Baker Business Collections

Baker Library, Harvard Business School

Baker Library – Contemporary Collections

Country Guide, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

This guide points to the best China business focused resources available to the HU community.

Baker Library – Special Collections

Virtual exhibition A Chronicle of the China Trade, The Records of Augustine Heard & Co., 1840-1877

Augustine Heard & Co. was one of the largest and most influential American trading companies in China during the nineteenth century.  Baker Library holds the records of the Heard family—a large archive tracing almost every aspect of the business and the family.  This collection is considered one of the most comprehensive and significant archives of American trading companies in China. The extensive Heard family collection was the subject of the exhibition “A Chronicle of the China Trade.”

Guide to 19th Century China Trade Manuscript Collections, Baker Library, HBS (includes links to some digital content). This guide is part of the virtual exhibition.

    • Heard Family Collections
    • Records of Leading Trading Firms in China
    • Records of Merchant Firms Engaged in Trade with China
    • Personal Papers of American Traders in China

Additional manuscript/photographic collections:

  • Tea Industry Photograph Collection (1885)

This collections consists of a photograph album containing albumen prints and loose albumen prints that depict Chinese tea manufacturing processes, ca. 1885.

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/resources/513

  • Electric Boat Company records (1910-1923)

A collection of unbound letters, principally between the Electric Boat Company of New York and Groton, Conn. and Naval attaché, Commander I.V. Gillis (1875-1948) in Beijing. Gillis served as agent for the company in China. The letters provide insight into the political and financial affairs in China and Japan. The primary subject is the prospect of building submarines for China.

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/resources/12654

  • Records of the Imperial German Legation for China regarding the Tienstin-Pukow Railway (1898-1916)

Documents, correspondence, reports, maps, plans regarding the Tientsin-Pukow Railway (initially called the Tientsin-Chinkiang Railway) collected by the Imperial German legation in Beijing for 1898-1916

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/resources/11096

  • Hsia Pin-fang papers (1930-1951)

The Hsia Pin-Fang, HBS MBA 1927, papers offer a lens to explore the Bank of China and its overseas branches during the Communist Revolution. The records begin in 1931 when Hsia Pin-fang was appointed manager of the New York agency for the Bank of China until 1951 with his resignation from managing the London agency of the Bank. The collection includes incoming and outgoing correspondence, reports to the head office of the Bank of China, cables, and some bank records.

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/resources/588

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