China: Beijing, 1897-1898

Extent:

179 prints

Scope and content:

This series consists of images of Beijing city scenes, chiefly taken on the street, with a handful of photographs taken in rural areas outside the city limits. Photographs in this series focus on urban subjects, but there are also some images taken outside the city of farms and villages. Work scenes show people operating water mills, refining salt, making cloisonne, smelting iron, washing quartz gold, fishing from boats, and milling wheat. Other scenes feature a funeral procession, an honor guard procession, camel trains, ferry boats, city walls, temples and pagodas, a bell tower, astronomy instruments, a Christian church, private gardens and parks in Peking, the Great Wall, and Buddhist stone carvings.

People featured include Qing dynasty (Manchu) government officers, Manchu men and women, poor people and beggars, wealthy Chinese families, laborers, women in doorways (some possibly prostitutes), fortune tellers, and street sellers of incense and herbs. Shockley's captions frequently mention social class and conditions, for example noting which women had bound feet. Portraits of family groups often include their most prized material possessions. There are images of Western businessmen and women, including travelers in Shockley's party, and buildings associated with the British legation and European businesses, as well as Chinese government buildings.

There are a few portraits of William Pritchard Morgan, a lawyer, politician, and investor in mining concerns, and his family, with whom Shockley seems to have spent considerable time visiting and touring; more are found in the Shanghai series.

Processing information:

Titles have been transcribed as they appear in original captions on the backs of prints. Descriptive captions and Chinese translations of titles were supplied by library staff. Duplicate prints are indicated by an extension ".2" after the image identifier.

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