Access: Open
Interviews document the lives of seventeen prominent figures in the Republic of China (1911-1949). Narrators discuss military affairs, politics, national and regional governance, education, economics, culture, transportation, and other topics. Military campaigns are a major topic of the collection. Narrators discuss the operations and impacts of the Northern Expedition (1928-2928), Second Sino-Japanese War/War of Resistance (1937-1945), and Chinese Civil War (1945-1949). Narrators discuss the practical matters of governing during a period of upheaval. They also discuss the politics of the era and entities such as the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party. Many narrators studied abroad in the United States and Europe. The collection gives insights into Chinese education and the experiences of Chinese nationals abroad, including observations from their travels. Several narrators worked as diplomats for the Republican government and offer insights into international affairs and world leaders of the mid-20th century.
Oral history interviews were heavily edited by interviewees and project staff, as was a common convention during this period. As a result, transcripts and audio may differ considerably. For many interviews, only short segments were retained. Audio was recorded on open reel magnetic tapes (including Grundig tape reels), and all surviving audio for the collection has been digitized.
The collection's narrators are Cai Zengji (Choy, Jun-ke; 蔡增基), Chen Guangfu (Chen, Kwang Pu; Chen, K.P.; 陳光甫 ), Chen Lifu (陳立夫), Ho Lien (Franklin L. Ho; He, Lian; 何廉 ), Hu Shih (胡適), V. K. Wellington Koo (顧維鈞), H. H. Kung (Kung, Hsiang-hsi; Kong, Xiangxi; 孔祥熙), Hanhun Li (李漢魂), Li Huang (李璜), Li Shuhua (李書華), Li Zongren (Li Tsung-jen, 李宗仁), Shen Yiyun (Shen I-yun, 沈亦云), Tsiang Tingfu Fuller (Jiang, Tingfu; 蔣廷黻), C. T. Wang (Wang, Chengting Thomas; Wang, Zhengting; 王正廷), K. C. Wu (Wu, Kuo-Cheng; 吳國楨), Zhang Fakui (Chang, Fa-k'uei; 張發奎), and Zuo, Shunsheng (Tso, Shun-sheng; 左舜生).
Access: Open
The Chinese oral history project's administrative records, internal and external correspondence, subject files, reports, transcript drafts, and additional materials can be found in the Chinese oral history project collection (中國口述歷史項目檔案)
Related oral history projects 相關口述史料:
Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica oral history project 中央研究院近代史研究所口述史料, 1950-1965
China missionaries project 中國傳教士口述史料, 1969-1972
The following are personal paper collections of the interviewees 以下列表含所收集的個人歷史檔案:
Hanhun Li and Chu Fang Wu papers, 李漢魂與李吳菊芳檔案
Collection on J. Heng Liu, 劉瑞恆彙集
Transcripts were digitized from the Oral History Research Office microfiche
Personal papers of project founder: C. Martin Wilbur papers
Prof. C. Martin Wilbur 韋慕廷 (1907-1997) of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University, and Prof. Franklin L. Ho 何廉 (1905-1975) officially started the Chinese oral history project in 1958 to interview and document the life of prominent Chinese political leaders of Republican China living abroad. The project was financed by Columbia University, the Ford Foundation, and later by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project ran through the 1980s. The project produced a total of seventeen oral history interviews that were deposited at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University. In 2015, the Oral History Archives at Columbia (founded as the Oral History Research Office) became a part of the RBML and this RBML subunit assumed administrative duties for the Chinese oral history project. In 2018, certain administrative records generated by the project team during the 1950s-1980s and materials collected during the project were formally removed to a freestanding collection described as the Chinese oral history project collection (中國口述歷史項目檔案). During the course of the Chinese oral history project, personal papers were collected from interviewees. In 2018, papers for twelve interviewees were formally separated as their own collections: Chen Guangfu, Chen Lifu, Wellington Koo, Kung H.H., Li Hanhun and Mme. Wu Chufang, Li Huang, Li Shuhua, Li Zongren, Liu J. Heng, Huang Fu, Hu Shih, Tsiang Tingfu Fuller, and Zhang Fakui. Microfiche transcripts were digitized in 2016 and audio was digitized in 2019. Two other oral history collections, the Academia Sinica oral history collection and the Chinese Missionaries project, were variously considered by the RBML to be part of the Chinese oral history project or independent collections. As of 2024, these two collections are described and administered as separate collections.
Columbia University Libraries, Oral History Archives at Columbia
Many processing interventions have occurred since the Chinese Oral History Project began in 1958. Collection guides were published in 1972, 1979, and 1984. Interviews and collection received MARC catalog records sometime during the RLIN era, incorporating description from earlier guides (interview-level descriptions in the 2024 finding aid came from the MARC records and some even originated in the 1972 guide).
In 2018, Yingwen Huang processed a set of administrative materials for the Chinese Oral History project and personal papers of interviewees that were collected during the project. Administrative materials had previously been cataloged as "Autobiographies and related papers," and often were treated as part of the Chinese Oral History Project. As part of Huang's processing, this was made a formal collection and descibed in a finding aid as Chinese oral history project collection (中國口述歷史項目檔案). Interviewees' personal papers were separated and described as their own collection during processing due to the collections' provenance and also for better access and discovery. Interviewees with personal paper collections: Chen Guangfu, Chen Lifu, Wellington Koo, Kung H.H., Li Hanhun and Mme. Wu Chufang, Li Huang, Li Shuhua, Li Zongren, Liu J. Heng, Huang Fu, Hu Shih, Tsiang Tingfu Fuller, and Zhang Fakui.
Additional cataloging and MARC cleanup was done in 2019-2020 by Alexander Whelan and David A. Olson to support online publication of materials following digitization of microfiche transcripts (2016) and audio (2019).
In 2020, staff of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library created timestamped indexes for several interviews as part of a pandemic-era project. Interviews receiving indexes were Cai, Zengji; Ho, Franklin L.; Hu, Shih; Koo, V. K. Wellington; and Tsiang, Tingfu Fuller.
In 2024, David A. Olson created a finding aid for better discovery and aggregation of information. Finding aid includes new collection-level description and existing description from Yingwen Huang and earlier guides. Audio reels had been included in Chinese oral history project collection (administrative papers) since 2018 and these were formally returned to the Chinese Oral History Project. Some additional MARC cleanup was also done at this time.
Prof. C. Martin Wilbur 韋慕廷 (1907-1997) of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University, and Prof. Franklin L. Ho 何廉 (1905-1975) officially started the Chinese oral history project in 1958 to interview and document the life of prominent Chinese political leaders of Republican China (1911-1949) living abroad. The project was financed by Columbia University, the Ford Foundation, and later by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In designing the project, Professor Wilbur and Professor Ho decided to use an intensive approach instead of the extensive approach as in the American oral history project. They envisioned the project to concentrate on a few outstanding interviewees and to produce more accurate and detailed autobiographies. A total of nineteen prominent Chinese political figures residing in the U.S. and Hong Kong were interviewed. The Chinese oral history project staff consisted of a team of scholarly interviewers with outstanding knowledge of modern Chinese history: Julie Lien-ying How (pinyin: Xia, Lianying; simplified Chinese: 夏连荫; traditional Chinese: 夏連蔭), Te-kong Tong (pinyin: Tang, Degang; simplified Chinese: 唐德刚; traditional Chinese: 唐德剛), Minta Chou Wang (王明德), Alice Kwong Bolocan, Kai-fu Tsao, Lillian Chu Chin, James Seymour, and Crystal Lorch Seidman. The scholar interviewers worked as collaborators, translators, and co-authors with the interviewees closely in the process of drafting, editing (and/or translating) the interview transcription, which later becomes their memoir. The project produced a total of sixteen finalized oral history interviews that were deposited at RBML for future scholarly research, many of which were later published. The project officially ended in the 1980s.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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