s Son. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. A poor apprentice tells seven stories to the Emperor’s son. Upper elementary grades.

Demi. The Greatest Power. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2004. A Chinese Emperor challenges the children in his kingdom to show him the greatest power in the world. Informative about the history of China. Beautiful illustrations. Ages 5-10.

Drummond, Allan. The Willow Pattern Story. New York: North-South Books, 1992. A legend about the origin of the well-known blue willow porcelain pattern that was created in England in the 19th century, reflecting the widespread interest in western countries in things Chinese. Ages 5-10.

Flack, Marjorie. The Story about Ping. New York: Viking Press, 1933. A little duck has an adventure on the Yangtze River. Early elementary.

Fritz, Jean: Homesick: My Own Story. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2001, c1982. A memoir of an American girl growing up in China in the 1920s. Upper elementary grades.

Nishimura, Shigeo. An Illustrated History of Japan. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2005. Overview of Japanese history from pre-historic to modern times. Nice illustrations. Elementary grades.

Paterson, Katherine. The Master Puppeteer. New York: Harper-Collins, 1975. Novel about 18th century Japan. Middle/High School.

HIGH SCHOOL/ADULT 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.

CHINESE ART AND CULTURE
Cameron, Nigel and L. Carrington Goodrich. The Face of China: As Seen by Photographers and Travelers, 1860-1912. Aperture Books, 1978. From an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Crossman, Carl L. The Decorative Arts of the China Trade: Paintings, Furnishings, and Exotic Curiosities. Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1991.

Feller, John Quentin. The Canton Famille Rose Porcelains: Chinese Export Porcelain in the 19th Century. Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1982.

Jourdain, Margaret, and R. Soame Jenyns. Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Scribner, 1950.

Ko, Dorothy (The Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Ontario). Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. Interesting and thorough discussion of the physical and cultural aspects of foot-binding, including beautiful images of footwear.

Palmer, Arlene M. A Winterthur Guide to Chinese Export Porcelain. New York: Crown, 1976.

Soulié de Morant, Georges. A History of Chinese Art from Ancient Times to the Present Day. New York: Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, 1931.

CHINESE OPIUM TRADE
Beeching, Jack. The Chinese Opium Wars. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

Booth, Martin. Opium: A History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Hodgson, Barbara. Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999.

Layton, Thomas N. The Voyage of the “Frolic”: New England Merchants and the Opium Trade. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Stackpole, Edouard. Captain Prescott and the Opium Smugglers. With illustrations of the Chinese scene and period of 1840-1850, together with famous ship masters and ships which made history on the China coast. Mystic, CT: Marine Historical Association, 1954. Letters from Captain Prescott to his mother and brother in New York. Copies at Penobscot Marine Museum.

WEB PAGES
Collections of Chinese art and Asian export art at Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA: www.pem.org.

Chinese House at Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA: www.pem.org/yinyutang/.

Maine Memory Network: www.mainememory.net. Go to Exhibits to see a presentation on Chinese in Maine.

Washington State University Course Notes Online: Ch’ing China www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/CONTENTS.HTM.

Making a Chinese Compass: www.historyforkids.org/crafts/china/compass.htm.

There are a number of other resources on the web that provide statistics and history on China, such as the China Internet Information Center at: www.china.org.cn and China Today, at: www.chinatoday.com.
History of the Abacus and its use: www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/abacus/index.html.