Abstract
By assessing the impacts of Christianity on gender and material culture, Cai investigates the ways in which Protestant female missionaries and Catholic nuns initiated a unique industrial approach that continues today in needlework. Between 1886 and 1900, foreign missionaries taught their converts Western needlework techniques in order to make them self-reliant financially. Between 1900 and 1914, the needlework industry expanded and many workshops were established in Shantou with investments by Christian and non-Christian merchants. Meanwhile, American investors arrived and marketed the products globally. Interrupted by the Pacific War, the industry underwent a revival from 1946 to 1949. By and large, these church-initiated enterprises taught female believers vocational skills and laid the infrastructure for the modernization of the needlework industry.
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Notes
- 1.
Chaoshan chousha dang’an xiaozu [The archival committee of the Chaoshan needlework companies] (comp.), Chaoshan chousha fazhanshi he jiben qingkuang (chugao) [Historical development of the Chaoshan needlework and its general features (Preliminary draft)] (Shantou, 1959), 8, Shantou Municipal Archives.
- 2.
Shantou shi chousha gongye tongye gonghui [Shantou needlework guild], 1950. Chaoshan chousha shougongye zhi jinxi gaishu [Introduction to the past and present of needlework industry in Chaoshan], Shantou Municipal Archives.
- 3.
Biographical file on William Ashmore , Jr., Folder on William Ashmore , Jr., Lida Scott (Lyons), The American Baptist Historical Society. I thank Dr. Qiyao Li for sharing this record.
- 4.
Antoine Douspis, Notice biographique, collected in the Archives of Les Missions Etrangères de Paris (The MEP archives), Paris. Retrieved on February 9, 2016 from http://archives.mepasie.org/notices/notices-biographiques/douspis
- 5.
Jean-Baptiste Pénicaud, Notice biographique, The MEP Archives. Retrieved on February 9, 2016 from http://archives.mepasie.org/notices/notices-biographiques/penicaud
- 6.
“Une visite à l’ouvroir de Limoges,” Lettre de M. Douspis, 1913, The MEP Archives.
- 7.
Author’s interview with Huang Zhiren, the chairman of the Shantou Municipal Three-Self Patriotic Churches, Shantou, China, May 27, 2010.
- 8.
Wu Yusan to Wu Yunxiang in1924. Author’s acquisition.
- 9.
Adolphe Rayssac, Notice biographique. Retrieved on February 15, 2016 from http://archives.mepasie.org/notices/notices-biographiques/rayssac
- 10.
“Membership rolls of the Swatow needlework industry,” 1948, Shantou Municipal Archives.
- 11.
Chaoshan chousha dang’an xiaozu (comp.), Chaoshan chousha fazhanshi he jiben qingkuang (chugao), 3–4.
- 12.
Ibid., 2.
- 13.
Shantou changzhihui jishice [Minutes of the Deacons and Elders’ Meetings of the Shantou Church], entries on September 26, 1918, April 22, 1929, August 2, 1931, June 26, 1932, August 26, 1934, May 9, 1948, and July 15, 1948, Republican Source Materials, Call No. C267, Shantou Municipal Archives.
- 14.
Chaoshan chousha dang’an xiaozu (comp.), Chaoshan chousha fazhanshi he jiben qingkuang (chugao), 7.
- 15.
Author’s interview with Lady Xiao in Shantou, January 30, 2011.
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Cai, E.XY. (2018). Christianity and Needlework Industry in Chaoshan. In: Lee, JH. (eds) Christianizing South China. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72266-5_5
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