Month: April 2011

The East Asia Image Collections, an open-access digital repository
hosted at Lafayette College, has recently added 259 postcards and 300
negatives. The website now contains over 3700 records of imagery from
East Asia, mostly from the period 1905-1945, with one subcollection
of images from 1950s Japan.

http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia

Here are the descriptions of our two most recently added subcollections:

Imperial Postcard Collection

The Imperial Postcard Collection consists of imagery from Japan and
its colonies, wartime China, and selected areas of the wider
imperialized world, from 1900 to 1945. “Manners and Customs” cards
from Manchuria, North and Central China, Korea, Honshu, and Hokkaido
are prominent. Also included are images associated with the
Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the Manchurian Incident (1931) and
the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937), as well as portraits of Japanese
heroes, royalty and statesmen. Cards that cataloged and displayed the
world’s colonized peoples according to racial type or ethnic
classification are also featured.

Gerald & Rella Warner Dutch East Indies Negatives

US Consul to Taiwan Gerald Warner and his wife Rella created these
275 photographic negatives between June 11, 1938 and July 27, 1938.
Most (257) were taken in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) during a
vacation from consular duties in Taiwan. The remainder were taken in
Hong Kong harbor (17) and Shantou (1). The following themes are most
prominent: working conditions and equipment in ports and harbors,
tourist attractions (including Borobudur, Balinese drama, and temple
architecture), agricultural scenes, village life, and local markets.
The captions for these images are taken from hand-written comments in
the Warners’ photo albums. Gift of the Estate of Gerald and Rella Warner.