Fifth and Sixth Annual Reports of the Board of Managers of the Chinese-American Union of Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Howard Harvey, Printer, 1891. Good +. 6½" x 4½". Stapled wrappers. Pp. 39. Good plus: front wrap and first several leaves with insect predation at lower inner corner, not affecting text; some staining to wrappers; clean and lightly toned throughout.

This is a report issued by a religious organization that aimed to improve the lives of Chinese American immigrants, the Chinese-American Union of Philadelphia (CAUP). The text provides great insight into CAUP's belief system, informs on its work, and also sheds some light on the reasonably early years of the Chinese population of Philadelphia.

According to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia online (https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/),
"Philadelphia's Chinatown had its roots in the "great driving out" of Chinese from the American West in the 1870s and 1880s, when Chinese migrants fled racist backlash and violence. During these decades Chinese merchants and laundry men established a small enclave along the 900 block of Race Street, on the outskirts of the central business district. At a time when Philadelphia was the 'Workshop of the World' and European immigrants' lives were structured around the proximity of home and work, Chinese immigrants were restricted to domestic service, laundry work, and small commercial ventures such as import/export gift shops, groceries, and, later, restaurants. Although many Chinese men lived and worked in laundries across the city, they were not integrated into these neighborhoods; Chinatown functioned as their true home and the center of Chinese community in the city."

CAUP was short-lived: it was founded in 1885 and dissolved in early 1892. It was led by the Reverend Dr. Wilbur F. Paddock, an outspoken preacher in Philadelphia for over 40 years. CAUP ran a home for the Chinese population of Philadelphia, with rooms for religious services, education and lectures, entertainment and temporary sleeping quarters. Its work was summed up well by CAUP's treasurer in the item on offer:

"there are about one thousand Chinamen in the city, and fully half of them have been brought under Christian influence more or less by the agency of the Union. It is the mission of the latter to see that the Chinaman shall be treated as a man; that he shall be properly protected from injury or insult, and be cared for when sick."

This report has 19 pages of text reporting on CAUP's anniversary meetings of 1890 and 1891 and includes partial transcriptions of speeches. They give insight into CAUP's driving principles for its interest in Chinese immigrants, especially when set against the background of 1882's Chinese Exclusion Act (CEA) which was supposed to expire in 1892. The CEA created a ten year ban on the immigration of Chinese laborers; it was extended in 1892 and made permanent in 1902 until it was fully repealed in 1943. The act also forced Chinese who were already living in the United States to obtain special certifications to return if they ever traveled internationally.

Henry Baker, a Methodist Episcopal Church minister, was the first to address the 1890 meeting by commenting on the CEA:

"The wrongs of the Chinaman shall yet be righted. The cruel inequality of our decision that the Hun, the Pole and the Italian, and that dreadful something, the anarchist, which belong to no nationality . . . that all these may come freely, but that the inoffensive Chinese laborer may not come, shall be corrected. Under our laws, a Chinaman who by honest industry has built up a mining plant . . . if he leaves it to visit his home and his parents, can never return. Is it right?"

There's also a portion of Reverend H.L. Wayland's speech as he waxed on immigrant citizenship. While we don't know if Wayland spoke for the CAUP as a whole, it nonetheless chose to print these thoughts of his, a common view at the time:

"These men are residents of our country; I do not say that they are citizens. I am not disposed to complain particularly of this fact. I do not conceive that the greatest need of America at the present time is the LangdonManorBooks.com -20- addition of a vast mass of ignorance to our voting population. I should be entirely willing to have the right of suffrage limited to those who own taxable property and who can read and write . . . I should be entirely willing if the right of suffrage were restricted to natives of the country."

While he wasn't for immigrant citizenship, Wayland was firm in his belief of treating all immigrants equally:

"They have a right to expect that justice which is due to every human being. They have a right to expect that, while demanding for our own countrymen equality of right and privilege in China, we shall not deny to them these same rights and privileges in America . . . Justice requires that we should protect these people from violence and ruffianism; that such hideous outrages as have been perpetrated in Oregon, Washington, California, should be visited with punishment."

This section of the book further shared that the 1891 meeting had a speech by a man named Moi Wong, while a Mrs. Lumina Chew, "dressed in the native costume of her country, gave an interesting and humorous address on 'Chinese Home Life.'" The report from 1890 also mentioned a Chinese New Year's festival that was to be held at Horticultural Hall as a fundraiser for a new building for CAUP. The 1891 report provided much detail on the event, calling it "one of the most unique and interesting exhibitions ever presented in this city, being a representation of Chinese customs, dwellings, and industries, with thoroughly Chinese decorations, transforming the interior of the Hall into a veritable Chinese street." That report also shared that the event was not a financial success, and a similar exhibition in November 1890 ultimately lost money.

The rest of the book lists CAUP officers, membership fees and meeting information. It contains the group's Constitution and By-laws as well as treasurer's reports and responsibilities of committees. Importantly, it also lists the dues collected from members for each year, by name, showing that around eighty percent of its membership were women as well as a mixture of religious denominations. The book further lists the location of at least six Chinese Sunday schools in Philadelphia.

A rare and important publication simultaneously documenting the late 19th century Chinese community in Philadelphia, as well as the short-lived organization which sought to assist it. OCLC shows one holding, and a Google search revealed one other.