Modern Chinese History Family Photo Album Spanning Republican Era War and Early People’s Republic 1930s to 1960s

Post-Revolution China

Archive

China family photograph album. 1930s–1960s. This album documents family life across major political transitions in twentieth-century China, including the Republican period, the years of Japanese occupation, and the early decades of the People’s Republic. The photographs record everyday experience across multiple regions, showing movement between northern, southern, and northeastern cities as well as Hong Kong, and provide visual evidence of how individuals and families navigated changing political and social conditions. The material is particularly strong in its geographic breadth, with identified locations including Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Dalian, Jilin, Shenyang, Anshan, Fushun, and Hong Kong, linking domestic life to major urban and industrial centers.

Album containing 107 original black-and-white silver gelatin photographs, mounted in a string-bound volume, with individual prints ranging approximately from 1.25 x 1.5 to 4 x 6 inches. The photographs include studio portraits with painted backdrops from the 1930s, family groupings of multiple generations, and school portraits of children posed in uniform before institutional buildings. Clothing varies between Western-style suits and traditional garments such as qipao, indicating shifts in dress across time and place. Urban scenes show streets, promenades, docks, and architectural landmarks, with some images bearing printed or written location identifications in Chinese. Several photographs depict travel aboard a passenger vessel, suggesting movement between mainland cities and Hong Kong. Industrial environments and city signage appear in images associated with Shenyang and Fushun, reflecting the presence of major industrial centers in northeastern China.

The album spans decades marked by war, occupation, and state formation, when cities such as Shenyang and Anshan developed as industrial hubs under Japanese control and later under the People’s Republic, while Hong Kong functioned as a site of movement and exchange. The combination of studio portraiture, school imagery, and travel scenes provides a continuous record of family life through these changes, linking private experience to broader historical conditions. Light edge wear and toning to photographs, with occasional spotting and minor marks to mounts; overall very good. A substantial visual record of Chinese family life across shifting political and geographic landscapes in the mid-twentieth century.

Item #22240

Price: $550.00