English-Language Sources on China at War, 1931-1945

Overview of Archival and Manuscript Collections


This list includes the major archives or libraries containing English-language materials related to Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. Also listed are a few guides to these resources and secondary works that outline the scope of various collections.

Please send any additions or comments to Steve Phillips at sphillip@towson.edu.

For further information on archival research, see the Research Forum section of this website.

 

Australia

Australia-Japan Research Project

The Australia-Japan Research Project is an important resource for those interested in Australian-Japanese relations. The website contains information on Australian documents and captured Japanese documents, many of which relate to the Sino-Japanese war. The website also contains useful essays on Australian archives related to the Pacific War. The AJRP is a joint enterprise between the Australian War Memorial and the Japanese Embassy in Canberra.

http://www.awm.gov.au:8000/ajrp/ajrp2.nsf/


National Archives of Australia

Offices in Canberra and other locations

www.naa.gov.au

Australia's repository of government records. Of particular value are the Files of the Australian Legation in China, Correspondence Files, located in file series A4144 at the Australian National Archives, and the Correspondence Files of the Department of External Affairs, Alphabetical Series, 1925-1942, located in file series A981.

For an overview of the sources available, see R. G. Neale, ed., Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, 1937-1949, Volume I: 1937-1938 (Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1975).

 

Manuscript Section

National Library of Australia

Canberra, ACT 2600

www.nla.gov.au/home.html

The Australian National Library is the largest single repository of private papers in Australia. Some finding aids are available, such as Sir Frederic W. Eggleston: A Guide to His Papers in the National Library of Australia (Canberra, National Library of Australia, 1972).

 

Canada

National Archives of Canada

395 Wellington Street

Ottawa, Canada K1A 0N3

www.archives.ca

Central repository for official government materials. See Record Group 25, External Affairs, and Record Group 24, National Defense for information on China. For information on collections of papers or manuscripts held elsewhere in Canada, see Robert S. Gordon, ed., Union List of Manuscripts in Canadian Repositories (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968). This Union List has been updated several times since 1968.

The Canadian Council of Archives has developed a directory of the major archives and libraries in Canada, as well as summaries of their principle holdings: www.cdncouncilarchives.ca/dir.html

 

National Library of Canada (NLC)

395 Wellington Street

Ottawa

Canada K1A 0N4

http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/ehome.htm

Holds some volumes from the 1931-1945 period related to Sino-Japanese conflict. The NLC website contains links to special collections throughout Canada.

 

Presbyterian Church in Canada

Archives and Records Office

50 Wynford Drive

Toronto, Ontario

M3C 1J7

www.presbyterian.ca/archives

Contains some missionary materials.

 

University of Toronto

Robarts Library

130 St. George Street

Toronto, Ontario

M5S 1A2

www.library.utoronto.ca

Contains a small but unique group of English-language publications from China, 1931-1945.

 

University of Victoria

University of Victoria Archives and Special Collections

University of Victoria Libraries

P.O. Box 1800 Stn. CSC

Victoria, British Columbia

Canada V8W 3H5

http://gateway3.uvic.ca/archives/archives.html

The library also holds several collections of private papers from individuals in China during the 1931 to 1945 era. For example, Peggy Abkhazi’s paper describe life in Shanghai during and after the Japanese invasion, as well as the experience of being interned by the Japanese.

 

United Church of Canada

Victoria University in the University of Toronto

73 Queen’s Park Crescent

Toronto, Ontario

Canada M5S 1K7

vicu.utoronto.ca/archives/academic.html

Includes records of the Methodist Church (Canada) Missionary Society; the United Church of Canada Board of Overseas Missions (includes records from Shanghai, Henan, and elsewhere in China), Board of World Missions (including a collection of pamplets and other documents), Woman’s Missionary Society (sections on Henan, South China, West China, and Taiwan/Hong Kong); the papers of individuals missionaries in China during the 1931 to 1945 period; and church periodical and manuscripts.

 

Great Britain

The British Library

96 Euston Road

London

NW1 2DB

http://blpc.bl.uk/

British Library Public Catalogue provides on-line access to over 10 million items. Besides books, the Library has an extensive collection of newspapers and archival holdings (such as that of the India Office).

 

Churchill Archives Centre

Churchill College

Cambridge CB3 0DS

www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/home.htm

The Centre is the equivalent to the Roosevelt Presidential Library. Houses over 2,200 boxes of Sir Winston Churchill's papers as well as the papers of some 400 other individuals, including the papers of the British Ambassador to China from 1942 to 1946, Sir Horace James Seymour. The files also include many messages and reports to Churchill from British officials in China.

 

Public Record Office (PRO)

Ruskin Avenue

Kew

Surrey

TW9 4DU

http://www.pro.gov.uk/

The central repository for official government documents. Includes materials from the Foreign Office (FO) and War Office (WO). The PRO also has the Operational Correspondence and Papers of Prime Minister Winton Churchill (Class PREM 3), which hold materials related to Churchill's activities as Minister of Defense, as well as the papers of the Cabinet (CAB). Of particular interest is class FO 371, which contains information on political affairs.

Includes original documents used in documentary collections such as Woodward, Sir Ernest Llewellyn. British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, volume IV. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1975. See also Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office, annual volumes listing documents and their locations. Two important guides are Louise Atherton, 'Never Complain, Never Explain': Records of the Foreign Office and State Paper Office, 1500-c. 1960 (London: Public Record Office, 1994) and The Second World War: A Guide to Documents in the Public Record Office, Public Record Office Handbook No. 15 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1972).

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Wartime Records

http://www.info.gov.hk/pro/

Includes Japanese title deeds and memorials, house registration books, house mortgage records and miscellaneous records relating to the organization and administration of the House Registration Office. Also holds lists of British and foreign casualties, prisoners of war and internees compiled in the month following the surrender of British Forces to the Japanese, medical records of the internment camp in Stanley, various unpublished war diaries, and intelligence summaries issued by the British Army Aid Group which was based at Guilin (Kweilin) during the occupation period.

 

Private Papers

Various locations

The best introduction to sources on the British and Australian side are the bibliographies of unpublished material, private papers, published official documents, and memoirs in Christopher Thorne’s landmark works on wartime diplomacy, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) and The Issue of War: States, Societies, and the Far Eastern Conflict of 1941-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

The National Register of Archives (NRA) collects and disseminates information about manuscript sources for British history outside the PRO. The NRA consists of more than 43,000 unpublished lists and catalogues of major manuscript collections, and approximately 150,000 further lists of miscellaneous and minor collections. It is available at www.hmc.gov.uk/nra/nra.htm. See Noel Matthews and M. Doreen Wainwright, compilers, A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Relating to the Far East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

 

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

University of London

The Library

Thornhaugh Street

Russell Square

London WC1H 0XG

http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/guides/mss.html

SOAS holds some important collections of individuals, businesses, and religious institutions. See Rosemary Seton, compiler, Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections (London : SOAS, University of London, 1994). The papers and reports of Sir Frederick Maze provides a great deal of information on China from the 1920s to the early 1940s through the eyes of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Collections from individuals include Gladys Ayalward, missionary in China, and Patrick Devereux Coates, who was with the consular service in China.

Religious institutions include the China Inland Mission, the Council for World Mission, the Methodist Missionary Society, the Conference of British Missionary Societies and Christian Aid. See Seton, Rosemary, and Emily Naish, A Preliminary Guide to the Archives of British Missionary Societies (London: SOAS, 1992); and Bickers, Robert A., and Rosemary Seton, Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996). Another useful guide is Reverend C. Stuart Craig, The Archives of the Council for World Mission (Incorporating the London Missionary Society): An Outline Guide (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1973).

 

United States

Bancroft Library

University of California Berkeley

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000

www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC

See also the Online Archive of California (sunsite2.berkeley.edu/oac/), which contains detailed lists of collections available at most of the major universities in the state, including the Hoover Institution and the University of California system.

Holds the private papers of individuals such as George Atcheson, an American who witnessed the Japanese bombing of the USS Panay in 1937 and later served as chargé d'affaires in Chongqing, and Walter Lowdermilk, who advised the Nationalist government on environmental issues during the war. The Bancroft Library also has many microfilm and bound copies of oral histories from the Claremont Graduate School and other locations. The library alsoholds 110 oral history transcripts of interviews of Foreign Service Officers during the Truman Administration (1945-1952). These transcripts include information on the pre-1945 careers of the Officers.

 

Baylor University Institute for Oral History

Institute for Oral History

Baylor University

PO Box 97271

Waco, Texas, USA 76798-7271

http://www.baylor.edu/~Oral_History/

The Institute holds a few oral histories from Christian missionaries in China during the war era.

 

Catholic Foreign Missionary Society

Maryknoll Mission Archives

P.O. Box 305

Maryknoll, N.Y. 10545-0305

www.maryknoll.org/ABOUTUS/ARCHIV/arc_info.htm

The holdings include the diaries of Maryknoll missionaries around the world. See Murray Rubinstein, "China in Maryknoll: The Sinologically-Related Holdings of the Catholic Foreign Missionary Society of America," Jindai Zhongguo shi yanjiu tongxu (Newsletter of Modern Chinese History) 13 (1992): 179-190; and Jean-Paul Wiest, Maryknoll in China: A History, 1918-1955 (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997).

 

China Missionaries Oral History Collection

Claremont Graduate School

Honnold/Mudd Library

Special Collections

Claremont, CA 91717

voxlibris.claremont.edu/se/aboutus.html

These forty-five oral histories were funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation in 1969. The goal of the project was to study the impact of the missionary movement in the Far East. Although none of these transcripts focus exclusively on Sino-Japanese conflict, many discuss the impact of the war at the local level.

 

China Records Project

Yale Divinity Library

and

Manuscripts and Archives

Yale University Library

406 Prospect Street

New Haven, CT 06520.

www.library.yale.edu/div/

The China Records Project includes the personal records of missionaries to China. The Divinity Library holds about 950 linear feet of manuscript materials from over 300 missionaries. The Library also has materials related to Christian colleges and universities in China in the Archives of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. The Library has an extensive collection of microfilms with the archives of missionaries organizations, such as the Methodist Missionary Society (British) (1851-1946) and the Presbyterian Church of England Board of Foreign Missions (1863-1950), as well as periodicals including the Anking Newsletter (1920-1943) and the Bulletin/Newsletter of the Diocesan Association for Western China (1934-1959). The Manuscripts and Archives section of Yale’s Library has the records of the Yale-China Association. See Reuben Andrus Holden, Yale in China: The Mainland, 1909-1951 (New Haven: Yale in China Association, 1964).

 

Columbia University

Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Butler Library

535 West 114th Street

New York, NY 10027

www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/rare

Holdings related to Sino-Japanese conflict:

1. Chinese Oral History Collection of oral histories and memoirs from prominent politicians, bureaucrats, scholars, and generals in the Nationalist Government or the "Third Force" movement in China. Many oral histories or memoirs are accompanied by private papers.

2. Flying Tiger Project, a series of oral histories related to the American Volunteer Group in China. These materials were gathered during a 1962 Flying Tigers reunion.

3. American Bureau for Medical Aid to China records, 1937-1979. ABMAC was founded in 1937 to give aid to Chinese medical and public health services by working through existing Chinese medical agencies.

4. Indusco, Inc., 1938-1985. Organization involved with promoting cooperatives in order to boost Chinese industrial production during the war against Japan.

5. Institute of Pacific Relations, office files, 1927-1962. Additional related collections are held by Princeton University, the University of Hawaii, University of British Columbia, and Marquette University.

 

Department of State

Ralph Bunche Library

Washington, DC 20500

library.state.gov/

Holds a small collection of English-language materials related to Sino-Japanese conflict. Many of these items were given to Americans in order to gain support for Jiang Jieshi, Wang Jingwei, or the Japanese. For example, the Library has a series of publications from Wang Jingwei, justifying his break with Jiang and the establishment of a new government in Nanjing.

The Department of State’s Office of the Historian (http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/) publishes the Foreign Relations of the United States series, which contains many documents related to Sino-Japanese conflict.

 

The Ecumenical Library

The Interchurch Center

475 Riverside Drive

New York, NY 10115

metro.org/members/icelib.html

Holds materials from the United Presbyterian Missions Library, Methodist Board of Missions Library, and the National Council of Churches Library. See the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church, housed at Drew University in New Jersey, for more detailed documentation.

 

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

321 Bonnie Lane

Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

www.elca.org/oa/achives/location.html

Holds records of the Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS, originally called the Central China Union Lutheran Theological Seminary), which was founded in China in 1913, and files of the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA), which took over the work of the Berlin Missionary Society (or Society for the Furtherance of Evangelical Missions Among the Heathen in Berlin), centered in Shantung, China. These files include minutes, correspondence and reports. The Augustana Synod Mission (1908-1948) and Lutheran Augustana Mission (1948-1956) were the names given to the work of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in China and neighboring Chinese countries.

 

Foreign Affairs Oral History Project

Lauinger Library

Georgetown University

Washington, DC 20057

www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/diplo.htm

This collection contains over 650 interviews with United State Foreign Service Officers, and has an on-line index that provides a brief biography of each subject. The Project includes the reminiscences of American diplomats in China during the war. The complete set of oral histories is now available on CD-ROM. Contact Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 4000 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, VA 22204, USA.

 

General Commission on Archives and History

The United Methodist Church

Drew University

Madison, NJ 07940

www.gcah.org/

The General Commission has an extensive collection of documentation on the activities of Methodist missionaries around the world. This includes the files of individual missionaries and annual summaries of their efforts in China and other countries. Scholars could begin with the published journals of the annual meetings of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. These volumes often have short summaries of materials in the missionary files, and can highlight individuals whose files are worth pursuing further. Most important are the Missionary Files, materials arranged first by continent, then by nation, and finally by the names of individual missionaries or Chinese pastors or employees. These documents include letters among missionaries, newsletters, and reports from the field.

 

The Billy Graham Center

Wheaton College

500 College Avenue

3rd floor

Wheaton, IL 60187-5593

www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/archhp1.html

The Center has its own extensive collection of oral histories as well as private papers and microfilm collections taken from other collections related to American, Canadian, and British missionary efforts in China. Some of the oral histories are available online. This is one of the largest repositories of missionary-related material in the United States.

 

Hoover Institution

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305

sunsite2.berkeley.edu/oac

This website accesses the "Online Archive of California," which includes Stanford University's Hoover Institution, the Claremount Graduate School libraries, and the libraries at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Hoover Institution has a wide variety of personal papers from Americans in China, including General Joseph Stilwell, General Albert Wedemeyer, Frank Dorn, Claire Lee Chennault, participants in the Dixie Missions to Yenan, those working for the departments of State or War, the Office of Strategic Services, or the Sino-American Cooperative Organization. Also includes the papers of T. V. Soong and Arthur N. Young, financial adviser to the government of China and the Central Bank of China.

The bibliography of Maochun Yu's monograph, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), contains a useful list of personal papers and official materials at the Hoover Institution. See also Michael Schaller, The U.S. Crusade in China, 1938-1945 (New York: Columbia University Press 1979) and Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1972). There also exist a few published guides to the papers of individuals, such as Dale Reed, compiler, Robert Hessen, ed., General Claire Lee Chennault: A Guide to His Papers in the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983).

 

Library of Congress

Manuscript Division

101 Independence Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20540

lcweb.loc.gov

Holds the papers of many important United States officials or others involved with China, including Owen Lattimore. A valuable research tool is the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, Volumes 1-37 (Washington: Library of Congress, 1959-1993).

See also the online listing of manuscript collections at lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html. This website also provides links to thousands of other libraries and research institutions in the United States. Another useful list of archives and major libraries is available from Columbia University at www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/subjects/speccol.html.

 

Marine Corps Historical Center

Department of the Navy

9th and M Streets, S.E.

Washington, D.C. 20374

www.usmc.mil/historical.nsf/Nav3

The Marine’s collection of over 6,500 oral histories include many from those stationed in China prior to 1941. See Benis M Frank, compiler, Marine Corps Oral History Collection Catalog (Washington: History and Museums Division, United States Marine Corps, 1989); Marine Corps Personal Papers Collection Catalog (1974, rev. 1980); and Michael O’Quinlivan and Jack B. Hilliard, An Annotated Bibliography of the United States Marine Corps in the Second World War (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1970).


Missionary Periodicals Database

Yale University

http://namp.divinity.yale.edu/NAMP.taf

This database was created by the Currents in World Christianity Center at the University of Cambridge. It lists hundreds of missionary periodicals, publishers, and dates of publications. Users can sort the database by keyword, region, or title. The database lists over 200 periodicals for East Asia alone. The CWC also publishes a series of research papers on the history of missionary activities around the world. See http://office3.divinity.cam.ac.uk/carts/cwc/PosPaper.htm for further information.

 

National Agricultural Library

United States Department of Agriculture

10301 Baltimore Avenue

Beltsville, MD 20705

www.nal.usda.gov

See AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access), a database of bibliographic records created by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators at www.nal.usda.gov/ag98, as well as Theodore Besterman, Agriculture: A Bibliography of Bibliographies (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1971); Susan Chapman, "Guide to Historical Research at the National Agricultural Library" (National Agricultural Library, Special Reference Brief SRB 94-02, February 1994); and Alan E. Fusonie, Guide to Manuscripts in the National Agricultural Library (Washington, 1979).

 

National Archives and Records Administration

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740

www.nara.gov

Central repository for United States Government records, including materials from the departments of State, War, Agriculture, and Commerce, as well as the Office of Strategic Services. Of particular importance are the decimal files of the Department of State (Record Group 59). Along with the Roosevelt Presidential Library, the Archives holds the original copies of the materials extracted for the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Many of the records are also available on microfilm at the National Archives. Much of the Department of State decimal files are also available on microfilms compiled by University Publications of America.

Some of the most valuable guides or secondary sources include Guide to the National Archives of the United States (Washington: National Archives, 1974); Gerald K. Haines, A Reference Guide to United States Department of State Special Files (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985); Eugene L. Rasor, The China-Burma-India Campaign, 1931-1945: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); and Lawrence H. MacDonald, "The OSS and Its Records," in George C. Chalou, ed., The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II (Washington: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992).


Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG)

http://www.nara.gov/iwg/

On January 11, 1999, in accordance with the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (PL 105-246), President Clinton established the IWG. Its mandate includes materials of Germany and other Axis nations, such as Japan. The IWG carries out the work of the Nazi War Crime Disclosure Act of 1998, which requires that records related to war crimes committed by "any government which was an ally of the Nazi government of Germany," be identified, declassified, and made available to the public. Recently efforts have begun to focus on Japanese war crimes, and will certainly include information on Sino-Japanese conflict. The documents include materials from the Department of State, the Department of War, and the Office of Strategic Services.


University of Oregon Library System

Special Collections

Knight Library

University of Oregon Library

Eugene, OR 97403

http://libweb/uoregon.edu/speccoll/

The University of Oregon has its own missionary collection that contains the papers of almost 100 individuals, most of whom spent time in China during the first half of the twentieth century. Materials include manuscripts, annual reports, diaries, photos, and correspondence.

 

The Rockefeller Archive Center

15 Dayton Avenue

Pocantico Hills

Sleepy Hollow, New York 10591

email: archive@rockvax.rockefeller.edu

The Rockefeller Archive Center, a division of The Rockefeller University, was established in 1974 to assemble, process, and make available for scholarly research the papers of the Rockefeller family and the records of various philanthropic and educational institutions founded by the family, including The Rockefeller University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Holdings include the papers of the China Medical Board and Peking Union Medical College and their staff. These files have information on the Japanese invasion, and the attempt to move many of these institutions inland during the late 1930s.

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library

National Archives and Records Administration

Hyde Park, NY 12538

www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fdr

Includes materials sent to or received from Roosevelt, as well as the personal papers of a wide variety of figures key to the Roosevelt Administration. The Library is in the process of placing some of the most requested document series online. See Historical Materials in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 10th ed. (Hyde Park: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration, 1996).

 

The Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II

Special Collections and University Archives

Archibald Stevens Alexander Library

169 College Avenue

New Brunswick, NJ 08903

http://history.rutgers.edu/oralhistory/orlhom.htm

Includes interviews with Americans who served in China during the War. These interviews provide insight into two areas: 1) Nationalist military, and 2) Life in China, particularly Chongqing and Kunming.

 

Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives (SBHLA)

Southern Baptist Convention Building

901 Commerce Street

Nashville, TN

http://www.sbhla.org/info.htm

Contains the private papers of Baptist missionaries in China, including diaries, letters, photographs, and reports to the Foreign Mission Board in the United States. The SBHLA also holds materials related to Baptist schools and colleges in China, and the papers, reports, and meeting minutes of the Foreign Missions Board.

 

Harry S Truman Presidential Library

Truman Library

500 W. U.S. Hwy 24

Independence MO 64050

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/

Includes materials sent to or received from President, as well as the personal papers of a wide variety of figures key to the Truman Administration. The Library is in the process of placing some of the most requested document series online, and is putting many oral histories online.

 


updated 10-01-01