Harley Farnsworth MacNair

Harley Farnsworth MacNair (b. 22 July 1891 Greenfields, Pennsylvania -d. June 22, 1947) was a scholar and academic specializing in the modern international relations of East Asia.

Family and early life

MacNair was born in Greenfields, Pennsylvania, the son of Douglad Evander MacNair and Nettie Adelia Farnsworth MacNair. He was among the first students in the University of Redlands, an interdenominational university founded by Baptists in Southern California, graduating in 1912. As an undergraduate, he served in the town library and as the university's librarian, and was president of the student body. Although he volunteered to serve in Boone University in Wuchang, China, he was assigned to St. John's University, an Episcopal institution in Shanghai in 1916. There he became professor of history and government, and head of the department in 1919. He pursued graduate studies during these years, studying on furloughs, and earned a Masters Degree at Columbia University, New York, in 1916 and a Ph.D. in 1922 from the University of California at Berkeley. His doctoral dissertation was published in Shanghai as The Chinese Abroad: Their Position and Protection (1924). He came to the United States to spend his furlough of 1927-1928 at University of Washington, and the summer of 1928 at University of Chicago. He and his mother moved their household goods to Chicago, but MacNair was not at first inclined to accept the offer of an ongoing postition. He returned to St. John's and did not leave that position until 1931.

Perhaps the most important factor in overcoming his reluctance was the urging of Florence Wheelock Ayscough (1878-1942), a writer and a translator of Chinese poetry. She had been born in Shanghai and lived in China until she was eleven. She and MacNair had first met in 1916, when the two immediately became fast friends. He later wrote that "Tea," with her, "was an occasion for the exchange of ideas with friends around a fire or in a garden." But after she and her husband left Shanghai, the two met only in 1929, when she told him of her belief that his work in China was done, and that Chicago was a better chance, as he later put it, to "reverse what I had long been doing in China: help the West to understand the East." He husband died in 1935 while they were living in Chicago, and she and MacNair married September 7, 1935. Their home in Chicago became the gathering place for persons concerned with China.

Professional life and career

Modern Chinese History: Selected Readings a two-volume compilation of some 400 exerpts on China from 1793, chosen to be assigned along with H.B. Morse's The International Relations of the Chinese Empire in his course at St. John's. The selection was aimed to give sources of the "thoughts, the customs, and the deeds of those who 'made' history". MacNair went on to condense Morse's three volumes into Far Eastern International Relations (1928), co-authored with Morse, which he finished in 1927 as he and other St. John's faculty were standing guard in expectation of armed uprisings to welcome Nationalist Army troops. The Nationalist government authorities, however, suppressed a planned printing in Shanghai, and the American printing did not appear until 1931. The two authors revised the book, and further revisions were undertaken by Donald F. Lach.

In the 1930s, especially after his marriage to Florence Ayscough, his interests turned away from international relations and political conditions, with far less professional scholarship. During World War II, however, he was a staff member of the University of Chicago Civil Affairs Training School, where the views he presented were sometimes in conflict with American government policies. His last major publication was an edited symposium, China, which gathered essays mainly on culture and history.

He did not, however, undertake the study of the Chinese language, although he admired it tremendously the the work of his wife and others, and did not use Chinese language in his research, feeling that he did not have the time for both this study and his extensive professional obligations.

Selected writings

For a fuller listing of MacNair's works, see Price, "Harley Farnsworth MacNair."

• MacNair, Harley Farnsworth (1922). Modern Chinese History: Selected Readings. Shanghai: Commercial Press. Internet Archive online Here.
• ____. Protection of Alien Chinese. Doctoral Thesis. University of California, Berkeley, 1922. Hathi Trust online Here
• ____. The Chinese Abroad, Their Position and Protection: A Study in International Law and Relations. (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1924). Online at Hathi Press here
• ____, China's New Nationalism And Other Essays (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1925.
• ____. China's International Relations & Other Essays. (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1926).
• ____. China in Revolution: An Analysis of Politics and Militarism under the Republic. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931). Internet Archive online here
• The Real Conflict Between China and Japan: An Anallysis of Opposing Ideologies Internet Archive online Here
• Hosea Ballou Morse and, Far Eastern International Relations. (Boston, New York: Houghton Miffln, 1931).
• ____, with Liu, N.. Voices from Unoccupied China. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1944)
• ____. China. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946).
• ____, and Donald F. Lach. Modern Far Eastern International Relations. (New York: Van Nostrand, 1950).
• ____, and Donald Frederick Lach. Modern Far Eastern International Relations. New York: Van Nostrand Company, 1955). Online here
• Hosea Ballou Morse, and ___, translated by Zengyi Yao. Yuan Dong Guo Ji Guan Xi Shi. (Shanghai: Shanghai shu dian chu ban she, Di 1 ban., 1998). ISBN 7806224122.

Reference

• Price, Maurice T. (1948), "Harley Farnsworth Macnair (July 22, 1891-June 22, 1947)", The Far Eastern Quarterly, 8 (1): 45–63, JSTOR 2049482 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Biographical Note (Guide to the Harley F. MacNair Papers), University of Chicago Library {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)