Nym Wales papers, 1931-1998

Collection context

Summary

Creators:
Wales, Nym, 1907-1997
Abstract:
Personal and collected correspondence, speeches and writings, news dispatches, interviews, reports, memoranda, organizational records, and photographs relating to the Chinese communists; the industrial cooperative movement, student movement, and labor movement in China; the Sian incident, 1936; the Sino-Japanese Conflict; and Chinese art and literature. Digital copies of select records also available at https://digitalcollections.hoover.org.
Extent:
69 manuscript boxes, 7 oversize boxes, 11 oversize folders, 1 oversize envelope, 1 album box, 32 35mm slides, 2 videocassettes, 4 photographs (31.4 Linear Feet)
Language:
In English, Chinese, and Arabic
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Nym Wales papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

Personal and collected correspondence, speeches and writings, news dispatches, interviews, reports, memoranda, organizational records, and photographs relating to the Chinese communists; the industrial cooperative movement, student movement, and labor movement in China; the Sian incident, 1936; the Sino-Japanese Conflict; and Chinese art and literature.

An increment added in 2011 includes Wales's unpublished manuscript, in which she gave penetrating insights into the occurrences in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, Chinese-American relations, globalism, and a reflection on her eighty-second birthday in 1989; as well as her correspondence with Communist Chinese provincial organizations and friends within and outside the United States in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

Biographical / historical:

*Nym Wales is the pseudonym of Helen Foster Snow, also known in various contexts as Peggy Snow, Hseuh Hai-lun, and Lo Fu.

Date Event
1907 September 21
Born, Cedar City, Utah
1925-1927
Student, University of Utah
1931-1941
Lived in China and the Philippine Islands, held positions as a journalist, book reviewer, and editor
1932
Married Edgar Snow (divorced, 1949)
1934-1935
Student, Yenching University and Tsinghua University
1937
Visited the headquarters of Chinese Communist leaders in Yenan for four months
1937
Co-founder of Democracy magazine
1938
Co-founder of the Chinese Industrial Cooperative movement in Shanghai
1939
Author, Inside Red China
1941-1951
Board of Directors, American Committee in Aid of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives
1941
Co-author with Kim San, Song of Arian: The Life Story of an Asian Revolutionary
1941
Author, China Builds for Democracy: A Story of Cooperative Industry
1945
Author, The Chinese Labor Movement
1952
Editor, Red Dust: Autobiographies of Chinese Communists as Told to Nym Wales
1952
Author, Fables and Parables for the Mid-Century
1958-1961
Author and compiler, Historical Notes on China, 6 volumes designed to accompany the Nym Wales Collection at the Hoover Institution: Notes on the Chinese Student Movement, 1935-1936; Notes on the Sian Incident, 1936; Notes on Korea and the Life of Kim San; My Yenan Notebooks; Notes on the Left-Wing Painters and Modern Art in China; Notes on the Beginnings of the Industrial Cooperatives in China
1967
Author, Women in Modern China
1972
Author, The Chinese Communists (in part a reprint of Red Dust)
1972-1973
Travelled in the Far East, including mainland China
1984
Author, My China Years: A Memoir
1997 January 11
Died, Guilford, Connecticut
Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 1958 with additional increments received from 1982 to 2011.
Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Boxes 35-37, 41, 74-75, OCM12 may not be used without permission of the Archivist. The remainder of the collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Nym Wales papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563