A Brief Introduction to the Project

The past decade has witnessed a surge of research interest in Chinese women's literature, history, and culture of the Ming-Qing period (1368-1911) among scholars, researchers, and students in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, North America, and Europe. Women's history and culture are among the most rapidly changing and exciting avenues of new research in the China field and writings by women constitute a significant resource for ground-breaking studies. Chinese women's writings not only allow us to access women's experiences through their own voices, they also provide a gendered perspective on Chinese culture and society. However, most writings by women in pre-modern China have suffered from neglect and often only survive in unique manuscripts or rare published copies held by libraries in China. The general lack of accessibility to these fascinating and important texts has made it difficult to carry out extensive and in-depth research on them.

The McGill-Harvard-Yenching Library Ming-Qing Women’s Writings Digitization Project aims to make accessible for scholarly research the valuable collection of writings by women of the Ming-Qing period in the holdings of the Harvard-Yenching Library. This website is the result of this joint project. Intended as an efficient means of access and preservation and a valuable resource for scholarly research, the website consists of a virtual library of archival digital images of Ming-Qing women’s writings in the Harvard-Yenching Library, augmented by the online scholarly apparatus designed and implemented by the McGill University team.

The Ming-Qing Women’s Writings Digitization Project has been made possible by the generous support of the following individuals and institutions:

The Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation (Hong Kong)
Mrs. Amelia Wong
The Harvard-Yenching Institute (Harvard University)
The Richard H. Tomlinson Digital Library Access Award (McGill University)
Dean of Arts Development Fund (McGill University)