Nineteen loose and fifteen mounted gelatin silver photos from ca. 12,5x17,5 cm (5x7 in) to ca. 3x4 cm (1 ¾ x 1 ½ in); mounted photos with period manuscript ink captions on the mounts; eleven loose photos with period manuscript ink or pencil captions on verso; one loose photo with the ink stamp “Dr. Evalena S.C. Fleming, American Presbyterian Mission, Tsinanfu, North China” on verso. Several photos with minor creases, tears or losses on extremities, several images slightly faded, otherwise very good photos.

With ca. thirty manuscript, typewritten and printed documents and ephemera, from ca. 28x21 cm (11 x 8 ½ in) to ca. 5,5x9 cm (2 x 3 ½ in); in all over 80 pp. of text. Over a dozen items are in Chinese, several with Kitchin’s handwritten notes. One letter with a printed letterhead of “The Griffith John College, Hankow, China.” Fold marks, one document (printed program) with splits on folds and the lower part detached from the upper one; minor tears and occasional losses on extremities, but overall very good documents.

With ten typewritten and manuscript letters and notes, related to Miss Kitchin’s later life and work in the United States, ca. 1929-1965. From ca. 28x21 cm (11 x 8 ¼ in) to ca. 9,5x12 cm (3 ¾ x 4 ¾ in). In all ca. 18 pp. of text; five letters with printed letterheads of “The Frank A. Munsey Company,” “Boston University,” “Girls Clubs of America,” &c. The typewritten text of Kitchin’s speech bears her manuscript corrections. Fold marks, several minor tears on extremities, but overall very good documents.

Interesting extensive archive of original photographs, autograph letters signed, various documents, and ephemera, collected by a Boston educator, Eleanor Kitchin, during her work in the Young Women’s Christian Association establishments in Shanghai and Beijing in 1920-1924.

Born in Brockton (MA), Eleanor Kitchin graduated from “the Sargent School in Cambridge and of the Boston University School of Education. After teaching physical education and dancing in private school in the United States, Miss Kitchin became physical education director of the Young Women’s Christian Association at Shanghai, China, for two years [1920-1922], and later served as executive director of the Y.W.C.A. in Peking China [1922-1924]. During the latter period she learned to speak and write Mandarin language and also taught at the National University in Peking.

Returning to the United States, she became director of social activities at the Central Y.W.C.A. in New York City. In 1933, Miss Kitchin became registrar, social director and assistant professor at B.U.’s Sargent College, retiring in 1960. At retirement the Eleanor Kitchin Award was established for meritorious service rendered by students at the college. <…> Miss Kitchin had also been chairman of the women’s committee of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel, and was a member of the Altrusa Club of Boston, Friends of China, Boston University Women Graduates Club, Boston University Women’s Council and Guild, and of First Congregational Church in Cambridge. She was awarded membership in the Scarlet Key of Boston University for her leadership and aid in student activities, was a member of Twiness, the Sargent Colege honor society and received the Dudley Allen Sargent Service Award from the college’s alumnae association” (Miss Kitchin, Was Professor at Sargent; 80// The Boston Glove, 13 February 1969, p. 41).

The photos from the archive show Shanghai (street scenes, portraits of “coolie women,” children dancing in kinderdarten, “some of my girls,” “after the snow storm, my Chinese home”), “Canton Y.W.C.A. home” and young Chinese female students, “priests in funeral procession,” “a Manchu Lady [wearing a] gorgeously colored headgear <…>,” a camel caravan in Beijing, “Black Dragon Pool, Northern China,” “a canal scene in Hangchow, China, women washing clothes in foreground,” &c. Several images portray Ms. Kitchin posing in front of various residences in China and show the entrance to her quarters (“I love it all. <…> Walls, windows & doors are of yellow paper, no wood. October 1922”). There is also an interesting scene with Chinese villagers, “7 to 70 yrs. Studying the Script.”

The archive includes an original letter written by Ms. Kitchin’s friend and addressed to her mother in the United States, with a description of Eleanor’s life and work and Shanghai; a 9-page manuscript, titled “China History, Started November 13, 1920” (in Ms. Kitchin’s handwriting); two of her business cards (with the text in English and Mandarin Chinese); a red envelope with her name written in Chinese characters and her manuscript comments in English; three invitations (two in English – to weddings of the daughters of “Reverend and Mrs. Huie Kin,” and one in Chinese characters); an official typewritten letter from the Griffith John College in Hankow (signed by Rev. Samuel Withers Green), &c. Eight documents are various worksheets and tutorials in Mandarin Chinese, including printed brochure “Selected Lists of Characters/ North China Union Language School, Peking” (9 leaves, original publisher’s wrappers), three “Character drill cards” from the same school, a set of 37 strips of paper containing a Chinese folk tale about an old woman and a tiger (in Mandarin Chinese and English, with Ms. Kitchin’s manuscript notes), &c. There is a also a business card of “Ni Lian, <…> Professor of Psychology, Taiwan University” (one of the handwritten notes reads “she went to B.U. Sargent”), printed program of the “Matinee Entertainment by Madam Kelvey’s Clever Pupils in Aid of the Foreign Women’s Home, Shanghai,” envelopes addressed to “Ms. Kitchin” in Shanghai and Peking, newspaper clippings, a program of a lunch on board the S.S. “President Adams” (which took her back to the United States in 1925), &c.

Ten documents dating back to Ms. Kitchin’s later career in the United States include a letter from the editor of the “All-Story Magazine” John Fraser (1929), several private letters and papers and correspondence created during he work in the Sargent School of Physical Education at Boston University (ca. 1937-1954).

Overall an interesting extensive private archive of an American female educator in China in the 1920s.

Excerpts from the letter to Ms. Kitchin’s mother, ca. 1920:
“<…> She really is situated ideally for there – a beautiful modern house and her own room so very comfortable and homelike and restful with a lovely view from the window. And the school is like an American school to look at and to go through. Then Eleanor is a marvel when it comes to languages and carries on long conversations in Chinese which is a terrible language that runs up and down the scales and doesn’t seem to consist of words at all, just sounds. All the Y.W. girls are lovely and then Kitch is as fortunate as to have friends outside the association <…> Shanghai is a modern western city in many ways so different from the cities in the interior of China and yet it is Chinese enough to be interesting every minute <…>”