'Looking East: Taft in China' Lecture to Be Held Feb. 13

Please join UC Libraries for a public lecture featuring author Margo Taft Stever and Professor Hong Shen of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Thursday, February 13, 2014 ~ 10:00 a.m.-noon
Baur Room (room 3880 Corbett Center for the Performing Arts, College-Conservatory of Music)

Together with James Taft Stever, Margo Taft Stever and Hong Shen published the book Looking East: William Howard Taft and the 1905 U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Asia, The Photographs of Harry Fowler Woods (Zhejiang University Press, 2012).

Led by Secretary of War William Howard Taft and including a star-studded cast of politicians, businessmen and the first celebrity of the era, Alice Roosevelt, the 1905 diplomatic mission to Asia was made at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt. In addition to China, they visited Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines. Among many Ohio businessmen on the trip, Cincinnatian Harry Fowler Woods documented the trip in more than 700 photographs.

Margo Taft Stever will speak about the diplomatic trip and the Woods’ photographs.

Professor Hong Shen will discuss the Chinese response to this visit of the U.S. government delegation, as well as the interpretation of some of the old photographs of Peking (Beijing) taken by Woods.

More information on the diplomatic trip is available online.