Written by John Regan

Since we rediscovered this Claremont alumna, Dr. Irene Eber, she has, through her knowledge, gifts of materials, and scholarship, taken our exploration to new depths.  Her extensive writings, including her recently published autobiographical book, The Choice, and her significant role in the film "Shanghai Ghetto" have opened a remarkable web of information that we could not have had without her.

We first caught sight of Eber’s work when Grace Chen, librarian in Asian Studies of Honnold Library at Claremont, pulled out a five-inch thick dissertation on a person whose name our Chinese team knew well, but the rest of us could not, at the time, even pronounce, Hu Shi. That was her Ph.D. dissertation on Hu Shi.

Earlier, one of the items we had found in the Honnold Library archives was a letter from Pettus’ old school friend, the last U.S. ambassador to China, Leighton Stuart.  As China was being lost to the United States at the end of World War II, Stuart asked Pettus what could be done to help Hu Shi find a position in the United States -- perhaps in Claremont? But we asked; who was this Hu Shi?  We had read his name on and off in the archival papers, and Pearl Buck mentioned him several times in her letters. And he had also been given a CGU honorary doctorate in 1950.  So we went looking. This search led to Irene Eber’s 1965 CGU Ph.D. dissertation.  Her dissertation committee had included Chen Shou-yi (who would, as a result, become another path to follow).

Irene Eber is an accomplished historian and professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  As a result of lengthy emails, conversations, and a visit to the Pettus Archives, Irene Eber has entrusted to the Pettus Archives many valuable old books from and about China, scores of Chinese posters, tapes of Hu Shi’s speeches, as well as a substantial collection of writings related to Jews in China during the last 500 years. Among these are the followings:

Medhurst, W. H. 1838. China: Its State and Prospects, with Especial Reference to the Spread of the Gospel. 1^st edition. Boston: Crocker and Brewster.  Medhurst was with the London Missionary Society

Zi Zhi Tong Jian. 1902. [Translated as the Comprehensive Mirror or The Mirror of Good Governance] written by Sima Guang.  It is comprised of many Chinese stitched volumes owned by Hu Shi and left with his colleague and friend, Chen Shou-yi, who, in turn, gave them to Irene Eber with an inscription when she received her Ph.D.

Chen Xu-jing, handwritten manuscript of his complete travelogue in the United States, and a nearly (possibly) complete hand written manuscript of his Dong Xi Wenhua Guan [Views on Eastern and Western Cultures, 1940s?].  Irene Eber has written about these manuscripts, “Chen Xu-jing gave these to Chen Shou-yi at the last moment in 1948 as he was leaving Canton (Guangzhou).  Chen Xu-jing had just accepted the presidency of Lingnan University, knew that the Red Army would soon conquer the city. [Much later] Chen Shou-yi gave them to me when I was leaving for Israel. Now they have come back where they properly belong, as Chen Xu-jing would have wished.”

Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County, 1974, Compiled by The Fine Arts Section of the Cultural Group under the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. Peking: People’s Fine Arts Publishing House.

Yan Jia Fu Nian Hua. 1983 Weixian Nian Hua Institute, Shangdong Province, China