Category Archives: Photograph of the day

Books!

The photographs posted to our site — 9,151 now, and rising — have often found their way into publications, and in this post we’ll introduce a handful of them. Joshua Fogel, Canada Research Chair and Professor of History at York … Continue reading

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M is for Ming!

‘Ming: 50 years that changed China’, the British Museum’s autumn exhibition opens today. Photographs in Historical Photographs of China of surviving artefacts from the 1368-1644 Ming dynasty include tourist silliness like this early 1900s shot of a visitor posing with one of … Continue reading

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Simon Drakeford on rugby in old Shanghai

Our Guest blogger this week is Simon Drakeford, whose book about rugby in Shanghai titled  It’s a Rough Game But Good Sport has just been published. More details can be found at www.treatyportsport.com Given the importance and prevalence of the numerous sports played … Continue reading

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Dragon boats … in Bristol

If you are in our local neighbourhood, you can catch dragon boat racing in the Floating Harbour, Bristol on Sunday 14th September.  The first race in this annual festival starts at 10.30am and the last race is on at about … Continue reading

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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham on poverty

Maura Elizabeth Cunningham who is our guest blogger this week, is a historian and writer based in Shanghai. Follow her on Twitter @mauracunningham. The Americans and Europeans who came to China in the first half of the twentieth century often … Continue reading

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Verity Wilson on Fancy dress, far from home

Our guest blog this week comes from Verity Wilson, who teaches the history of design on the joint master’s course at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  Prior to that, she worked for 25 years … Continue reading

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Hong Kong in the early 1920s

We have just gone live with a collection of 82 photographs taken or acquired by Francis Alexander (Frank) Davidson, who arrived in Hong Kong in the autumn of 1921, fresh from vet school in Edinburgh, and who worked as veterinary surgeon … Continue reading

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Paul French on Jessfield Park, Shanghai: A Brief, and Probably Mostly Apocryphal, History

In the first of our new series of guest blogs Paul French, writer and prolific blogger, reflects on on the history of what was formerly one of Shanghai’s largest parks. Most recently the author of a new Penguin China Special, Betrayal … Continue reading

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Dancing in Peking on St Patrick's day

The blog plays catch-up, as it is Oxford University’s Professor of Art History, Craig Clunas, who spotted that we have a St Patrick’s day photograph (Ph04-092), and has tweeted it via his ever-interesting twitter-feed @CraigClunas. This is a spring picnic — … Continue reading

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Still feverish

A recent trip to Shanghai reminds me how popular the rediscovery of historic photographs of China remains. Here in one shop on Fuzhou lu, Shanghai’s bookstore street, is a good stash of Lao Zhaopian magazine, which sparked off the ‘Lao … Continue reading

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