Saturday, May 25, 2024

Digitized San Francisco Newspapers Printed in Chinese

Chan Ching reading a Chinese newspaper. Image courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

In mid to late 19th century San Francisco, people starting up newspaper businesses weren't limited to English language text. There were a handful of papers printed in Chinese in the burgeoning city as well. Printing in Chinese with moveable metal type presented challenges of practicality due to the language's thousands of characters. In the early days, printers got around this by using lithography as a printing method, which uses grease pencils on special stones to print instead of individual pieces of type composited in the press bed. Later, foundries with Chinese characters cast in metal type were established and the type was used by local newspapers, as we can see in the SF History Center images Man working in a Chinatown newspaper room with single metal slugs and Three men working in a Chinese newspaper room with single metal slugs.  

Like so many historic newspapers, especially those from the 19th century, these papers have largely been lost to the sands of time in terms of libraries or archives being able to offer comprehensive access to a collection (physical or digital) of such newspapers. At San Francisco Public Library, for example, we have scattershot coverage of some historic papers printed in Chinese in San Francisco in our print holdings. Furthermore, we are unable to offer a database or single digital collection that brings these Chinese newspapers together under one digital roof.

While there is no one-stop shop we are able to offer our patrons, we recently looked into the issue and were able to compile a list of Chinese newspapers printed in San Francisco that have been digitized, but they are scattered around libraries and archives across the country. 

The bibliography of digitally available newspapers follows. If you have more to add, please leave a comment to let us know!

The Oriental (Tung-Ngai San-Luk)

 
This is the first paper printed in Chinese in San Francisco, starting in January of 1855 and folding by February of 1857. A few issues are digitized and available in a digital exhibit called The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865 by the American Antiquarian Society. The paper was printed in Chinese three times a week and in English once a week in its early days (it was published less frequently and more sporadically as time went on), the project of Rev. William Speer who had been a missionary in China and knew the language. Lee Kan, of Chinese descent, was Speer's associate and the editor of the paper. Above is an issue from April 28, 1855 demonstrating its bilingual nature. There is also an August 1855 issue available on the AAS website. 

San Francisco China News

San Francisco China News Access Link: Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

A complete issue of this paper from Dec. 26, 1874 is available on the website of the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum with some useful annotations about its contents (although when they say it was handwritten, they mean it was handwritten on a lithography stone which was then used to print from; every issue was not handwritten). While the website for the museum was painstakingly populated with useful leads in regard to Chinese newspapers in the past, it has experienced a significant amount of link rot. It's still worth a visit

The Oriental (Tang fan gong bao)

 
One complete issue from May 13, 1876 is available on the digital delivery website of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). Check their catalog record for descriptive information about this newspaper. 
 

Chung Sai Yat Po


Coming later, at the dawn of the 20th century, the Chung Sai Yat Po enjoyed a long run from 1900-1950 and most copies are surviving today. The digital images of almost 1,500 issues were created from the microfilm of the newspaper, which is part of the UC Berkeley's Ethnic Studies Library. It is so incredibly nice to be able to consult the digital surrogates of this paper's backfile without trekking to UC Berkeley to slog through dozens of microfilm reels. 
 
For an academic study of the newspaper's impact on Chinese culture in San Francisco in its first two decades, consult Violet Johnson's chapter in Print culture in a diverse America (1998), "San Francisco's Chung Sai Yat Po and the transformation of Chinese consciousness, 1900-1920."

Chinese world = Shi jie ri bao (世界日報)

 

Shi jie ri bao's earlier twentieth century content is available online and it continues to be published until today (which is available in the International Center on the 3rd floor of the Main Library). In the Magazines and Newspapers Center, we have Nov 1909-Dec 1923 on microfilm and those rolls were digitized with the Internet Archive. It would be interesting to compare, for this time period, how Shi jie ri bao covered topics the same or differently than Chung Sai Yat Po (above), which is available digitally for the same time period.  

East/West (Dong xi bao 東西報) Newspaper


 
Moving into the relative recent past, we are proud to announce the San Francisco History Center just this week finished digitizing over twenty years worth of the bilingual Chinese newspaper East/West 東西報. We have over 1,200 issues from 1967-1989 available for you, a (near) complete run of the paper. 
 
The paper was founded by Gordon Lew, editor and publisher, and run out of San Francisco's Chinatown. Lew also was a professor at City College. The newspaper covers Asian American diaspora issues centered in San Francisco, but also covered national and international news.  
 
Group of men standing outside of a Chinese newspaper office reading the latest news in Chinatown. Image courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

 
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