Sources & method

How an object gets from a table to a catalogue record, and where the limits of this catalogue are.

The physical source

Two batches of photographs of objects held by the Dehuai Foundation for Historical Images: twenty-three photographs of eighteen objects made on 30–31 July 2026 (the first accession), and twenty-two photographs of nineteen objects made on 23 July 2025 (the second). The objects were photographed flat, in daylight, without a copy stand, and are presented uncropped except for the Foundation’s mark. Where an object carries text on the reverse and the reverse was photographed, both images sit on one record.

Dating

Dates come, in order of preference, from: a printed copyright line; a printed series or accession number within a known run; the street address in a publisher’s imprint, which can often be tied to a range of years; and mount style. Every date that rests on inference rather than on a printed date is flagged on the record.

Pairing fronts and backs

Six objects in this catalogue are recorded from two photographs each. Pairing rests on sequential capture, matching mount stock, and subject continuity between the printed label and the image. Where any of those signals is weak, the record says so under What is not known and the pairing should be confirmed against the object. In the second accession one press print was photographed on its caption side only, and one comic book is recorded from its cover and one interior page.

Where a statement comes from

Every record keeps those two columns apart. If the archive supplied something rather than reading it, the record says so.

Historical background used in these records

Background statements on the following were checked against published reference sources before being written into a record:

1. The North Adams strike of 1870 and Calvin T. Sampson’s recruitment of Chinese contract labor against the Knights of St. Crispin.
2. Chinese labor on the Central Pacific Railroad, including the June 1867 strike, and Alfred A. Hart’s role as the railroad’s photographer.
3. Carleton E. Watkins’s San Francisco gallery addresses and the break between his earlier stock and the New Series.
4. Lawrence & Houseworth and the successor firm Thomas Houseworth & Co.
5. Chy Lung v. Freeman (1876) and state attempts to regulate arriving passengers.
6. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, its documentary regime, and its repeal in 1943.
7. The 1876 Centennial Exhibition and the Centennial Photographic Co. concession.
8. ACME Newspictures and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
9. The destruction of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the fire of April 1906.
10. The 9 May 1938 relief parade in New York’s Chinatown, and International News Photos as the picture service of Hearst’s International News Service.
11. The Office of Facts and Figures (October 1941–June 1942), its Graphics Division, and its absorption into the Office of War Information.
12. United China Relief, chartered in New York in February 1941, its constituent agencies, and its place in the National War Fund from 1943.
13. Claire L. Chennault, the American Volunteer Group (in combat from 20 December 1941), the China Air Task Force, and the Fourteenth Air Force from March 1943.
14. The Chinese-American Composite Wing, activated 1 October 1943, and its command structure.
15. The Chinese Expeditionary Force, the Ramgarh Training Center in Bihar, the Chinese Army in India, and the Salween crossing of 11–12 May 1944.
16. The reopening of the Burma–China road at Mong-Yu (27 January 1945) and the Wanting ceremony of 28 January 1945.
17. Blood chits carried by Allied airmen in China, from the 1937 Chinese pattern to the American multilingual chits of December 1941, and the Air Ground Aid Section.
18. The Curt Teich production-number system for dating postcards.
19. The Magnuson Act of 17 December 1943 and the repeal of Chinese exclusion.

Full citations are being compiled for the next release. Where a claim could not be verified it was left out of the record rather than softened into the description.

Known gaps