Folder name: Burlingame, Anson
Call Number M0119/1/5 (Box 1 folder 5)
Stanford Library Special Collections
Signed Letters:
AB to Brother Joel Burlingame, from Shanghai, 4/18/1862
Mentions he is about to leave for Peking and will form the (American) Legation there.
Mrs. B to sister, Peking 2/12/1867, 1 folded sheet with small handwriting on both sides. includes descriptions of life in Peking, see some excerpts below (photocopy requested)
“ There, we meet Mongolians with their long trains of camels, who have come to Peking to …they’re clothed in sheepskins from head to foot…
We love very much the wall of the city, and almost everyday we go to walk on the top of the wall, which is about 40 ft broad and paired with brick, the wall is 60 ft tall, build of brick, and filled in with earth. At sunset, all the gates in the wall are shut and no one can go out or come into the city …”
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Nelson H Burlingame to cousin 4/10/1939
“For the past 20 years, I have been writing a history of the ‘B” Family, which will be published this fall and I am very anxious that it be as nearly complete as possible.”
Manuscript article
Anson’s sociability 1892 (manuscript, 7 pages, photocopy requested)
Manuscript by Susan B, AB’s sister
Quote from an article published just after AB’s death on his sociability by Mr. ? (unable to decipher the name) of Tiffin, Ohio
Excerpts:
Page 1
“We played together as children, attended the same school, Sabbath school and church. We joined the church at the same time. Now Anson Burlingame is dead, and the world has lost its most efficient worker, in the cause of Christianity civilization. By careful study and patient research he had become familiar with the language, literature, (?) and civil institutions of China, and was the first-Christian to win the free confidence of that (?) government and ? . Enchanted with the most important diplomatic duties ever committed to one man, he had nearly completed the mission when he was cut down by death. His career has (?) a tribute of gratitude…, another will testify as to the great and conspicuous events of his political life. Anson was handsome, jolly and loveable in childhood, as he was earnest, energetic and devoted in manhood.
Page 2
An account how “Anson always helped the oppressed”
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Newspaper clips:
Date and Source unknown (Most likely San Mateo Times, because County Clerk Hinmin refers to San Mateo County)
Title: A City Perpetuates His Name (photocopy requested)
Caption: Here is a reproduction of one of the few photographs in existence of Anson Burlingame, late American minister to China, for whom the city of Burlingame was named by William C. Ralston, the founder. It is from the family album of County Clerk Elmore B. Hinman, a grand-nephew of the envoy. The story of this elegant gentleman and how the city happened to be named for him was told in the Times’ History of Burlingame. Today’s chapter relates how Mr. Burlingame would have reaped a fourtune had he retained land he purchased here in the early days.
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The Springfield Daily, 9/15/1904
Title: Voice of United States in Orient
“His untimely death, while in Europe, is thus referred to by John W. Foster, in his “Century of American Diplomacy”: “This event proved a double misfortune to China…secondly, in depriving its government of the services and leadership of an able and tactful foreigner to direct its efforts toward a more liberal and progressive policy. We can only conjecture what might have been the future of China if Mr. Burlingame’s life had been spared.”
Christian Science Monitor 9/30/1912
Title: Book on Work of Burlingame in China is especially Timely: Prof. F. Wells Williams Along With Biography Takes up Ethics of Dealing with New Republic
San Mateo Times 9/8/1934
Title The History of Burlingame, Chapter 2
Compiled by Constance Lister, Edited by Geoffrey A. Currall
(about Burlingame Treaty) “It also grants privileges to citizens of either country residing in the other, the privilege of naturalization being specifically withheld.
From the amended United States-China treaty sprang a strong hostility to the Chinese, particularly in San Francisco and other California ports, for the clauses added by Burlingame.
Bancroft says:
‘Against this liberal and intrinsically just policy, the anti-Chinese party in California protested, and as the years passed, rebelled more and more strenuously…The revised statutes of 1873 dropped the words, ‘being free white persons,’ by clerical error, it was alleged, and a few Asiatics took advantage of the wording to become naturalized. This advance upon the privileges of white and black men roused renewed hostility, public sentiment generally being against incorporating into our civilization there alien pagans, and in 1875 Mongolians were excluded from naturalization rights.’”
Note: Bancroft “History of California”
Banquet announcement with engraved portrait of AB
