Helen Foster Snow:
American Journalist in the Chinese Revolution
Spencer Standing
Daniel Nelson
Jr. Division
Group Website
Word Count Process Paper: 499
American Journalist in the Chinese Revolution
Spencer Standing
Daniel Nelson
Jr. Division
Group Website
Word Count Process Paper: 499
Our topic for this year's National History Fair is Helen Foster Snow. We believe this fulfills the requirements of the theme, “Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange.” However, we chose to focus on two of the themes: "Encounter and Exchange."
We chose "Encounter" because Helen Foster Snow interviewed many high officials in the Chinese government during the 1930’s revolution. She was one of the only American journalists allowed to do so, and being a woman reporter in a communist country was rare in those days. Through her encounters, she was able to give information worldwide about the Chinese leadership during a time of turmoil. Along with encountering Chinese government officials, Helen also took part in the December Ninth Student Movement. Through this experience, she was able to create a life-saving encounter between Chinese students and Chiang Kai-shek that rallied resistance against the Japanese invasion.
We chose to use "Exchange" as the other theme. We are not focusing on the definition of “exchange,” where a person trades one thing to gain another, but rather to replace an old item for a newer one. She exchanged, or replaced, China’s old ideas about industry with new Gung-Ho Industrial Cooperatives. We also touched on her exchange of unknown Chinese information with the outside world. Through her literature came a unique source for what was happening inside Communist China.
We decided on this topic because she is a native Utahn and we thought it would be more interesting and relatable since we are from Utah. Her extensive collection of personal letters, magazine articles, published books and other documents were donated to the Brigham Young University (BYU) Library Special Collections department. We live nearby and were able to see her original works which was exciting.
We conducted our research by visiting Daniel’s great aunt to hear about Helen Foster Snow’s contribution to China. His great aunt had seen Snow’s statue in Cedar City and the Helen Foster Snow Center in China, and had heard about her legacy from An Wei when she taught English in Xi'an. We went to the Lee library at BYU and checked out all the books that were written by her and about her. We also obtained special permission to enter the Special Collections section and handle her primary source documents. Afterwards, we looked through websites for more information. From there, we formulated our topic and decided on doing a website since it would be a good platform to post pictures and quotes. We felt this was essential to communicating the ideas of the project.
Finally, we had a personal connection since Daniel’s brother and great aunt worked in China with An Wei. He is one of the experts who wrote about Helen. We were able to record a Skype interview of him in China for our website. As a result, we were introduced to Eric Hyer, professor at BYU, and had a personal interview with him, and with Sheril Bischoff, Helen's niece and expert on Helen's life, in email and phone communications.
We chose "Encounter" because Helen Foster Snow interviewed many high officials in the Chinese government during the 1930’s revolution. She was one of the only American journalists allowed to do so, and being a woman reporter in a communist country was rare in those days. Through her encounters, she was able to give information worldwide about the Chinese leadership during a time of turmoil. Along with encountering Chinese government officials, Helen also took part in the December Ninth Student Movement. Through this experience, she was able to create a life-saving encounter between Chinese students and Chiang Kai-shek that rallied resistance against the Japanese invasion.
We chose to use "Exchange" as the other theme. We are not focusing on the definition of “exchange,” where a person trades one thing to gain another, but rather to replace an old item for a newer one. She exchanged, or replaced, China’s old ideas about industry with new Gung-Ho Industrial Cooperatives. We also touched on her exchange of unknown Chinese information with the outside world. Through her literature came a unique source for what was happening inside Communist China.
We decided on this topic because she is a native Utahn and we thought it would be more interesting and relatable since we are from Utah. Her extensive collection of personal letters, magazine articles, published books and other documents were donated to the Brigham Young University (BYU) Library Special Collections department. We live nearby and were able to see her original works which was exciting.
We conducted our research by visiting Daniel’s great aunt to hear about Helen Foster Snow’s contribution to China. His great aunt had seen Snow’s statue in Cedar City and the Helen Foster Snow Center in China, and had heard about her legacy from An Wei when she taught English in Xi'an. We went to the Lee library at BYU and checked out all the books that were written by her and about her. We also obtained special permission to enter the Special Collections section and handle her primary source documents. Afterwards, we looked through websites for more information. From there, we formulated our topic and decided on doing a website since it would be a good platform to post pictures and quotes. We felt this was essential to communicating the ideas of the project.
Finally, we had a personal connection since Daniel’s brother and great aunt worked in China with An Wei. He is one of the experts who wrote about Helen. We were able to record a Skype interview of him in China for our website. As a result, we were introduced to Eric Hyer, professor at BYU, and had a personal interview with him, and with Sheril Bischoff, Helen's niece and expert on Helen's life, in email and phone communications.