Hello blog,
My name is Evelyn, and I am a senior at Pomona College! Last semester, I volunteered at the Claremont Colleges Library and began to document all of the correspondence in the Pettus Papers. William B. Pettus was born in 1880, and he spent his life working with missionary groups to establish stronger ties between the United States and China. In 1929, he organized the California College in China (CCIC), based in Beijing, with the goal of educating primarily American students in the Chinese language, culture, and history. After the outbreak of World War II, Pettus relocated the CCIC to Berkeley, California.
This semester, my primary goal will be to catalogue all of the correspondence in Pettus’ papers and ensure that future researchers find the collection easy and intuitive to use. These boxes contain thousands of papers that provide a unique perspective as an American in China as Japan began its invasion of Manchuria. As I process more of the collection, I hope to uncover more about CCIC’s ties to the US military and war effort, as well as more information on one of the most significant figures in pre-WWII US-China relations.
I’ve just gotten started reboxing, recording, and reorganizing the collection, and as I find new and interesting material, I hope to share it here!
Peace and love,
Evelyn Hao