![]() | The Birth of a Republic Subjects: China -- History -- Revolution 1911−1912 -- Pictorial works; China -- History -- Revolution 1911–1912 -- Social aspects -- Pictorial works; China -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Pictorial works; Wuchang Qu (Wuhan Shi China) -- History --; China's 1911 Revolution ended the rule of both the 267-year-old Manchu Qing dynasty and the more than 2,000-year-old imperial system, establishing Asia's first, if not lasting, republic. Because war correspondence was not an established profession in China and the camera was a rare apparatus in Chinese life at the time, photographs of the revolution are rare. Francis E. Stafford (1884-1938), an American working as a photographer for Asia's largest publishing company, Commercial Press in Shanghai, had unusual access to both sides of the conflict. The Birth of a Republic documents this tumultuous period through Stafford's photographic eye. Hanchao Lu , professor of Asian history at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the author of Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century and Street Criers: A Cultural History of Chinese Beggars. |
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