Tonkin Free School/women's early education Archival Sources
Hello, Yên,
The French were hyper-vigilant about the Tonkin School, and the French had a keen interest in lists of names, particularly students, in order to track potential anti-colonial activists.
I'd search at the French Colonial Archives in Aix:
http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/anom/en/index.html
Whatever CAOM has on the Web is usually from special exhibits, but you can see some preliminary finding aids on the website.
Nothing replaces time in that splendid reading room.
This sounds like such an interesting project.
Hope that helps.
Warmly,
Lady
Terry Gross Interview (1984) with Lady Borton About Vietnamese Boat People:
https://freshairarchive.org/segments/lady-borton-plight-vietnamese-refugees
Terry Gross Program (1988) with Lady Borton About Vietnamese Who Stayed:
https://freshairarchive.org/segments/aiding-civilian-survivors-vietnam-war
Behind the Scenes, In the Forefront: Vietnamese Women in War and Peace by Lady Borton, AsiaNetworkExchange, A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts: https://www.asianetworkexchange.org/articles/10.16995/ane.276/
For arguably the best book on Việt Nam in English, see Hữu Ngọc's VIỆT NAM: Tradition and Change, edited by Lady Borton and Elizabeth Collins: www.ohioswallow.com/book/Viet+Nam OR www.amazon.com/Viet-Nam-Tradition-Change
Folks, As another source: I created this archives Library Guide on Indochine in connection with a mini conference at Bucknell that David Del Testa organized some years ago. I need to update it and connect it to the VSG site page on archival sources. Let me know if you have any other sources to add.
https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=341853
One update I need to make is that most of the titles we microfilmed in the 1990s and 2000s at the National Library in Hanoi, a project funded with Luce Foundation and Harvard Yenching funds for the Southeast Asia Microfilm Project at the Center for Research Libraries, are now available online through the CRL/Eastview Global Newspaper Project:
https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/sean/
A list of Vietnamese newspapers available can also be found on the VSG page on digital resrouces:
Best
Judith Henchy
VSG List and Web manager
Judith Henchy, Ph.D., MLIS
Head, Southeast Asia Section
Special Assistant to the Dean of University Libraries for International Programs
Affiliate Faculty, Jackson School of International Studies
I wrote briefly about Luong van Can's daughter's role in Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc in a chapter of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Vietnam War. My argument was that women, not eligible to take the traditional civil service exams, were quicker to accept and learn quoc ngu. So when Luong van Can found out his daughter was fluent in quoc ngu, she was assigned to teach a class for women
Neither Phan Boi Chau nor Phan Chu Trinh had much to do with DKNT. PBC was in Japan, and Phan Chu Trinh's role was to write in support of the protests of 1908 against the introduction of new currency.
The people who were most supportive of DKNT were so-called scholars of Tan Hoc (New Learning) which they had learned at the School of Interpreters in Hanoi. See my Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution(1993).
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
Yen,
In terms of archives, a great place to start is here, because this site allows you to scroll through the finding aids to the different "fonds"' / phông:
https://indosources.hypotheses.org/274
It gives general guides to each of the major archives, and within them, the particular "fonds"/ phông. I seem to remember material on the Tonkin Free School in the Marie de Hanoi fonds, but also of course in the Résidence Supérieure au Tonkin one.
A very useful book, with excerpts of original sources, on the Tonkin Free School/ Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục is :
Vũ Văn Sạch Vũ Thị Minh Hương Philippe Papin Đõ̂ Văn Hỷ Đinh Xuân Lâm Phan Quý Bích Đông Kinh nghĩa thục. Cục lưu trữ Nhà nước (Vietnam) and École française d'Extrême-Orient. 1997. Văn Thơ Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục = Prose Et Poésies Du Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục = Shi Wen Dongjing Yi Shu. Hà Nội: Văn hóa : Cục lưu trữ nhà nước Việt Nam : Viện Viẽ̂n đông bác cỏ̂ Pháp.
Shawn McHale
Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
Author of:
The First Vietnam War (Cambridge, 2021)
Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam, 1920-45 (Hawaii, 2004, 2008)
1. Re: Searching for archival sources on Tonkin Free
School/women's early education (Hiep Duc)
You may find that the book by Đào Trinh Nhất “Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục”, 1937 can give a hint of the status of the materials published by Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục. Đào Trinh Nhất, a former student of Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục, came to Bến Tre to interview one of the founders of Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục (ĐKNT), Nguyễn Quyền, who was then living in exile in Ben Tre after serving a brief time in Con Son prison.
An interesting account of the history of ĐKNT and the personalities involved (Tăng Bạt Hổ, Phan Bội Châu, Phan Châu Trinh, Tôn Dật Tiên, Hoàng Hoa Thám,…). The opinion of Phan Châu Trinh on Hoàng Hoa Thám character after they met was devastating on this movement. The relation between Tôn Dật Tiên (Sun-Yat-Sen) and the Vietnamese reformers was recounted during many visits by the later to Vietnam. TDT was invited by Paul Doumer to attend the inauguration of the bridge (Long Biên) across the Red River.
In this book, Nguyễn Quyền also talked about the education of women at ĐKNT taught by female teachers and the status of all the materials published by ĐKNT. Nothing is salvaged after ĐKNT was closed and the French suppression after the “Hà Thành đầu độc” event.
Best
Hiep, EPA, NSW
From: Vsg <vsg-bounces@mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Yen Vu
Sent: Friday, 2 June 2023 5:57 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <Vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Searching for archival sources on Tonkin Free School/women's early education
Dear list,
I'm Yen Vu, a faculty member in Literature at Fulbright University Vietnam. I am writing to ask advice about where to look for archival materials on the Tonkin Free School, particularly around female students. I am looking in particular for things like lists of students (e.g. how many female students there might have been), how materials were disseminated, etc. I'm not sure if such record was kept, but thought it would be worth a shot to check with those who are much more familiar with the archives in Vietnam than I am. I have found essays like David Marr's "The Question of Women," written about women's education very helpful and am looking for more primary sources.
Thank you in advance,
Yen
--
Yen Vu
Ph.D, French Studies
Cornell University
ynv2@cornell.edu