Tomorrow, September 20th, is our first “Behind the Archives Door” event of the year! Join us to explore the Egge Collection on China, which contains materials dating from 1987 through 1990, collected by Claire ’57 and Don Egge ’55, two Puget Sound alums who lived and taught in China during the late 1980s. The collection is centered on the democracy movement in China in 1989. It contains newspaper clippings, maps, pamphlets, government policy publications, and posters. Generally, the collection is useful for examining aspects of Chinese life and culture including education, politics, and economics. A lot of the collection consists of English-language newspapers from China, so you don’t have to be able to read Mandarin to take advantage of this collection!
For this event, we will be focusing on the documents specifically relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which were part of a larger democratic movement in China. On June 4, 1989, students protested against Deng Xiaoping’s decision to minimize the funeral of a top government official, Hu Yaobang, who had supported the democratic movement. The Chinese government suppressed the protest using armed force, which led to civilian casualties.
Dr. Anthony Clark of Whitworth University, who will be giving the talk, specializes in East Asian history with a focus on late-imperial China. His research centers on the interactions between China and the West in China. Previously, he has worked with the Egge Collection transcribing some of the student posters.
To learn more about the Egge Collection and to hear Dr. Clark’s perspective on the collection and the Tiananmen Square protests, come to the Archives Seminar Room on the second floor of the library from 3:00-4:00 PM, Thursday, September 20. We’ll see you there!
The Archives & Special Collections is open Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Julia Masur