The papers of James Augustus Thomas comprise many folders of correspondence, printed material, and other papers (chiefly 1914-1940), related to his commercial and diplomatic dealings in East Asia and the opening of the tobacco market in China and other countries. Correspondents include Herbert Hoover, Robert Lansing, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Sun Yat-sen. There are also some personal letters.
The materials document U.S.-China foreign and economic relations; the marketing of U.S. cigarettes in Asia; the British-American Tobacco Company; U.S.-Chinese trade; domestic policies and financial development in China; political events in East Asia and Europe; American foreign policy in East Asia (1920s-1930s); and philanthropy in China, including Thomas' efforts to bring Chinese students to Duke University and other North Carolina institutions.
Printed materials in the collection include reports, economic summaries, essays, conference programs, memos, and ephemera such as admission cards, tickets, and pamphlets. Some materials relate to the World's Fair in New York, and a visit by a Chinese delegation to New York in 1915, illustrated with photographs.
Additions to the collection include three letters pertaining or written to son, Jimmy, by his parents, gelatin silver photographs and a few negatives, and three audiocassettes of an oral interview (by Duke Professor Emeritus Richard Watson) with Dorothy Read Thomas, widow of James A. Thomas, which include a typed transcript. Interview topics include her life in China and Petrograd (now St. Petersburg, Russia) where she taught school briefly; and the social life and customs in Bejing and Shanghai after she married Thomas in 1922.
There are also negative microfilm reels of the series "China Through Western Eyes: Part 3, The Papers of J.A. Thomas c.1905-1923." Positive reels have been sent to the microfilm department.
James Augustus Thomas, tobacco merchant and philanthropist, was born March 6, 1862 in Rockingham County, NC to Henry Evans Thomas and Cornelia Carolina Jones Thomas. At the age of 10, he started working in a tobacco warehouse and in 1881, he graduated from Eastman National Business College in Poughkeepsie, NY. He began working at the British-American Tobacco Company, Ltd. at its inception in 1902 and by 1904, he was serving as Managing Director in China. Thomas is considered the person largely responsible for introducing American cigarettes to China and other countries. He founded the Chinese-American Bank of Commerce and two schools for Chinese children. All in all he spent over 25 years in China.
He retired from the BATC in 1922 and settled in White Plains, New York, where he lived for the rest of his life. His association with the Dukes in the tobacco industry culminated in a relationship with Duke University. In 1928, Thomas donated his Far East Library to the university. He was a member of the Board of Trustees and also served as Chair of the Duke Memorial Association, which built the Memorial Chapel within Duke Chapel, where the remains of Washington Duke, James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke are interred.
In 1918, Thomas married Anna Branson who died 7 months later. In 1922, he married Dorothy Quincy Hancock Read on Nov. 21, 1922. Her father, Sheridan Pitt Read, was the American Consul in Tientsin in the early 20th century. They had two children: James Augustus Thomas, Jr. and Eleanor Lansing Thomas.
Thomas was the author of two books: A Pioneer Tobacco Merchant in the Orient (1928) and Trailing Trade a Million Miles (1931).
He died in 1940 in White Plains, New York.
Processed by Rubenstein Library staff.
Encoded by Kimberly Sims, January 2011.
Updated to reflect additions by Alice Poffinberger, 2013, 2014.
Updated description by Paula Jeannet, 2020.
Accessions described in this collection guide: 1952-1953, 1989, 1999, and 2001; 2013-0051; 2014-0097.
