Americans in Chinese Treaty Ports: Trade and Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century U.S.-China Relations

This project explores the changing texture and relationship of trade and diplomacy between American and Chinese traders and diplomats from 1784 to the 1860s. The consumption of luxury goods by both Americans and Chinese and the relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain abroad both helped to shape U.S.-China diplomacy in the nineteenth century. This program will present an overview of the project but will focus on findings from traders' records at the MHS.