UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Shanghai's Wandering
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Shanghai’s Wandering Ones: Child Welfare in a Global City, 1900–1953 DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History by Maura Elizabeth Cunningham Dissertation Committee: Professor Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Chair Professor Kenneth L. Pomeranz Professor Anne Walthall 2014 © 2014 Maura Elizabeth Cunningham DEDICATION To the Thompson women— Mom-mom, Aunt Marge, Aunt Gin, and Mom— for their grace, humor, courage, and love. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi CURRICULUM VITAE x ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION xvii INTRODUCTION: The Century of the Child 3 PART I: “Save the Children!”: 1900–1937 22 CHAPTER 1: Child Welfare and International Shanghai in Late Qing China 23 CHAPTER 2: Child Welfare and Chinese Nationalism 64 PART II: Crisis and Recovery: 1937–1953 103 CHAPTER 3: Child Welfare and the Second Sino-Japanese War 104 CHAPTER 4: Child Welfare in Civil War Shanghai 137 CHAPTER 5: Child Welfare in Early PRC Shanghai 169 EPILOGUE: Child Welfare in the 21st Century 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 iii LIST OF FIGURES Page Frontispiece: Two sides of childhood in Shanghai 2 Figure 1.1 Tushanwan display, Panama-Pacific International Exposition 25 Figure 1.2 Entrance gate, Tushanwan Orphanage Museum 26 Figure 1.3 Door of Hope Children’s Home in Jiangwan, Shanghai 61 Figure 2.1 Street library, Shanghai 85 Figure 2.2 Ah Xi, Zhou Ma, and the little beggar 91 Figure 3.1 “Motherless Chinese Baby” 105 Figure 3.2 “China ... Looks to US!” 113 Figure 3.3 Refugees fleeing to the foreign concessions, 1937 120 Figure 3.4: “Let’s Do Our Duty!” 130 Figure 4.1 Wandering children, 1949 142 Figure 4.2 Sanmao comes to Shanghai 161 Figure 4.3 Sanmao shares the shirt off his back 163 Figure 4.4 “Dogs are better than people” 164 Figure 4.5 Child begging from women on street 165 Figure 5.1 “New Society and Old Society” 171 Figure 5.2 “This is the ‘charitable work’ of imperialism!” 182 Figure 5.3 Sanmao eats tree bark to survive 200 Figure 5.4 Sanmao and friend care for trees 200 Figure E.1 “Sanmao Comes to the Dumpster to Avoid the Cold” 207 iv LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS Page Graph 1.1 Foundling homes established in China between 1655 and 1911 32 Graph 2.1 Parental status of workhouse-orphanage residents 76 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dissertation writing, like all writing, is a deceptively collaborative activity. Though mine is the name on the title page, I could never have produced this thesis without the wisdom, friendship, and assistance of countless people. I simply could not have asked for a better doctoral advisor than Jeff Wasserstrom. Through hundreds of hours of face-to-face conversations and thousands of emails (and a few tweets as well), Jeff has offered encouragement and advice on an almost daily basis for the past six years. He’s given me latitude to create my own path, but has always been ready to help out whenever I needed to talk things through. I especially thank Jeff for supporting—and furthering —my freelance writing career; thanks to him, I’ve learned to write fast, pitch often, and maintain a sense of humor in the face of rejection. Ken Pomeranz has taught me the values of thoroughness and persistence in scholarship. Anne Walthall and honorary dissertation committee member Roberta Wue unfailingly responded to queries and offered suggestions on a topic very far outside their respective fields of expertise. At the University of California, Irvine, I’ve benefitted from a strong community of faculty and graduate students who have helped me proceed along this road and have some fun on the way. Professors Vinayak Chaturvedi, Laura Mitchell, and Jon Wiener have inspired and motivated me to push my work to the next level. I was fortunate enough to land in a world-class group of China studies students at UCI, all of whom have assisted me in various ways over the years: Nicole Barnes, Leksa Chmielewski, Pierre Fuller, Chris Heselton, Miri Kim, Silvia Lindtner, Jennifer Liu, and Shi Xia. Silvia and Leksa, as well as Amy O’Keefe of UCSD, were also great friends and working companions in Shanghai. Jen and Brian Staver deserve special vi thanks for being not only wonderful friends, but also for welcoming me into their home during my too-infrequent visits to San Diego. The research trips Jen and I made together to Berkeley and New Haven are some of my fondest memories of the past six years; I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun on my own. Kate Merkel-Hess has been generous with her advice and friendship throughout my time in graduate school. Paul Pickowicz of UC San Diego invited me into his seminar on Republican Shanghai visual culture during the winter and spring of 2011, where I began to piece together some of the ideas that have wound up in this thesis. I spent the summer of 2011 conducting preliminary dissertation research while an instructor at CET Shanghai, and I thank Jeremy Friedlein for making that important trip possible—and for being a good friend, neighbor, and sometimes employer ever since. When I looked to move back east in mid-2011, Orville Schell offered me a place to land with a fellowship at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. He, David Barreda, Laura Chang, Susie Jakes, Sara Segal-Williams, Sun Yunfan, Leah Thompson, and Michael Zhao were all great colleagues during my year there. In Shanghai, Professor Gao Jun arranged for me to become a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and freely offered his time and assistance as I researched and wrote this thesis. Zhang Sen, Li Li, and Sun Weidi skillfully guided me through the SASS bureaucracy and helped me stay on the visa authorities’ good side. Librarians and archivists at the SASS Institute of History’s library, the Shanghai Municipal Archives, Bibliotheca Zi-ka-wei, and the Shanghai Library helped me find what I was looking for, even when I didn’t know exactly what that was. Staff at Princeton University’s Cotsen Children’s Library, the Yale vii Divinity School Library’s Special Collections, and the Harvard-Yenching Library assisted me with alacrity during my research in the U.S. I had the privilege to serve as editor of The China Beat for more than two years. In this capacity, I worked with innumerable contributors to the site, all of whom helped me grow as an editor, a writer, and a person. My humble thanks to any China Beatniks who might read this. I owe an enormous debt to the dozen or more language instructors who patiently tutored me in Chinese over the years. Professors at Saint Joseph’s University, Yale University, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center have all, in ways both large and small, shaped the scholar I am today. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if not for the teachers of Merion Mercy Academy and my classmates there. Jay Carter has been impressive for his unflagging conviction that I would reach this finish line, even though I didn’t always believe it (and others probably had doubts as well!). I am enormously lucky to have him as a friend and colleague. My parents, Terrence and Mary Cunningham, have gamely learned to deal with a daughter who regularly spends large chunks of time on the other side of the world. They’ve also helped me and all my heavy books move more times than I can count, provided financial assistance in a pinch, and tolerated my habit of falling off the grid for days on end when immersed in work. I’m not sure “thanks” is sufficient to cover all that, but I hope it’s a start. Brendan, my brother, has been called on to serve as my own personal Geek Squad more than once, and in return he’s only mocked my technological skills (or lack thereof) a little bit. My heartfelt appreciation to the many members of the extended Cunningham and Thompson families, who understood when I disappeared from their lives for months at a time. viii I feel a little bit silly, being well past the age of 12, using the term “best friend”—but there is truly no other way to describe Laura Buenzle. From three-hour lunches in the Hawk’s Nest during college to three-hour phone calls between Philadelphia and China in the years following, Laura has provided a sympathetic ear and wise counsel throughout all of my professional and personal crises. In so many ways, I couldn’t have done any of this without her friendship, support, and encouragement. I have previously presented sections of this research at meetings of the American Historical Association, the Association for Asian Studies, the Historical Society for Twentieth- Century China, and Heidelberg University’s “Seeing Matter(s)” workshop on visual culture, as well as a number of other talks in the United States and China. Many thanks to the following organizations for providing me with financial support during the research and writing of this dissertation: UCI Center for Asian Studies, UCI International Center on Writing and Translation, UCI Associated Graduate Students, the Association for Asian Studies, the Children’s Literature Association, the UC Pacific Rim Research Program, and Harvard-Yenching Library. Thanks also to all the staff members of the UCI History Department for their help and good humor in the face of paperwork over the years.