Awash in the Storm of National Revolution

This chapter explores the aftermath of the collapse of the Wilsonian moment and its uneven and gendered effects on American New Women missionaries' enterprises in the Nationalist Revolution period (1924–27). It was at this time that the missionaries came to feel the power of the national revolution movement and found their projects were being reframed within new ideas and articulated in a new vocabulary that had become current in China. In taking such changes into account, they had to interpret and respond to new developments and ultimately reconsider their own perceptions of the United States and the very nature of their existence in China. Local Chinese resistance to their educational projects and institutions directed toward American New Women missionaries also brought into play gender differences and issues among the Chinese themselves and consequently made the difficulties facing the missionaries all the more complex and entrenched.

Science as the Key to Modern Progress

This chapter shows how the notion of modern science brought to China by American New Women missionaries in the form of medicine and nursing generated concrete responses from their Chinese counterparts. The notion of science as a universally applicable and fundamentally egalitarian element for the development of a modern society and its constituents was increasingly influential in both the United States and China during the early twentieth century. Consequently, American New Women missionaries were able to establish their status as scientific professionals whose expertise could contribute to China's modernization process. At the same time, however, their faith in the new notion of science brought with it the idea of “separate but equal” gender roles, which brought them into conflict with many of their male counterparts from the United States who wanted to compete with other imperial powers to gain influence in China.

New Women in the Civilizing Mission

This chapter explores how the notion of civilization affected historical consciousness in the U.S. and China, and was also involved in the creation of the subjectivities of the New Woman: on the U.S. side as a benevolent female emancipator by a country at the vanguard of historical progress in the world, and in China as a self-sufficient modern female in a country in imminent danger of falling into a state of wangguo. In addition, the chapter discusses the experiences of the first generation of American New Women missionaries who sailed to China to be part of the civilizing mission otherwise known as the U.S. foreign mission movement. They took issue with the direction of Chinese xin nüxing and with the radical activism among young Chinese women in the 1911 Revolution that overturned the Qing dynasty. By appropriating popularized versions of evolutionary theories, these missionaries constructed their legitimacy as teachers of Chinese women on the basis of comparisons with them, and they created educational projects and enterprises for Chinese women designed to create a more acceptable kind of New Woman that fell in line with mainstream views of American missionary women.

Lost in the Paradigm of World History

This chapter discusses the eventual repatriation of American New Women missionaries. After they returned to the United States, many of them felt lost in their own country. There was also a profound difference between the views of returning American New Women missionaries and the general American public about the United States' role in world history. The chapter also raises the important question of how and why the experiences of New Women in both the United States and China fell into oblivion in the post-World War II era. The erasure of their experiences from public memory suggests that the politics of world history has not relaxed its grip on shaping global relations in a unipolar, bipolar, or even multipolar world.

The New Woman and World History

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the experiences of American New Women missionaries who went to China during the early twentieth century in order to uplift and modernize young Chinese women. By examining the transformations in the significance of American New Women missionaries' enterprises in China, it shows that views of historical progress on both sides of the Pacific were central to the formation and reformation of the subjectivities of New Women, American and Chinese alike. The book takes the position that the New Woman was also a source of agency tightly entangled with the competition for survival and the idea of historical progress in an age in which modernity was being adopted and incorporated in non-Western countries such as China. Consequently, the rationale for the existence of enterprises undertaken by American New Women missionaries and their relationship with Chinese New Women was contingent on the fluid relations and perceptions between the United States and China, which were shaped, negotiated, and contested within the paradigm of Hegelian variants of world history.

Divergent Paths of Historical Progress

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, American New Women became more aware of the widening psychological gap between them and their Chinese counterparts. This chapter explores the transformation that occurred among these women regarding their understanding of historical progress, perceptions of their country, and ideas about their own role in China. It was also during this same period, one of national revolution, that the Great Depression exposed the failure of the capitalist economic system (strongly associated with the United States) to the entire world and triggered a change in American New Women missionaries' views toward the place their country occupied in the historical progress of the world. As a result, Chinese xin nüxing began turning their interest away from becoming like American New Women missionaries—urban middle-class professionals. Instead, they became increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the poor, especially those in the countryside, and to the idea of socialism.

United States Internationalism and Chinese Modernity

This chapter takes up the rising tide of internationalism in the United States during the 1910s and examines how a new generation of New Women, who entertained the international spirit buoyed by burgeoning Wilsonian liberal internationalism, perceived the United States' place in the world and their own role in China. Within U.S. borders, internationalism was first conceived as a way to consolidate its increasingly culturally diverse populace under the banner of universal democracy. It was in countries such as China that this notion of the universality of U.S. ideals and values was put to the test. In China, the new generation of internationally minded New Women missionaries found a pleasing reality—the existence of a favorable image of the United States—and became even more convinced of the validity of their internationalism. The favorable image of the United States also meant that American New Women missionaries could become desirable role models for Chinese women: at their institutions, Chinese xin nüxing students earnestly responded to the expectation of their teachers, and these young Chinese women evolved into genuine New Women in line with the principle put forth by American New Women missionaries.