JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES
Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats, 1853-1941

Part 1: Sources from the William R Perkins Library, Duke University

REEL 1

Letters of Sir Edwin Arnold, British poet and journalist, for the period 1869-1903, including exchanges with Takaaki Kato, Japanese Ambassador in London, concerning Buddhism, Anglo-Japanese and Russian-Japanese relations. 6 folders, filmed in their entirety.

Papers of Robert S Chilton Jr, Chief of the Consular Bureau in Washington DC, mainly for the period 1897-1901, including correspondence with American companies wanting to establish trade with China and Japan. There are also letters from Hubbard T Smith and other consuls regarding trade with East Asia. 5 folders, filmed in their entirety.

Folders 1-2: 1808-1898

REEL 2

Papers of Robert S Chilton Jr (continued)

Folders 3-5: Jan-Feb 1899, Mar-Dec 1899, 1900/01 and undated

The diary of Rachael Ferver, wife of an American businessman in Japan, for 1928, recording her life in Tokyo and Yokohama as part of the foreign community. She also writes about contact with Japanese professionals and servants. One tightly bound volume, filmed in its entirety.

REEL 3

The diaries of Augustus & Jeanette Healy, tourists, for 1920-1922, describing what they did and saw in Africa, India, China, Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong during their two and a half year honeymoon. Two boxes filmed in their entirety.

Box 1: Diary 1, Diary 2 (Nov 1920), Diary 3 (Apr 1921) and Diary 4 (Nov 1921)
Zebra skin photograph case

Box 2: c.150 photographs

The photograph album of Kiroku Shashin Honzonkai, containing black and white photos of emperors, government officials, ordinary citizens, monuments, street scenes, military parades, buildings and landscapes for the Meiji (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926) and Showa (1926-1989) periods. One volume, filmed in its entirety.

REEL 4

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton, missionary, for the period 1870-1931. John Caldwell Calhoun Newton of South Carolina was a pioneer missionary of the Methodist Church South to Japan. He first went to Japan in 1888 as a faculty member of the Kwansei Gakuin Union Mission College and Seminary in Kobe, Japan. He lived in Japan until 1897, and then again between 1903-1923. During the last ten years of his stay in Japan, Newton was President of the Mission College. His correspondence is extremely rich and includes letters to family and friends and to other mission leaders in America. These describe the difficulties and frustrations of his work and provide insights into the working, domestic and religious lives of people in Japan. His archive is extremely large, comprising 3,390 items and 132 volumes. This has been reboxed and there are now sixteen boxes of material. Boxes 1-6 cover his correspondence, 1872-1931 and undated, and have been covered in their entirety (with the exception of six Japanese books which appear in Box 1). Boxes 6 -16 cover lecture notes, sermons, clippings and financial papers - we have included a handful of folders from these as indicated below. These later boxes also contain diaries and notebooks (numbered 3080-3210) - we have filmed a selection of those which relate to Japanese topics (as indicated below).

Box 1
Folder 1: Correspondence, 1872-89
Folder 2: Correspondence, 1891-92
Folder 3: Correspondence, 1893-96
Folder 4: Correspondence, 1897
Folder 5: Correspondence, 1899-1901
Folder 6: Correspondence, 1902-03
(The six Japanese books which appear in Box 1 have not been filmed)

REEL 5

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 1
Folder 7: Correspondence, 1904
Folder 8: Correspondence, 1904

Box 2
Folder 1: Correspondence, 1905
Folder 2: Correspondence, Jan - Feb 1906
Folder 3: Correspondence, Mar - Apr 1906
Folder 4: Correspondence, May - Dec 1906
Folder 5: Correspondence, 1907
Folder 6: Correspondence, 1907

REEL 6

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 3
Folder 1: Correspondence, Jan - May 1908
Folder 2: Correspondence, Jun - Sep 1908
Folder 3: Correspondence, Oct - Dec 1908
Folder 4: Correspondence, Jan - Aug 1909
Folder 5: Correspondence, Sep - Dec 1909

REEL 7

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 3
Folder 6: Correspondence, Jan 1910 - Dec 1911
Folder 7: Correspondence, 1912

Box 4
Folder 1: Correspondence, Jan - Jun 1913
Folder 2: Correspondence, Jul - Dec 1913

REEL 8

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 4
Folder 3: Correspondence, 1914
Folder 4: Correspondence, Jan - Jun 1915
Folder 5: Correspondence, Jul - Dec 1915
Folder 6: Correspondence, 1916

REEL 9

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 5
Folder 1: Correspondence, 1917-20
Folder 2: Correspondence, 1921-22
Folder 3: Correspondence, 1923
Folder 4: Correspondence, Jan - Oct 1924

REEL 10

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 5
Folder 5: Correspondence, 1925-26
Folder 6: Correspondence, 1927

Box 6
Folder 1: Correspondence, 1928-29
Folder 2: Correspondence, 1930-31
Folder 3: Correspondence, nd

REEL 11

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)

Box 6
Folder 4: Papers relating to Kwansei Gakunin Academy and Kwansei Gakunin Union Methodist College, 1908-26
Folder 5: Papers relating to Kwansei Gakunin Academy and Kwansei Gakunin Union Methodist College, 1929-62
Folder 6: Biographical sketches of missionaries in China and Japan
(the remaining two folders in Box 6 have not been filmed)

REEL 12

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)
(Box 7 and the folder on lectures and sermons: Notes re: Ethics & Philosophy in Box 8 have not been filmed)

Box 8
Folder 1: Lectures concerning Japanese-US relations
Folder 2: Lectures concerning Japanese-US relations
(N.B. Some of these lecture notes are rough drafts only)

Box 8
Folder 1: Lectures and sermons concerning missions in Japan
Folder 2: Lectures and sermons on the Near East and Russia (only the typescript lectures have been filmed from this folder)
(the remaining folder in Box 8 on lectures and sermons, n.d., in Japanese, has not been filmed)

Box 8 contains six folders. The first folder is not numbered and has not been filmed. Then there are the two groups of Folders 1-2 detailed above. The final folder in the box is not numbered and has not been filmed)

REEL 13

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton (continued)
(Boxes 9-10 have not been filmed. They contain lectures & sermons; clippings and printed material.)

Selected volumes from volumes 3080-3210 (Boxes 11-15):

Volume 3082: Japan - Addresses, sermons and lectures
Volume 3117: Notes for Missions lectures
Volume 3127: Notes on Buddhism
Volume 3129: Notes on China
Volume 3130: Notes on China and Problems in India
Volume 3146: Notes on History of Foreign Missions
Volume 3152: Notes on Missions in Japan
Volume 3159: Notes on Oriental Countries
(N.B. Many of these notebooks contain draft notes in pencil and purple ink which are very difficult to decipher in the original state. For Box 16  no material has been filmed.)

REEL 14

Letters of Sir Harry Parkes, diplomat and British Minister to Japan between 1865 and 1883. A letter of 25 May 1853 concerns the rebellion at Nanking and the situation in Canton. A letter dated 14 October 1860 discusses the British invasion of Peking and Parkes' recent imprisonment. Three letters from 1872 involve the arrangement of a tour of British manufacturing cities by the Japanese Iwakura embassy. There is also a Bradford banquet menu signed by Iwakura. In total this makes six items, all of which have been filmed in their entirety.

Papers of Edward James Parrish, a representative for the British-American Tobacco company in Japan between 1900-1906. This is a substantial collection including correspondence and a notebook describing the tobacco trade with China and Japan, 1894-1900, and comprising 195 items and 5 volumes. We have only filmed selected items - Letter Books 1-8:

Letter Book 1: January 17 - September 25, 1900
Letter Book 2: October 4, 1900 - August 27, 1901

REEL 15

Papers of Edward James Parrish (continued)

Letter Book 3: August 28, 1901 - August 4, 1902
Letter Book 4: June 24, 1902 - October 18, 1904

REEL 16

Papers of Edward James Parrish (continued)

Letter Book 5: August 11, 1902 - December 16, 1903
Letter Book 6: September 26 - December 2, 1904

REEL 17

Papers of Edward James Parrish (continued)

Letter Book 7: December 17, 1903 - September 24, 1904
Letter Book 8: Note book on tobacco trade with China and Japan, 1894-1900

REEL 18

Papers of James Barr Robertson, a British resident of Shanghai, c.1870. He was a member of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce and a shareholder and board member of several companies. Letters from W U Lay written from or near Yokohama, Japan, discuss conditions in China and Japan. 15 items, filmed in their entirety.

Papers of Mary E (McClain) Sword, including the letters of Hattie (McClain) Gring who was a missionary in Japan during the 1880s and 1890s. Sponsored first by the German Reformed Church and later by the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Grings lived in Yokohama, Tokyo and Kyoto. The collection is contained within two boxes and the Japanese material really commences in Folder 4 of Box 1. However, we have filmed this collection in its entirety.

Box 1
Folder 1: 1822-65
Folder 2: 1866-69
Folder 3: 1870-78
Folder 4: 1878-80
Folder 5: 1881-85

REEL 19

Papers of Mary E (McClain) Sword (continued)

Box 2
Folder 1: 1886-92
Folder 2: 1893-95
Folder 3: 1896-1905
Folder 4: n.d.

REEL 20

Papers of William E Tolbert. Included are letters from Elizabeth Russell, who had been a Methodist missionary in Nagasaki, Japan, to her friend, Emma Tolbert. Russell wrote about Japanese customs, missionary work in Japan, the restoration of that country, and Russian refugees in Japan. The collection comprises four boxes but we have filmed just the Letters Box (the boxes are not numbered):

Folder 1: 1859-89
Folder 2: 1890-94
Folder 3: 1895-1941
Folder 4: n.d.