Continuing our series on historical photographs of China, this week’s blog looks at John Oswald’s photographs of Foochow [Fuzhou]. His photographs document the home, work and social life of a British tea merchant living in a treaty port. John Charles Oswald (1857-1930) arrived in Foochow in the late 1880s, having worked for a tea importer in London for thirteen years. Initially working for Odell & Co. as a clerk, he
This week’s blog looks at a new donation of photograph albums received by SOAS Archives, offering a glimpse of life in a mission hospital in North China at the beginning of the 20th century, in the immediate aftermath of the Boxer Uprising[1]. The six captioned photograph albums (reference: MS 381326), dating from c.1902-1908, contain black & white prints and also cyanotypes with a blue image hue, which picture the ‘Roberts
In celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (which aims to raise awareness of the importance of audiovisual primary sources as an integral part of national identity) we are taking a look at the rich legacy of Professor Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1909-1995). Haimendorf was one of the foremost anthropologists of the 20th century, a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology and one of the most prolific ethnographers of tribal
As it is World Camera Day today, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look at the work of anthropologist, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Born and educated in Vienna, Haimendorf studied anthropology and archaeology at the Theresianische Akademie at the University of Vienna before working for a few years in Vienna as a research assistant. He was awarded a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation that enabled him to study at
