"Christopher W. Merritt combines and highlights the historical and archaeological records of the Overseas Chinese experience in Montana, beginning with the arrival of Chinese immigrants in 1862 to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943."--Provided by publisher.
"Christopher W. Merritt combines and highlights the historical and archaeological records of the Overseas Chinese experience in Montana, beginning with the arrival of Chinese immigrants in 1862 to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943."--Provided by publisher.
Much of Missoula's history lies beneath the surface. As in many Old West cities, cavernous underground tunnel systems purportedly hid countless nefarious activities, from clandestine prostitution and Chinese opium dens to booze running during Prohibition. These sordid tales captivate today's residents and beg questions about the city's furtive past. Did local elite gentlemen mask their carnal habits there? Did John Wayne really use the passageways to run personal errands unnoticed? Author and urban archaeologist Nikki Manning ventures below to reconcile oral history with archaeological data in a fascinating exploration of Missoula's subterranean labyrinths.
2023 Caroline Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library 2023 WHA W. Turrentine Jackson Award From the earliest days of non-Native settlement of Montana, when Chinese immigrants made up more than 10 percent of the territory's population, Chinese pioneers played a key role in the region's development. But this population, so crucial to Montana's history, remains underrepresented in historical accounts, and popular attention to the Chinese in Montana tends to focus on sensational elements--exoticizing Chinese Montanans and distancing their lived experiences from our modern understanding. The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky seeks to recover the stories of Montana's Chinese population in their own words and deepen understanding of Chinese experiences in Montana by using a global lens. Mark T. Johnson has mined several large collections of primary documents left by Chinese pioneers, translated into English here for the first time. These collections, spanning the 1880s through the 1950s, provide insight into the pressures the Chinese community faced--from family members back in China and from non-Chinese Montanans--as economic and cultural disturbances complicated acceptance of Chinese residents in the state. Through their own voices Johnson reveals the agency of Chinese Montanans in the history of the American West and China.
The 1700s saw the rise of the China market and some notable changes to global consumption patterns. This book explores the economic and cultural transformations in East Asia through three key cities - Canton, a major trading city, Nagasaki, official port of Tokugawa Japan, and Batavia, link between the Indian Ocean and China seas.