David Crockett Graham, naturalist, educator and missionary spent almost a decade in China in the 1920's and early 1930's. This field book diary begins when Graham returns to China in 1932 after two years of studies at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. The first in a series five, the diary covers his daily activities from 30 September 1932 to 15 July 1933 including a field expedition to Fu Jia Ba and the mammals, birds, insects, and other specimens he collected or purchased. In keeping with his interest in anthropology, Graham also collects artifacts and makes ethnological and anthropological observations during this trip.
Join us and other digital volunteers in transcribing this typescript of his diary. The handwritten version can be seen here.
David Crockett Graham, naturalist, educator and missionary spent almost a decade in China in the 1920's and early 1930's. This field book diary begins when Graham returns to China in 1932 after two years of studies at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. The first in a series five, the diary covers his daily activities from 30 September 1932 to 15 July 1933 including a field expedition to Fu Jia Ba and the mammals, birds, insects, and other specimens he collected or purchased. In keeping with his interest in anthropology, Graham also collects artifacts and makes ethnological and anthropological observations during this trip.
Join us and other digital volunteers in transcribing this typescript of his diary. The handwritten version can be seen here.
David Crockett Graham received a B. A. from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, in 1908. Graham then attended Rochester Theological Seminary in New York, where, in 1911, he completed his studies and was ordained into the Baptist ministry. Shortly afterward, Graham entered the service of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, departing for China in the fall of 1911. They first stopped briefly in Shanghai in order to acquaint themselves with the Chinese language and culture. They were further delayed there by the outbreak of the 1911 revolution which toppled the Manchu dynasty. Finally, they arrived in the province of Szechuan (Sichuan), where they were stationed for the next twenty years. In the fall of 1926, Graham pursued a year of doctoral study covering anthropology, ethnology, and psychology of primitive peoples and religions. During the period from 1919 to 1939, Graham made fourteen summer expeditions in Szechuan, the Szechuan-Tibetan region, and the Szechuan-Yunnan region, and several short field collecting trips in the vicinities of Suifu, and Chengtu. The specimens he sent to the USNM were mostly mammals, birds, insects, snakes, and anthropological relics. In addition, he sent anthropological measurements of Chinese people, and Chinese aborigines common in Szechuan such as the Ch'uan Miao, Ch'iang, Lolo, and the Bolstoi people, as well as their costumes and handicrafts. Graham kept diaries detailing his activities, mostly during the 1924 to 1935 period.
