“China 1949 Collection.” Carleton Digital Collections.
This digital collection includes photographs, letters, and reports created by Haldore Hanson during his time in China, all provided as JPEG images and scanned documents through CONTENTdm. For our project, these materials require downloading, renaming, and transcription into organized spreadsheet fields, along with geocoding the locations referenced in each item.
Carleton College Archives. “China 1949 Collection.” Carleton Digital Collections.
Rights, Privacy, Ethics
- The rights to these materials are held by Carleton College Archives, which permits educational, non-commercial use, and each item will be cited by its direct URL.
- Privacy concerns include depictions of named and unnamed Chinese civilians, soldiers, and Communist guerrilla leaders; while the collection is public, we will avoid using images involving distress and ensure that contextual information is presented respectfully and accurately.
“Humane Endeavour” ; the Story of the China War / by Haldore Hanson.
Hanson’s book provides essential narrative context for his travels and observations in China during the late 1930s, especially in Beiping, Nationalist-controlled areas, and CCP guerrilla zones. Because the source exists in print and sometimes as scanned PDFs, its content must be manually excerpted, summarized, and converted into structured text suitable for mapping, with historical place names standardized and matched to modern geographic coordinates.
Hanson, Haldore. “Humane Endeavour” ; the Story of the China War / by Haldore Hanson. Farrar & Rinehart, inc., [c1939], 1939.
Rights, Privacy, Ethics
- Although the work is still copyrighted, limited quotation and summary for academic use falls under fair use.
- Ethical considerations include avoiding over-reliance on Hanson’s outsider perspective and ensuring that descriptions of refugees, wartime suffering, and political actors are framed with historical nuance and without sensationalism.
Online Resources
For Maps
- Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Shaanxi Province (陕西省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.
- Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Shanxi Province (山西省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.
- Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Hebei Province (河北省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.
- Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Chahar Province (察哈尔省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.
![Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Shaanxi Province (陕西省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E4%BA%9A%E6%96%B0%E5%9C%B0%E5%AD%A6%E7%A4%BE1936%E5%B9%B4%E3%80%8A%E8%A2%96%E7%8F%8D%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BE%E3%80%8B--23%E9%99%95%E8%A5%BF%E7%9C%81.jpg){kind=link}
![Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Shanxi Province (山西省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E4%BA%9A%E6%96%B0%E5%9C%B0%E5%AD%A6%E7%A4%BE1936%E5%B9%B4%E3%80%8A%E8%A2%96%E7%8F%8D%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BE%E3%80%8B--22%E5%B1%B1%E8%A5%BF%E7%9C%81.jpg){kind=link}
![Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Hebei Province (河北省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pocket_China_Provincial_Atlas#/media/File:%E4%BA%9A%E6%96%B0%E5%9C%B0%E5%AD%A6%E7%A4%BE1936%E5%B9%B4%E3%80%8A%E8%A2%96%E7%8F%8D%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BE%E3%80%8B--19%E6%B2%B3%E5%8C%97%E7%9C%81.jpg){kind=link}
![Asia Geographic Society. (1936). Pocket China Provincial Atlas: Chahar Province (察哈尔省) [Map]. Wikimedia Commons.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pocket_China_Provincial_Atlas#/media/File:%E4%BA%9A%E6%96%B0%E5%9C%B0%E5%AD%A6%E7%A4%BE1936%E5%B9%B4%E3%80%8A%E8%A2%96%E7%8F%8D%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BE%E3%80%8B--28%E5%AF%9F%E5%93%88%E5%B0%94%E7%9C%81.jpg){kind=link}
Format
The maps above show the 1936 provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, and Chahar, which are associated with Haldore Hanson’s travels in China. Each image is a JPEG raster hosted on Wikimedia Commons, created from a static digital scan of the 1936 Pocket China Provincial Atlas published by the Asia Geographic Society. To be integrated into our digital project, these raster images need to be converted into spatially referenced formats such as GeoTIFF within GIS software such as ArcGIS by aligning known control points with modern coordinate systems.
Privacy/Ethics
From a privacy and ethics perspective, these materials depict only geographic features and contain no identifiable individuals or sensitive personal data, so there are no privacy or representation concerns.
For Images
- Marco Polo Bridge Incident, July 1937. War History Online.
- Shanghai civilians fleeing bombardment, 1937. Warfare History Network.
- Nationalist machine gun position in Shanghai, 1937. Wikimedia Commons.
- Bodies in Nanjing after the massacre, 1937. Wikimedia Commons.
- Wuhan in 1938 during Japanese bombing. Wikimedia Commons.
- Japanese invasion of Guangzhou in 1938. Pacific Eagles Aviation History.
- Battle of Hainan Island, 1939. Wikimedia Commons.
- Chongqing under bombing, 1939. Wikimedia Commons.
- Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun. Wikimedia Commons.
Format
The images above are historical photographs documenting the Second Sino-Japanese War during the period covered by Haldore Hanson’s travels. These images are JPEG or similar raster files hosted on public archives including Wikimedia Commons, War History Online, Warfare History Network, and Pacific Eagles Aviation History. The photographs serve as primary source materials illustrating the wartime conditions and events Hanson witnessed and reported on during his time in China.
Privacy/Ethics
These historical photographs document wartime events from over 85 years ago. While some images depict casualties and violence inherent to armed conflict, they are included for their historical and educational value in contextualizing Hanson’s journalism during this period. The images are drawn from publicly accessible historical archives and are part of the historical record of this conflict. No living individuals are identifiable in these photographs. We recognize the gravity of depicting wartime casualties and include these materials respectfully, solely to provide historical context for understanding the conditions Hanson documented in his reporting.