Philadelphia merchants had strong ties with their Chinese counterparts for almost a century before American Independence and for 164 years before the establishment of diplomatic relations or other official contacts. This book traces the evolution of those ties. The story begins with the establishment of the port of Philadelphia, which soon became America's largest, and ends with the first Sino-American treaty, which restructured the earlier informal relationships and signaled a decline in trade between the Delaware estuary and the China coast.
In its heyday Philadelphia controlled about one-third of the United States trade with China, and the traders' profits provided substantial capital for industry and public institutions. As Hilary Conroy writes in his foreword: "The author began his research by immersing himself in the then recently opened Stephen Girard Papers. He found, somewhat to his surprise, that they did not seem to forecast the racism which was later to poison American-Chinese relations." The author concludes that Sino-American relations have never been significantly improved over those manifested in Philadelphia's old China trade.
- ISBN13 9780271005126
- Publish Date 19 November 1990
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 January 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Pennsylvania State University Press
- Imprint Metalmark Books
- Format Hardcover (Library Binding)
- Pages 150
- Language English