Photographs & the Carnegie Expedition to China
Photographic documentation of China began in 1846 with the opening of a Hong Kong daguerreotype studio. The earliest surviving China photograph was taken in 1851. Beginning in 1858, the number of photographers--European and Chinese, professionals and amateurs--grew. Although most of the activity was in coastal city studios, a few intrepid men undertook to document the vast countryside. The best known of these, John Thompson, worked between 1868 and 1872. From 1907 to 1911 botanist E. H. Wilson took photographs of the interior while collecting specimens.
Now a cache of photographs, earlier than Wilson's but, like his, taken coincidentally to professional pursuits, has come to public attention. Taken by Maine native R. Harvey Sargent, of the US Geological Survey, during a scientific expedition in 1903-04 which was funded by the Carnegie Institution, they capture the character and environment of rural China, and reflect the wonder and enthusiasm of an amateur photographer. The expedition, searching for early trilobite fossils, was headed by prominent geologist and seismologist Bailey Willis, who was aided by Sargent, a topographer, and geologist Eliot Blackwelder.
The explorers first crossed Shandong Province, trekked west from Beijing into Shanxi, then south to the Yellow River. Crossing the river, they moved west to ancient Xian, south across the Qinling Mountains, and finally down tributary rivers to the Yangzi.
From Willis' memoir, Friendly China (1948), it appears that the American scientists met a warm welcome, despite the recent Boxer troubles and the blatant imperialism of certain other foreign expeditions. Willis published a report on his geological discoveries, while Sargent's maps won acclaim for their accuracy.