Organizer: Samuel H. Chao, Pepperdine University
Chair: Sue Gronewold, Columbia University
Discussant: John Watt, St. John's University
Much material on missionary "women's work" in China has focused on elites. Relatively little attention has been paid to missions to the marginals, like institutions for women without families that could provide for them and for whom there were few alternative safety nets. This panel explores several twentieth-century western philanthropic institutions directed at Chinese women-the Door of Hope in Shanghai, 1900-1951; in Taiwan, 1953-1977; and Cameron House in San Francisco, 1850-1977.
We explore several aspects of these institutions: the missionaries who staffed and supported them, the Chinese elites who defended and used them, the communities that welcomed or discouraged them, and the state and local authorities that allowed and in some cases supplied and paid for them. How these institutions did or did not fit with changing Chinese state and local practices of philanthropy and social welfare is one of the crucial issues we explore.
Finally, social history places great emphasis on the need to restore agency to people in history, even in the most constrained and limited of circumstances. Based on oral histories, interviews, and research in institutional archives, these papers also investigate how marginalized Chinese women and their families acted for their own ends upon the institutions we are studying. What they took from their experience at the institution was often at variance with the missionaries' intended messages and philanthropic goals.
The Door of Hope Mission, 1900s and 1940s: Western Philanthropy and Chinese
Benevolence
Sue Gronewold, Columbia University
The Door of Hope Mission in Shanghai was a unique philanthropic institution: an "undenominational" Anglo-American mission to marginal dedicated to rescuing and reforming Chinese prostitutes and other disaffiliated women and female children. Over the course of fifty years, from 1900 to 1951, it grew into a complex of many homes with multiple purposes.
This paper will explore the institution, its ideology, and its alliances, as they changed over time. The mission always had strong ties to authorities of the International Settlement (and later, the Shanghai Municipality) whose Municipal Council supported it financially, whose court system recommended girls to it, and whose police and special detectives forcibly brought girls to it. Although the inmates were all Chinese, the mission was always controlled by Westerners, and the role of Chinese was ambiguous. The support staff-teachers, matrons, and servants-were almost exclusively Chinese; Chinese Christian pastors and well-to-do women volunteered to "help" in the work; and at two points in its history-the 1900s and 1940s, Chinese elites played a greater role in directing the mission. This paper will explore those two eras and try to understand the apparent congruence then of Western and Chinese goals. What uses did Chinese and Westerners make of the institution, and why were Chinese involved with it? How did they understand the women's plight? Most importantly, how did the mission fit with changing notion of benevolence and social welfare?
The Door of Hope Rescue Mission in Taipei, 1953-1977: Case Studies of Chinese
Women and Mission Philanthropy
Samuel H. Chao, Pepperdine University
The Door of Hope Mission-Children's Refuge in Taipei had its origin in Shanghai in 1901. After the Communist takeover, the missionaries and Chinese workers reestablished its work in Taipei in 1953. The Taipei Door of Hope had its mission to "receive needy girls, orphans or with only one parent," and also to evangelize them in a "Christian home and training" setting. Due to the lack of qualified staff, the Mission was closed in 1977. Many girls were transferred to other mission homes. At its peak the mission had over 110 girls at its Roosevelt Road home. Nevertheless, the Mission lives on today with its "alum gatherings" in Taipei, and in the U.S., for "fellowship" and support.
Based on interviews (and some written documents) with its active missionary in Taiwan, and its alums in Taiwan and in the U.S., this paper describes some 20 cases of "'reformed" girls who lived and were educated by the Mission philanthropy, and seeks to assess the impact of Door of Hope on their personal lives from 1953 to the present. Among the cases is one particular Door of Hope alum named Shi Chi-ching now a famous feminist, who declared that she will run for the presidency of Taiwan in 1996 on a non-party ticket campaign platform.
San Francisco's Presbyterian Mission Home: Impact and Influence, 1850-1977
Sarah Mason, Independent Scholar
Based on records kept by the missionary women of the Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco and on oral interviews with children and grandchildren of Mission Home residents, this paper describes the early lives of several Chinese women who were bought and sold in the profitable trade in prostitutes and mui tsai in the Chinese American community during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. The paper describes the education of the Chinese women at the Home in English and Chinese languages, and their training by the missionary women of the Home for Christian marriage or work. The influence of the training provided by the Home in the subsequent lives of the women and their children is also described, as interpreted by their descendants now living in Minnesota, California and other states.
Works of Mercy of Catholic Mission Groups in South China, 1901-1950
John Kaserow, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago
This paper concentrates on the "corporal works of mercy" exhibited by Roman Catholic missionaries (men and women) in various areas of south China between the years 1901-1950. It displays the characteristics of these works of mercy and concludes to their significance as having "intrinsic" value corresponding to the human dignity of persons and the life of charity as a foretaste of "God's Kingdom." The paper describes the affects of this activity on the Chinese people and indicates the transformation of the missionaries which took place as a result of the attempt to live lives dedicated to caritative service based on faith in the "mystery of Christ." Comparison will be made between various Catholic missionary groups who were active in south China during the stated time period.