cspan now is available at the apple store, and google play. cspan now. your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere.

i'm a.d. and digger halperin, the senior mellon postdoctoral fellow in women's history public history at the new york historical society. tonight's program, the chinese lady gaga way in early america, will. approximately 45 minutes, including 15 minutes for questions and answers at the end. and now i'm >> tonight's program will last approximately 45 minutes. including 15 minutes for questions and answers at the end. now i'm delighted to introduce tonight speakers. nancy davis of the smithsonian

institution no. as curator she works on exhibition material culture, asian influence on american culture, migration and immigration, and business history. her scholarly work focuses on women's history, asian influence on american culture, and sino-american trade. she has a phd in american studies from george washington university in washington, d.c. and has taught at a graduate level at numerous colleges and universities. her books the chinese lady came out from oxford university prep in july 2019. she is currently working on another book based on the english women 1834 to 1836. our moderator is my colleague, and

a pre-doctorate awardee. she is currently a doctoral candidate in the american studies program at harvard university. richey writes about asian american visual culture. a 20th century u.s. multi-ethnic literatures. her research has been supported by the research council. the mellon foundation, and the center for studies of american history. alongside her work for new york historical she's also designed educational material, and public programming for the museum of chinese in america. >> thank you for that kind introduction, and thank you so much nancy for chatting with us here at the new york historical this evening. before we die then i just have to share one really quick story. which is when i was applying for the fellowship i had to

take a public history project as part of my application. i decided i was going to pitch a project in the time that she spent here in new york. i have to confess nancy that your book provided sort of my template. to put together this proposal, and i do have to thank you now for helping me land this fellowship. and i was truly delighted when i learned that we would get to do this together tonight. so, i will begin our conversation by previewing your books for our audiences. and i highly recommend that everyone check it out for themselves. i have a copy of that book with me here today. it's really quite beautiful, and we will also have a link directing you to oxford university. so, nancy presents the first ever research. the first ever chinese women recorded to enter into the united states. arrived here in 1834 under the

care of the. new york-based merchants who brought her over to serve as a living advertisement of sorts for their imported goods. in a series of performances as the chinese lady various oriental objects that would of course later be available for purchase after her shows. your book not only brings us into her world then, but also into the world of those who encountered her performances. the meticulous archive of research. you show how her story intersected with celebrities including president andrew jackson, and the performer. alongside the more every day men, and women who fought to get a glimpse of the chinese lady themselves. you take such a white historical view of her life, and more import. left behind no

known written records of her life. so, in many ways we learn a lot more about how early americans perceived her then we know about the actual experiences of herself. two launch a discussion of this complicated history then i will start with a relatively simple question. nancy, what drew you to the telling of her story? >> i was so delighted. i know that it's helpful to use the book. that is great information to know. that is fun. and i am delighted to chat about afong moy today. the interesting part of this is that i kind of fell into this, because i was doing my research for my dissertation in the 1990s for the early 19th century . and i stumbled on in 1834

newspaper article on afong moy which indicated that she was presenting goods in new york city. i noticed it, but very briefly. as i began to think about it i just couldn't let that thought go. i kept thinking about her. it just peaked my interest. so, i wanted to know more about her. i began researching, and found it so fascinating that i couldn't let it go. providing understanding of this person though was really challenging as you mentioned, because she had no recourse to sort of leave a record for herself. she wasn't an english speaker. she wasn't literate. and all of this was immensely important to me, because i

realized only a researcher could bring her voice forward. and i was compelled to bring that voice forward, because i saw her as a person coming from china. really sort of entrapped in america. she was hindered by a language issue. hindered by gender, and also she had bound feet. so, all these issues were really challenging for her. but, made it all the more interesting for me to understand her story. and i realized it was going to be a really difficult undertaking. but, i decided to risk it, and do the research. and find out what i could. >> and we are so glad that you did.

i think something we discussed between us with this background. one way in which we can get into the stories is by looking at sort of the objects that were surrounding moy. and we can reconstruct history that way. one of my favorite sections of your book. you sort of walk us through the different objects that moy sold to the public through her performances. these objects not only help shape early american impressions of moy. but, they were also very useful. and increasingly common placed items within american households. so, many of these objects on display. this is well known with the graph of afong moy that i'm now going to share with our audience today. so, nancy if you can just walk us through this graph a little bit, and explain how some of the objects within it revealed that every day lives, and

habits of early americans. >> yes. i think it's very interesting with a graph. it was done by a new york city firm. photographers who founded their firm in 1842. it's very apparent that the who brought afong moy understood the power of the visual image, and they likely were the ones who were asking the firm to do a loop a graph of her. and probably those who broadly distributed it. the medium of the lithograph is really important, because it's something that was keeping up for many middle-class americans to own.

i'm sure that what they hoped is that people would die by this lithograph. they would see the good illustrated in afong moy, and they see her. so, they were both promoting the goods and afong moy. and the interesting thing about this. the lithographic image which shows the furniture, and smaller goods that were being brought in. but, it also was an image that was reproduced in the many newspapers throughout the country. so, wherever afong moy went you would get this image of her in the newspaper. so, it really was the very first time that people had an opportunity to see afong moy. and we sort of have to remember again as you mentioned she is

the first chinese person that most americans had ever seen. and i think it's really fascinating. and this brings in my work from the new york historical society. philip owned who was the past mayor of new york city wrote an extensive diary account of his visit to afong moy. and he gives a full page description of what he saw. and this description in the diary is in the new york historical society collection. i was really delighted to be able to use that in the book. but, i think it's important to recognize what he saw when he came to the salon in new york city at captain no bears. this is the captain who brought her from china. he said in the diary her

appearance is exactly the same as the figures on. a large head, small features, and accountant devoid of expression. her foot is a great curiosity. it is not four inches in length. so, this is interesting to me, because he is presenting afong moy as an object. he has seen before chinese people, but only on in his experience. so, i just think that's really interesting that we see this visual image that the are paying for, and promoting. and that's what americans would be seeing. >> definitely. there is this long history when you look at chinese women or other figures being looked at

sort of objects for your viewing pleasure. we could see how this is playing out in these advertisements that are being circulated across households. that we find later even through private diaries that we were reading in the archives. we will hopefully get a look at a t-test in a minute too. so, here's another object i put on the outside. and it's a handkerchief. which i know you write about a bit in the book. >> yeah. i think it's really fascinating to me that of course the research that i done in the dissertation is looking at the quantity of chinese objects that came into new york city. came into american courts. just a huge quantity. i know you, and i had talked a lot about this. how expensive the volume of

chinese goods for the middle- class americans. i would say maybe about a fifth of all material culture goods in urban centers were of chinese origin. and that's pretty remarkable. and i think most people don't realize that this aspect of the china trade was so early. and the aspect of chinese goods coming from middle-class americans. we think of that as the 20th century, 21st century phenomenon. but, it's not. it comes from the 1830s. but, here you see this handkerchief. which american women would carry with them in their purse when they went on afternoon calls. and as you say here you see

afong moy carrying a handkerchief in the lithograph. so, she is surely at this point going to hold it off and say look at this object. this is something you can have too. this is something that you can purchase, and please do. she is not saying that. what i really think is interesting is that both cultures use this accessory. in china the term handkerchief sisters said -- meant dear friends. and that's kind of heartfelt for me to kind of understand the way in which she might have been holding that handkerchief. and thinking so differently than what her audience would be thinking. this would be handkerchief sister. your friend. but, also the was really

broadly used in the han handkerchief dance. which was a popular dramatic presentation in china. in america american women use the handkerchiefs early on in the 18th century as a crew chief. and many used handkerchiefs, but in a perhaps more rude way. sort of as a serviceable napkin in which they would wipe their fork. but, it became a much more refined accessory as you move into the early 19th century point into the mid-19th century, and it became an object of status. in an article of display. an accessory of display for both men, and women in the early to mid 19th century. i think it's pretty interesting what i did for the book.

which is sort of look as you say . broadly. so, i would understand how handkerchiefs were viewed. and i was struck by a little article. a poem as well as a story from a book from the 1830s. where we see a young woman who owned fancy handkerchiefs, but it had been stolen. because it was such a treasured hilum item it was a huge trauma of who had stolen this handkerchief? so, it was an important object for the mid-19th century, middle-class person. i think it's interesting. here we see the met costume institute handkerchief. this is made out of silk. and they did bring silk handkerchiefs into the port.

but, by and large also they were bringing in a grass cloth handkerchief. which was made of linen. and they were probably paying $.53. american $.53 in china. maybe doubling this in the american market. but, even so middling american women. and interestingly enough i think importantly free blacks, and slaves are found with also possibly carrying a chinese handkerchief. and we do have this store inventory record of an enslaved person purchasing a handkerchief at this time.

so, we see this as a broadly accessible object for people, and certainly they knew this. they knew they could make good money if they could bring in fairly reasonably costs handkerchiefs for the american consumer. >> definitely, and i just have to say when you talked about this as a historian job. i think you just demonstrated that, because the handkerchief we can go to the personal level. but, then outwards into this kind of more market commercial universe. it's really fascinating. >> and we talked about philip holmes speaking about his view

of afong moy. and seeing her as a person on a t-test, and here we have a t- test. we can see why philip holmes might take a, and say that is afong moy just as i see her on a tea chest. by the time afong moy arrived in america in the 1830s tea was as prevalent here in the united states as it was in china. the only difference here, and we see an outward lithograph. afong moy taking tea. except that the tea that she

would be drinking here in america was not the same quality as she would be drinking in china. having been in china i must say the tea in china is a lot different than the tea she would've had in new york likely. i also really appreciate in thinking about the teatime, and the fact that this lithograph was presenting a very accurate time for afong moy. because her teatime would have been the american teatime. which was 7 p.m. in the evening, and that is exactly when she was presented to the public. from 7:00 to 9:00.

she had eight hours of presentation to the public, and a couple of those hours were during teatime from 7:00 to 9:00 in the evening. so, it was an accurate description. an accurate visual description of her activity, and also accurate in the sense that if you can see -- i don't know if you can see closely enough, but it is a handle this tea cup. that certainly would have been what afong moy was familiar with. it was the handle less teacups. so, i would say most american households would have a tea chest or a tea caddy to hold the loose tea as part of their gentility equipment. this one you are seeing at the new york historical society. it's made of wood and lacquer

with mother-of-pearl inlay as you see here. when you think about this this is a very specialized, and decorative form. and it shows the reverence for tea. the respect that he had been put in such a really beautiful container. and also i think if you notice there is a place to put a tea. it's meant to be holding this very precious commodity. but, also of course it would be shown in the parlor. so, it would be presenting to others if this was a marker refinement. and a marker as i said earlier is a utility. but, i think it's very fascinating to see again the

views of china and of the chinese people. which were figuratively presented on a lot of these objects. this was the way americans knew what they thought they knew what a chinese person look like. and i think it's kind of interesting that it would have been the woman in the household who kept the tea to this tea chest. he poured the tea, and who really managed the ritual of teatime. so, the women's place in the home was one that was gentility. and the manager of these activities of teatime. the cost of less decorated tea

caddy, tea chest was about two dollars. and it certainly was not inexpensive for the time. but, it still would've been just a little more than a middling person's weekly wage. so, it's something as a perhaps less formal, less expensive object would've been in most middle-class homes in this time . this 1834.. so, a fascinating object. and one that speaks a lot to china, and to america's perception of china. okay. this is a really great object. and >> this is a really great object , and again i think you can get a sense of the way in which people were viewing afong moy.

this is an advertising that presented afong moy. you also see this here from the new york historical society. american women carried stands as an item again of gentility. an accessory that was lovely. and very attractive. it was also used coquettishly i think. and also used for utility. it's associative connection with china was very clear to americans. and of course that's interesting that this advertising would be showing afong moy with a fan.

immediately telling us this is an object associated with china. i think it's pretty interesting that this particular image initially was on the first exhibition catalog of chinese goods. which the carnes put out. so, it's the very first one in america. again, it's from a new york collection. it's from the new york public library. which i found was a wonderful moment to find this catalog. the very first catalog showing her with her fans. i think it's also interesting that again like the issue of the handkerchief in china both men, and women carried the fan. sort of as an accessory. in

southern china as i've experienced is very hot. so, the fan was used to stir the air. and it was used to shield yourself from the sun. and in the united states. in america it is somewhat the same point. except that you don't see men carrying a fan in america as you would have seen in china. the carnes brought to vast quantities of fans, because they were very inexpensive. and because they knew the appeal that the fan had. on one ship load they brought in 12,000 paper fans. which is what afong moy is holding . and it's also -- the fan you see here from the new york historical society is a

papier-mache, and lacquer. but, a bit more expensive than the fan that afong moy would've been holding. but, i wanted you to notice that again in the new york historical society's fan you see images of the chinese. and images of china. and again this is very typical, because it's presenting an exotic, and illustrative faraway place. in an item that would be drawing interest in a drying room or being used to show your gentility. and to show your awareness of a faraway place with an object with images such as this. so, i think that's pretty fascinating.

the connection you can drive think between an object, and its culture is so really important. and really in fascinating. >> definitely. i'm think about the lithograph shows her some sitting in a similar way. but, in this and kind of looking at the viewer. so, we could also maybe talk a little bit later about these different ways in which she was being presented in contrast or similarly to the objects that she was helping to sell. >> yes, that's right. so, here again another interesting object that is in the smithsonian collection. it does tell us a little bit about american women's leisure time.

some american women had time to do fancy work. and this particular object was used for that purpose. these ladies look at the time in the 1830s. provided a lot of interesting instruction about accomplishing this fancy work. and it's fascinating when you go through cody's lady's book. you see them talking about chinese painting exercises, and making work boxes in the chinese style. and applying chinese patterned paper to the surface of these work boxes. so, the moral aspect of china. and the activities associated with china are very important at this point. and certainly play into the way in which people are perceiving afong moy. but, i'm sure afong moy sound

these fancy work exercises pretty curious. and completely outside of any of her experience in china. she wouldn't have any idea of how to present these objects to the public. so, she probably would've needed help from someone to figure out how one could use it, and presented. since it was not something that was used in china. so, when you are working with paper, and these paper goods that you were applying to these work boxes. you would need a tool, and this was the tool you used. because it allowed it to fold, and furnish, and score papers. both these folders. these paper folders. about 4000

on one shipment in bone, and ivory. and they also supply the paper. the chinese paper. but, i think it's interesting when i did the research on paper folders, and their inventory. it mattered whether you are just going to get a plane paper folder or you were going to get a figured paper folder. this one in the smithsonian's collection is figured, because again it has images of china on it. and a chinese figure on it. so, if you are going to want something a little more expensive you would have to pay $.17. but, if you wanted just the plain one without excessive decoration you could buy one for 3 1/2 cents in america.

so, they were certainly available to most any american woman, middle-class woman who was interested in doing fancy work. and here on the left you could see the women in the fashion magazine pointing to an illustration of fancy work there about to do. so, i think it's really interesting that philip holmes also in his diary talk about what women in china do. he said, chinese women sit or lie day and night. and the most important object of life. indulgence, eating, drinking, and sleeping. their only occupation a little occasional embroidery. when i read that i thought, and yes it meant presenting to the

public eight hours a day. in captain albert's salon. not really an idle woman. and of course chinese women were not either by and large. so, it's just fascinating the way in which philip holmes who is not an exception presumes to know what chinese women are doing in china. having no idea what they were really doing. so, a really interesting way of thinking about women. leisure time, and her time. afong moy's time in america. >> right. that is a fascinating point. they're sort of a feedback loop between how moy is being directed to perform. but, then people reading that to get the real truth about what she would do in her daily life.

one of the things. i'm going to stop sharing my screen now. one of the things i loved about that quote. as much as it frustrates me to hear. it's sort of his description of her sort of hobbling. that kind of brings us to our question that i had. moy is exceptional in her travels in the u.s. not only because of her race. she's the first chinese woman , so it's also because of her gender. as we discussed. on top of that she was successful in her bound feet which would've severely limited her physical mobility as she was doing these performances. if so, could you maybe talk more about moy, and how the different elements of her identity would've formed her experiences in the u.s.? >> you are very right. it was really a huge challenge for afong moy. both race, gender, and then her bound feet. we know that afong moy did

respond to the public in several different ways. at one point when she was in new york, and on stage she broke down in tears. because people were accusing her of being and said she would go to . and if she didn't perform, and didn't become a christian that's where she would go. the whole investigation of her was really a lot to bear. as a person who was young, and in a difficult position as it was. but, i think even in baltimore. we see a letter account that afong moy is pretty rattled.

and in a visitors comment we can hear her say, poor thing she is much to be pitied. she seems very timid, and confused. you can imagine how challenging it would be to have to live with these kinds of emigrating experiences. i think it's interesting how afong moy's experiences she has different but depending on the region. and i was particularly surprised that some of the more discriminatory commentary, and the acrimony was in boston. which i was very surprised about, because bostonians were by and large pretty aware of china, because it was very early in the china trade.

most of the citizens would've been pretty familiar with aspects of china. yet, some boston newspapers were really harsh in their appraisal about afong moy. i think it's just good to hear -- not good, but it's interesting to hear that the boston evening transcript had a really hard, and references to her. they called her a homely indian squall with her feet cut off, and her ankles stuck to a couple of turnips. that would be well worth looking at. and they better prepared her skin to that of an indian. so, her countenance. her feet. all of these aspects of her bodily features were being commented upon. and in charleston her feet were unwrapped, and shown to the public in all of its native nakedness.

such an embarrassment, and such a difficult moment for her i'm pretty sure. and i know, because it was something she never would've had the experience to confront in china. so, unbinding her feet in public was just the most humiliating i'm sure experience that she had in america. difficult. >> definitely. we've been talking about how we know a lot more about how moy was proceed, and we see her experiences. and you can sort of see that in the start, and harsh language a lot of the times that are being used to describe her. which we can talk about later. so, i think for our final question. i did want to switch gears a little bit to follow kind of

the line of your own research process. as we've talked about moy. left behind. no firsthand account of her experiences. and we actually don't know where she ended up after her performance is ended. after she left the public record we have really no sense of where she ended up. so, i would love to hear you speak a bit more about what it's like to research these figures who lives at the margins of our own official records. what happens when your search for evidence hits a wall? and what is at stake and the telling of moy's story despite all these mysteries that surround her life? >> you are right. i think there were many times where i just had to figure out how to go around the wall. how to come out the research from a different direction, and a lot of times i was fairly confounded.

but, one of the ways i did that was to triangulate. and to think about what evidence do we have? and i was particularly interested at tom who was afong moy's interpreter . trying to figure out how would i know more about him, and his relationship to her? because there was nothing in any of the records. nor in any of the manifests ownership records about afong. so, what i did was see if i could find other young chinese men who came to america around the same time as afong. and i actually did find two. one was mulan. he studied at the foreign mission school in cornwall, connecticut in the 1820s. he left a chinese friendship album behind, and it was

fascinating for me to take a look at his way of presenting himself. so, he drew an image of a chinese woman. and a chinese man. and it gave me a sense of the way he was thinking and his experience in america. i also found another chinese man lou who lived in frederick, maryland. a man who lived in frederick recorded his experience with lou in his diary. so, this provided strong evidence about the background of afong who was really important to afong moy as her interpreter for a year or so in america. ultimately, you are right. it's really challenging when you have to admit that you've hit a wall.

and after spending hundreds, and hundreds of hours trying to figure out where afong moy went after 1851 was both discouraging, and disappointing. i had tried through every means going through records in new york. in new york city, and new jersey. through barnum's archives trying to figure out where she might have gone. i even tried to hire a very well-known genealogist. when she heard the work that i've already done she said nope, can't offer you anything more on that. and it was so disappointing. so, i sort of made a pact with myself that i would not extrapolate trellix extensively. and i would think to the secure historical evidence. and i sort of decided that perhaps the reader may at some point find out what happened to afong moy. and would fill in the blanks,

but i could not. >> thank you for that, and we extend that invitation to our audience to see if anyone would love to go into the archives, and help us. so, now wriggling to open it up to q&a. so, people can continue dropping their questions in the q&a box. we already have quite a few actually, and a lot of people are very curious about the origins of afong moy story. questions about where in china did she come from? how old was she? when she entered the u.s.. and if she has any known family that you found along the way? >> well, i did go to china with the hopes that i would find record of afong moy. she was from glenn joe. and you would expect perhaps

that there would be some newspaper notice. some record of her leaving with the american captain. captain albert. i was pretty sure that i would find something. but, i went through archives. i had help with that from someone from the museum, and found really nothing. disappointingly nothing. so, no record of her family. i did find one little notice though in the archives that indicated that the month or so around the time when afong moy was leaving it was a very bad

flood. and there were huge challenges to feed people, and many parents were at their wits end. not knowing how they were going to feed their children. and i kind of wondered if perhaps what happened with afong moy's parents . who had probably some affiliation with -- maybe they were shopkeepers, and associated somehow with american merchants. they just felt this was the best thing they could do for her, because of this really difficult situation financially in china at the time. >> definitely. wonderful that you were able to travel there as well. sort of see the history.

research on the ground. we had another question. wonderfully phrased. he mentioned to nancy that a significant number of imports in the u.s. were chinese. so, to what extent do you say these objects stay in coastal cities? and then following that how much data moy herself travel, and perform beyond the east coast? >> that's a wonderful question, and i really appreciate it. because in fact what happened was these objects came into the port of new york. and they were auctioned off, and because of the erie canal. and because the possibility of getting this material out was through the erie canal. these objects were going out to those who were in ohio.

in new york state. further out in new york state. and that was why the cartons were very happy for afong moy to travel. so, afong moy traveled extensively across the eastern seaboard. she went to north to boston, providence, hartford, and all the areas in new york. albany, and troy. and then she went south. so, she went all the way south to south carolina. north carolina. and then from there went to cuba, because clearly the objects were being sent far and wide via the ship. and then came back to florida.

to pensacola. by steamboat to pensacola to new orleans. and then went all the way up the mississippi river into ohio , and into pennsylvania. to pittsburgh. so, she traveled probably between 1500, and 2000 miles across the united states and cuba. and the reason why they are doing this is because the objects were being distributed very broadly. but, people would both see her, and purchase the objects. >> she has quite a map for sort of a network of crisscrossing the united states, and beyond the continents as well. that's really exciting to explore.

i think someone had a quick question. i know i've mentioned in my introduction that afong moy had met the president of. so, could you maybe talk a little bit -- i think this may be our last question for q&a as well. about how she was engaging with these political leaders of her time period? at the same time. >> that's right. i often kind of wondered why -- i had known about andrew jackson meeting afong moy. but, i realized as i began to do more of the research that actually in new york city afong moy then met martin van buren. and he was a jackson's vice president. and it was clear that she had seen him probably in that early

salon period when she was in new york in 1834. and he may have mentioned this to jackson. so, andrew jackson knew about her. maybe because of van buren. but, also because she was widely scouted. and seeing as a big attraction at this point in america. so, she did go to the jackson white house to the presidents house. and we don't have any record in his account of what he said to her. all we have is the newspaper account of what transpired. and apparently jackson for some reason assumed that afong moy was an emissary , and that she

would have the capacity to go back to china. and to alert her fellow women who had bound feet that this was an unnecessary, and improper activity. and that they should stop it, and that she should go back to china, and let them know that. it was kind of amazing for afong moy to hear those words. and she was not going back to china. and was not an emissary, and could not do that. but, it was interesting that jackson made the assumption that she had the power, and the will to return to china to make that happen. >> that is a fascinating tidbit. and you say this in your book too.

not only their visions, but maybe their sense of influence onto her. so, andrew jackson could make some changes. so, you would assume that afong moy could also have some cachet that others might not. i unfortunately kind of have to wrap up our q&a. we had other wonderful comments about the chinese lady as well. if you want to learn more about this history. so, thank you again nancy for chatting here with me today. and i will pass it back over to anna. >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much both of you for being with us today. to everyone else thank you as well for joining us. please sign up for our mailing list, and follow us at ny history.org to get the latest on upcoming. just like this one.