Mrs. Marrow was born in Shanghai, China (1916), where her father, Richard Henry Gregory, was a tobacconist employed by the British-American Tobacco Company. She grew up in Shanghai and came to the U.S. (1935) for college.
In her interview, Mrs. Marrow discusses her father's career and how he came to go to China; the role of foreigners in China and their communities and schools; daily lives of American women in China; the power of Chinese warlords (especially Chiang Kai-Shek); Chinese politics, including the lack of centralized government, corruption of local officials, and the rise of the Communist Revolution; hardships involved in travel within China and dangers from river pirates; the effects of various wars, from the Sino-Russian to World War II, on the lives of foreign nationals; and the relationship between the business community and missionaries in China and how each group approached the Chinese people.
Mrs. Marrow also comments on anti-German feelings generated during World War I and the pre-World War II period, and how these feelings affected Germans living in China; and the lack of anti-Semitic feeling among the foreign population in China as opposed to the anti-Semitism she later found in the U.S.
Gift of Jane Gregory Marrow
Processed by D. Beard, April 1985
Encoded by Apex Data Services
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1904-1934