“Living Specimen:” Afong Moy Becomes a Celebrity by Satisfying America’s Curiosity about China in the 1830s

Detail of Afong Moy (1815@ to ?). The Chinese Lady

Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections

When Afong Moy appeared in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1835, the local newspaper encouraged all to go see the first female visitor to the United States from China. The editor argued the Chinese Lady served as a “living specimen” of a culture known of but not truly experienced. Children learned of the many dynasties in school. Americans drank Chinese tea and possessed a considerable number of goods from China: fans, combs, shawls, baskets, games, porcelain, and silks. Women learned from magazines how to dress and style their hair in the Chinese fashion. Few Americans, however, had traveled to Asia or had encountered anyone from the region. The Providence newspaper pointed out that this event was a perfect chance for many to learn about the customs of a culture “which is so different from anything with which they have been acquainted.”

Rural Repository (Hudson, NY) February 28, 1835, 159

Americans learned about China from Afong Moy and in turn made her a celebrity. They attended her performances in large numbers wherever she traveled, paying twenty-five to fifty cents each. Fans pasted newspaper reports in their diaries and commented on their experiences. Teen-aged Margaret Gibson sympathized with Afong Moy in her letter to her brother. She wrote “Poor thing she is much to be pitied, she seemed very timid, and confused.” A Baltimore woman dressed as her for a masquerade ball. Race horse breeders named fillies after her. Men wrote poems in her honor; William Tappan of Cincinnati published one that began “I marvel at thy curious mien, thy strange, fantastic air.” Newspapers widely reported on her tour and spread rumors of her marriage prospects, her alleged disappearance, and the likelihood of her publishing a journal of her travels.

And those travels were extensive. Afong Moy arrived from China in 1834 when she was about nineteen, accompanied by a maid and an American female chaperone. Historians know little of her background or even her true name, but she was likely the daughter of a merchant in the city of Guangzhou. American traders arranged her passage across the ocean and her presentation to audiences in the United States as a promotion for the goods they were selling. They created a setting filled with Chinese art and furniture where she could (with help from an interpreter) share elements of her culture such as dress, song, her bound feet, and eating with chopsticks.

Afong Moy. The Chinese Lady

Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections

Afong Moy apparently believed she would be returned to her home after one year. She appeared before audiences in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC (where she met President Andrew Jackson), Baltimore, Charleston, Boston, Providence, and many smaller communities throughout New England. She experienced a grueling schedule but rather than travel back to China after a year, she continued on the road with an entertainment manager, covering one thousand miles in 1836. She performed, along with musicians and magicians, in Florida, Cuba, New Orleans, and towns all up the Mississippi River before returning to audiences in New York City. Afong Moy saw more of America than most of its citizens. Unfortunately she never published a journal and we know nothing of her perspective.

Advertisement in Southern Rose Bud (Charleston, SC) May 2, 1835, 144

She could have used the royalties from a book since, though a star, she was not wealthy. When audience numbers declined in 1837, she found herself hobbled by her bound feet and alone in a New Jersey poorhouse. Those who had taken care of her were gone: her maid, chaperone, manager, and interpreter. Outraged fans publicized her plight and newspapers across the country printed demands that she be helped to return to China. She received much needed money but no opportunity to go home.

 

Alexandria Gazette, November 13, 1849

P.T. Barnum revived her career in 1847 when Americans had a renewed interest in everything Chinese but he replaced her with a younger woman from China by 1850. In 1851 Afong Moy performed in Cleveland, but it is unknown what happened to her after that. She remained the first Chinese woman in America but others had followed. She died in obscurity but not as a specimen. 

Sources

Davis, Nancy E. The Chinese Lady: Afong May in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

“Extraordinary Arrival—The Young Chinese Lady.” Alexandria Gazette October 21, 1834. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85025007/1834-10-21/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1789&index=0&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Foo-chee+Julia&proxdistance=5&date2=1963&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=julia+foochee&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

“Margaret S. Gibson to John Gibson” Maryland Historical Society, quoted in Davis, Chinese Lady, 158-159.

Haddad, John. “The Chinese Lady and China for the Ladies: Race, Gender, and Public Exhibition in Jacksonian America.” https://www.chsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2011HP_02_Haddad.pdf

Republican Herald (Providence, RI) Sept. 2, 1835, quoted in Davis, Chinese Lady, 182.

Tappan, William. The Poems of William B. Tappan. Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1836. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4hm5sm1q&view=1up&seq=5

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