Missionary and Socio-Economic Journals

Missionary Journals

The growth of the missionary movement in the nineteenth century brought a proliferation of periodicals that forwarded the missionary cause. Many of the missionary societies established at this time were made up of evangelical Protestants whose dual purpose was to “Christianize and civilize” non-European peoples. Periodicals were designed both to inform the societies' memberships of developments abroad and to attract new supporters. Toward this end, publications targeted different readerships: some circulated among women's church groups; others appealed to members of specific churches, to indigenous converts, and to young people. Common in many periodicals were writings by missionaries in the field, describing the hardships and rewards of working in foreign lands, together with social and political discourses that bolstered a common sense of purpose and conviction in the uplifting power of American and European ideas.

This collection features a selection of Asia-related missionary periodicals that shed light on the complex role of the missionary endeavor in an age of Western commercial and imperial expansion. Some topics discussed in these periodicals include mission schools and mission work; hospitals and medicine; evangelical missionary conferences and Bible tract distribution; Baptists and Roman Catholics; the crusade against opium; the Taiping Rebellion, Tientsin Massacre, Boxer Rebellion, and other anti-foreign and anti-missionary activities; the growth of the Chinese church; the 1911 Chinese Revolution and the rise of communism in China; Muslims in China, Buddhism, and “evil spirits”; Chefoo, Japan, Mongolia, Annam, Siam, and Korea; and the missionary Henrietta Withers.

Socio-Economic Journals

These journals offer firsthand details of Asian culture and society. Western trade and colonization were accompanied by an intense interest in Asian culture that resulted in the creation of many scholarly publications from a variety of learned societies and other social organizations. These publications reviewed a range of scientific, literary, and artistic subjects in relation to Asia. The personal experiences and activities of eminent scholars, explorers, missionaries, and others were printed in these journals, in many instances the only known personal narratives of individuals lost to history.

Some topics discussed in these periodicals include science and scientific discoveries; indigenous literature; narratives of travel over land and by boat; reports on the cultivation of agricultural products such as tea, tobacco, cotton, and rice; religious beliefs and mythology; industries, commerce, and currency; fauna and flora; Formosa, Annam, Cambodia, Burma, Japan, and Korea; tide tables, maps, and geographic descriptions; natural resources, riverine life, and geology; ethnic groups; politics and war; international events and analyses of historical events; grammar and syntax of the Chinese language; teachings of Mencius and Confucius; and Islamic literature in China.