Walter C. Lowdermilk Sichuan Photographs 1
I have finished another ArcGIS map containing the photos that Lowdermilk took in Sichuan Province 四川省 before and during the first leg of his 1943 trip from southwest to northwest China. You can access the map via the link below.
This photo of Lowdermilk taken with the rest of the investigation party [L-595] at the start of their trip has the caption: “Our survey party leaves Chengtu for the Northwest survey, with Messrs. Feng, Yieh, Chang, W. C. Lowdermilk, Liang, Lao Liu, and Djang. We are standing before the prized station wagon which the Ministry of Agriculture has purchased.”
Lao Liu 老刘 was their driver and I don’t know anything about him, but Lowdermilk listed the educational backgrounds and official positions of the other individuals appointed to the field party in his “Preliminary Report on Findings of a Survey of a Portion of the Northwest for a Program of Soil, Water and Forest Conservation” [1943].
I have inserted the Chinese names of the survey team members in the list of CVs that Lowdermilk provided, the governmental organs in which they served, and (wherever possible) links to their full biographies:
N.F. Chang [Zhang Naifeng 张乃凤], B.S. (Cornell University), M.S. (Agr.) University of Wisconsin. Chief, Department of Soils and Fertilisers [土壤肥料组], National Agricultural Research Bureau [农业实验所], Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry [农林部].
T.C. Tsiang [Jiang Deqi 蒋德麒], B.S. (University of Nanking [金陵大学]), M.S. (University of Minnesota). Senior Technician, National Agricultural Research Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Y.K. Liang [Liang Yongkang 梁永康], B.S. (National Chiao-tung University [国立交通大学]), M.S. (University of Michigan), Assistant Chief Engineer, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
H.K. Fu [Fu Huanguang 傅焕光], B.S. (University of Philippine Islands). Senior Technician, National Forestry Research Bureau [中央林业实验所], Soil and Water Conservation Experimental Station [水土保持实验区], Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
P.C. Yieh [Ye Peizhong 叶培忠], B.S. (University of Nanking), M.S. (University of Edinburgh). Senior Technician, Soil and Water Conservation Experimental Station, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
C.L. Feng [Feng Zhaolin 冯兆麟], B.S. (University of Nanking), Junior Technician, Soil and Water Conservation Experimental Station, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Y.C. Djang [Zhang Yuanxi 章元羲], B.S. (Polytechnical College, Tientsin [天津河北省立工业学院]) M.S. (Cornell University), Senior Technician, National Conservancy Board [水利委员会], Executive Yuan [行政院].
C. Chen [Chen Chi 陈迟], B.S. (University of Chekiang [浙江大学]), Senior Technician, Kansu Agricultural Improvement Bureau [甘肃农业改进所].
The biographies of these individuals clearly show that the planning and implementation of soil and water conservation programs in wartime China fell to mid-level bureaucrats, most of whom had received training abroad during the prewar period.
No less significantly, these Chinese specialists and the cosmopolitan science that they advocated continued to play a key role in the large-scale soil and water conservation initiatives undertaken after 1949 under the People’s Republic of China.