Jean Lyon (1902-1960) / writings, sorted; and about

putterings 319 < 319a > 319b index

Jean Lyon (1902-1960)
“newspaper woman,” cartoonist, photographer, propagandist, writer, “Himalayan recluse” —
writings, sorted; and about

It was her use of the word “puttering” in Manners of the Moment, (1938) that brought Jean Lyon into view. I could not (initially) find the etiquette book, but did find her Just Half A World Away (1954), and so began some further digging. This page lists what I have found and continue to find; the most recent additions are mainly in the late 1940s and early 1950s, particularly for The Nation and The Reporter (20240709).

Why?
First, the quality of the writing — intelligent, self-reflective (particularly in the India book ), all leavened by a growing experience of the world (and some personal upheaval, and perhaps tragedy). I also wondered about the appearance of a young woman from China — who was not Chinese — at Wellesley. She was not the only one, as a look through the Wellesley yearbook for 1924 reveals.

language —
From her Harper’s Magazine article “When the Communists Entered Peking” (February 1950) it becomes apparent that Jean Lyon did speak Chinese, but not fluently —

“She [a Chinese friend, with whom Lyon hopes, but fails, to interview a Communist official] began talking to me in a rapid Chinese, so rapid that she must have known I could only be getting about one-tenth of it. Again it was as though she had completely forgotten my limitations in her language. I lapsed into silence...” (p81)

▌ bar at left returns to top of page.

life : chronology and sources
life : brother, husband, father, mother (obituaries, &c.)
manners of the moment : book and available articles
other 1 : The New York Sun
other 2 : The New York Times
other 3 : 1920-1952
other 4 : Just Half A World Away : My Search for the New India (1954, 1955)

life : chronology and sources

ex Wellesley College Legenda (1924)

Lyon, Jean Doolittle (Mrs Dhawan); b Mokanshan, China, Ag 7, 1902; WellesC, 24; UTS, 25-26; newspaper writer, NYSun, 29-43; staff mem, Chinese News Serv, NYCity, 39-46; correspondent in China, do (under Chinese ministry of informa), 44; publ rela in China, YWCA, Shanghai, China, 46; res, ALmura, UP India; d do, Jl 30, 1960.
ex Alumni Directory, 1836-1970, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (1970) : 137 : link (pdf; large file)
expanded [ with additions in brackets, making this an abbreviated vita ] :

born Mokanshan, China (August 7, 1902)
[“mountain located in Deqing County, Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, 60 kilometers from the provincial capital Hangzhou and 200 km from Shanghai.... By 1910 approximately 300 foreigners, mostly Americans and British, had set up summer homes on the hill...”
wikipedia : link]
Wellesley College ’24
Union Theological Seminary, 1925-26
newspaper writer [elsewhere described as women’s pages; cartoonist)], 1929-43
staff member, Chinese News Service (New York City), 1939-46
correspondent and public relations in China, 1946
[ independent reporter and writer, from China (1948-49) and India, New York Times (and elsewhere?) 1950s] resided in Almura [=Almora] Uttar Pradesh, India)
died [ in India ] July 30, 1960
“Wellesley’s Senior Crew, Training for Interclass Race, Out for Practice Spin on Lake Waban.”
Wellesley College girls are keenly interested in rowing and the various class crews are intense rivals. The seniors believe they have the best eight and the girl athletes are working hard for victory in the big annual event. They are seated as follows: Ruth Carroll, bow; Marion Hunsicher, 2; Ruth Nichols, 3; Mary Lehman, 4: Alice Lembach, 5; Jean Lyon, 6; Nesta Piper, 7; Evelyn Waltz, stroke.
ex The Greeley Tribune [Colorado], Volume XVI, Number 250 (May 17, 1924) : link
Wellesley College Legenda (1924) : link (pdf)
This is Jean Lyon's graduating year, from which the portrait above is taken. Here are the students (including Lyon) from China; Japanese names included for personal reference :
Class of 1924 : Jean Douglass (136 North Szechnen Road, Shanghai, China), Delnoce E. Grant (Bureau of Engraving, Peking, China), Zung Nyi Loh (Nanziang, Kiangsu, China), Jean D. Lyon (20 Museum Road, Shanghai, China), Grace Zia (729 N. Szechnen Road, Shanghai, China); Yuki Domoto (Oakland, Cal.)
Class of 1925 : Chi-Liang Kwei (Tsing Hua College, Peking, China), Effie M. MacKinnon (129 Dixwell Rd., Shanghai, China), Kuo Sien Wong (2 Ninpo Rd., Shanghai, China)
Class of 1926 : Yone Murayama (14 Yachigashira Machi, Hakodate, Japan), Teruko Nakamura (care Miss Alie C. Gifford, Holden, Mass.)
Class of 1927 : Sumiye Seo (care S. Watanabe, 52 Ichiban-Cho, Kojimachi, Tokyo, Japan), Nettie H. Suzuki (Shiba Park, Shiba, Tokyo, Japan), Louise M. Wilson (Changshu, Ku, China)

Jean D. Lyon was also President of the Christian Association, and is pictured atop that association’s page (166)
her own thumbnail sketch of her own life, from Just Half A World Away; My Search for the New India (1955) : 16
This journey to India might be said to have started almost anywhere in my life. The Far East was in my blood and bones, although I had only been in China up until now. Ever since my grandfather Lyon had gone to China in 1869 as a Presbyterian missionary, a Lyon had been born every few years in China. One such birth had been mine.
Then as an adult I had gone back to work in China — after college in America, after more than a decade of marriage and several years of widowhood, after a solid stretch of newspaper work in New York and another stretch of war-time propaganda for the Chinese Nationalist Government, and after the grey hairs in my head had begun to be noticeable. And I had found the old bond with the Orient as strong as ever.
It wasn’t until I’d lived for four months under the new Communist government that I had been able to admit that my world had split in two, and that my deeper roots lay in America.
The split of my world had happened in alternating bursts of military upheaval and Peking tranquility.
Then came my day to leave. I had stayed on under the new Communist regime, hoping to be able to report on it. But by military order I had, along with all of Peking’s foreign correspondents, been barred from “gathering or sending news”. So it had become futile for me to stay. When a berth on a freighter to San Francisco became available, I took it.

more on, from and about this book : link
Jean Lyon Dhawan, in chapter 14 “Passings,” Motilal Banarsidass, Dancing with the Void : The Innerstandings of a Rare-born Mystic (2001, 2004) : 93-94 : link
Jean Lyon, author of a book on India titled Halfway Across the World [sic], was nice, kind and warm-hearted. She came to our Himalayas some 10 years ago to finish this book. She fell deeply in love, not only with the Himalayas but also with Kakoo Dhawan, who was doing research here on the “within” that is also “beyond” the transcendental Himalayas. Only last Saturday, Jean left her 50 year-old body, and within 10 hours, it was duly consumed by Sri Agni’s glow at Vishwanath. “We seem to have a habit of dying here,” says Wuji.
Jean was a Yankee, born in Peking, but now happily and naturally “gone native” in simple empathy with Kakoo Dhawan. Her last five years as Kakoo’s helpmate were surely the happiest fulfillment of a richly eventful ego life. Her respectable, scientific and rather mental compatriots were naturally perturbed, dismayed and somewhat shocked — a swell, cute and prawd (proud) girlie going native! Wu ha da!
But did they perceive her integrity, her integrality and her ego-free natural face? Did they aware the living grace? Egojies blunder in blinkered subjective truths and in semantic term symbols. Only the Self can effortlessly aware, recognize and appreciate the Self within — and everywhere.
We see no more in anything, or anybody, than we bring with us and have sensibility and maturity in realized experience — to see through to, in intuitive insight [94] and comprehension. That which regognizes [sic] its Self is within. He who sees greatness passing by himself sees through his eyes rather than with them.
Jean’s inner silence and unassertive acceptance like her simple empathy with Kakoo and Sri Himalaya were, to her fellow compatriots, a complete loss of face, of personal mask and of individuality.

from Sunyata, Dancing with the Void: The Innerstandings of a Rare-born Mystic edited by Betty Camhi and Gurubaksh Rai (2001; corrected edition Non-Duality Press, 2015) : link

—

Jean Lyon writes of her encounter with Sunyata at her isolated house near Almora — where she has gone to “write this journal of my travels through India” — in the concluding chapter of her Just Half A World Away, “Notes from a Himalayan Recluse.”
Alfred Julius Emmanuel Sorensen (1890-1984), also known as Sunyata, Shunya, or Sunyabhai, was a Danish mystic, horticulturist and writer who lived in Europe, India and the US.
wikipedia : link
Kakoo Dhawan, Indian abstract artist (1929-2008)
Kakoo Dhawan was born into a well-to-do Delhi family. When he was around twenty-six years old he left his secure home and travelled north into the Himalayas. What started as a pilgrimage became a meeting with destiny.
Near the town of Almora, a well known Hill Station at that time, he came across the famous American painter Earl Brewster (1878-1957), who had already moved to India in 1935 and lived in a simple cottage above town, which later, in the Seventieth [sic], became known as “Crank’s Ridge”...
link
Galerie punk12 (Vienna) : link
“Jean Lyon, 58, Dead; Writer in Far East.” The New York Times (August 31, 1960) : link (paywall)
“She studied at Wellesley College and began working as a women’s page reporter for The New York Sun.”

life : brother, husband, father, mother
obituary of Laurence Leslie Lyon (1904-1934)
Bulletin of Yale University, Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, Deceased during the Year 1934-35 (15 October 1935) : link (pdf)
“Shot by an assailant...,”
among survivors, “a sister, Jean Lyon McConnell (B.A. Wellesley 1924), the wife of Donald W. McConnell (BA Ohio Wesleyan 1923; Ph.D. Columbia 1930)...”
“D. W. McConnell, N.Y.U. Professor; Assistant Economics Head at Washington Square College Dies at Age of 39; Son of Methodist Bishop; Expert on South and Central American Problems, Active in Anti-Fascist Movements” The New York Times (February 5, 1941) : link (paywall)
“...was a specialist in South and Central American economics and was active in anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi movements... ¶ He leaves a widow, Jean Lyon McConnell, who is a newspaper cartoonist...”
Donald W. McConnell (1901-41)
Economic virtues in the United States; a history and an interpretation (Columbia University dissertation 1930, Arno reprint 1973) : link (archive.org, borrowable)
bio : Instructor in Economics in the Washington Square College of New York University, 1928 —.
“Dr. D. W. Lyon, Aide of Y.M.C.A., Is Dead”
One of Its Founders in China Succumbs in California — Was Son of Missionaries. The New York Times (March 18, 1949) : link (paywall)
Dr. Willard Lyon.
survivors include “a daughter, Mrs. Jean McConnell (Jean Lyon), a part-time correspondent for The New York Times in China”
“In recent years he had been engaged in translating T’ang poetry into English.”
The Lyon family (Dr. Willard and his wife Grace) appear in the early chapters (ca 1905-06 — years of some unrest) of Golden Inches : The China Memoir of Grace Service, edited by John S. Service (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) : link
D. Willard Lyon (1870-1949), see brief biography in finding aids, D. Willard Lyon papers in Kautz Family YMCA Archives at UMinn : link
photo ca 1930, at UCLA Digital Library : link
description : Possibly related to the article, “Lecturer to Discuss Troubles of Chinese,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Sept. 1930: A6.
“Dr. D. Willard Lyon standing outdoors by tree... Lyon was an exchange professor from China at the University of Southern California who was scheduled to lecture on Chinese philosophical thought in September 1930.”
another photo, Men during YMCA Training Conference, Fujian, China, ca. 1911-1914 (Yale Divinity Library) : link
David Willard Lyon, Sr., Inside the Moon Gate; poems translated from the Chinese. Foreword by Ch’en Shou Yi [Grace McGaw Lyon, compiler]. (500 copies; Claremont, California; Saunders Press, 1951).
borrowable at archive.org : link
Grace McGaw Lyon (1872-1962)
Rockford College ’95 (Rockford Illinois, had been Rockford Female Seminary 1847-1892); married D. Willard Lyon 1895.
her report to the Rockford College Alumnae Association Jubilee Book (1904) 139-140 : link
is of interest, and transcribed below:
Grace McGaw married D. Willard Lyon, a missionary, and lives at 109 Range Road, Shanghai, China. She has four children, three boys and a girl. She is a member of an English literary society in Shanghai. Her church affiliations are Presbyterian. She went to China for the first time in the fall of 1895. Mr. Lyon is National Secretary for the Y.M.C.A. in China, and is sent there by that association, consequently is under no church board. He is away much from home much of the time with his work, traveling about from place to place, visiting different schools, establishing Y.M.C.A’s and holding revival meetings. At the time of the trouble in China with the Boxers, Mr. and Mrs. Lyon lost everything which they could not carry with them when they came awayfrom Pekin — Mr. Lyon’s valuable library, their clothes, furniture, etc. They were taken to Corea by an English gun-boat, and thence went to Japan, and from there came back to this country. That was in the spring of 1901. They stayed here until fall, when they returned to China and again took up their work. Mrs. Lyon has taught classes in different schools in China, and has been a great help to her husband in his work among young men, but spends most of her time with her children and in her home. In Shanghai, where they now live, she can send her children to an English kindergarten, and they have a very modern home there.
the Rockford College entry includes a photograph of Grace McGaw Lyon, together with four classmates.

Manners of the Moment

Manners of the Moment was a syndicated etiquette column written (and illustrated) by Jean Lyon, at a time she was a writer for the New York Sun. The columns were collected in :
Manners of the Moment, “by Jean” (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1938)
The copyright is to Jean Lyon (Library of Congress, Copyright Office, Catalog of Copyright Entries (1938) : 228 : link )

I have not seen the book, but several of the pieces can be found via Utah Digital Newspapers : link

the book has suddenly (19 July 2023) become visible, U Minnesota copy via hathitrust : full view (U Minnesota copy/scan, via hathitrust) : 51 : link
Their humor is light, even breezy.

other writing (The New York Sun)
a sadly partial list, cobbled together from various sources — blogs, notes in books (scholarly, seemingly from clippings encountered in archival research; and from scrolling through hurriedly-made, out-of-focus microfilm reels at NYPL) — but a start.

microform at NYPL : link

some of the New York Sun pieces, I have as scans from microform. Their quality is quite bad; I may have time remaining, to transcribe, etc., some of these.
Jean Lyon. “Mothers Should Not Rear Own Little Ones
Better turn them over to those more competent and go to work, says doctor”
section entitled “News and Views of Interest to Women in Professional and Domestic Fields”
The New York Sun (Saturday, November 16, 1929) : 47
“Of course a woman can have children and a job, said Dr. Connie Guion, one of New York’s leading women doctors, in answer to the perennial question of job and motherhood. In fact, she added, most children are brought up much better by housemaids than they are by their own mothers...”
Connie Guion (1882-1971), professor of clinical medicine of first importance; like Jean Lyon a Wellesley graduate (several years earlier, in 1906)
wikipedia : link
New York Times obituary (April 30, 1971) : link
Jean Lyon. “Looking for a Career That Pays Well? Don’t Overlook Food Science
Dietician must be well trained, but when properly prepared opportunities are increasing”
The New York Sun (Monday, December 2, 1929) : 24
Jean Lyon. “Asleep on Pose — Chilean Art Model Often Guilty, Woman Artist Found
Mrs. Skouger began work after her sons were grown and now looks happily forward to a painter’s career”
The New York Sun (Tuesday, December 3, 1929)
on Martha Gilbert Skougor (1885- ? ), name variant : link
sidelights : link
Jean Lyon. “Carving ‘Pictures’ in Wood Brings Early Success to Scotch Girl
Who tried many trades from teaching to running antique shop”
The New York Sun (Monday, December 9, 1929) : 34
“She calls herself a female ‘Handy Andy’ because she dabbles in everything...” [the rest hard to make out from microfilm]
profile of Enid Bell (1904-1994), sculptor
wikipedia : link
Jean Lyon. “‘Earnest, Conscientious, Adaptable,’ She Will Win in Business World
Rose Boyd, Wall Street ‘Employment Counselor,’ has solved many three-sided office problems of employer, job and employee”
The New York Sun (Thursday, December 19, 1929) : 36
Jean Lyon, “Housewife May soon Order Rooms by Telephone and Delivered by Parcel Post — Kitchen of the Future” [?], The New York Sun (April 23, 1931)
[source (Aluminaire House Foundation website)]
Jean Lyon, “New York’s Feminine Orchestra Is Almost Ready to Make Music,” New York Sun (February 10 , 1932) : 30, 58
referenced in Beth Abelson Macleod, Women Performing Music: The Emergence of American Women AS Classical Instrumentalists and Conductors (2000)
[source]
Jean Lyon, “A Woman Headhunter Is To Exhibit Her Spoils in New York,” New York Sun (January 19, 1934)
referenced in Linda Kim, “‘A Woman Sculptor among the Primitive Races’ : Gender and Sculpture in the 1930s,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 35:2 (2014) : 86-117
[jstor]
Jean Lyon, [no title available], New York Sun (December 28, 1934)
but —
“Several writers took Allen's appointment as an opportunity to remind readers again that Roosevelt had appointed an unusual number of women, and that it was a step forward for women... ¶ A view in opposition was expressed by Jean Lyon of the New York Sun who wrote that all the more honor was due Florence Allen for forging ahead in a decade that had been disastrous for women, the most honored one up to that time being Mother Dionne who had produced quintuplets. Lyon reminded her readers that women in Italy had been pushed out of their jobs by a dictator, women in Germany had been sent back to their washboards, and right here ‘in the land of the free,’ even with a woman in the cabinet, there were five fewer women in state legislatures in 1934 than in 1933. Her conclusion was that some individuals were forging ahead but that the cause of feminism was weakening. ¶ Historians, aided by the advantage of hindsight, agree with Jean Lyon. Suffrage had not liberated women, for the position of women is part of the social fabric of society. The suffragists of Allen’s time had not wanted to change the social structure...”
referenced in Jeanette E. Tuve, First Lady of the Law, Florence Ellinwood Allen (1984) : 137 borrowable at archive.org : link
Jean Lyon, “Women architects are proving to be successful home builders: They would really like to build skyscrapers, and why not? They don’t find climbing at all difficult,” The New York Sun (November 19, 1935)
have not seen the article, but find the following passages, on the architect Verna Cook Salomonsky, in a National Register of Historic Places “Continuation Sheet” for the Wade, Dwight and Kate House in Sevier County, Tennessee, which was designed by Salomonsky —
In the 1930s, the role of female architects was the subject of several articles in the national media. When the New York Sun published an article entitled “Women Architects Are Proving to Be Successful Home Builders,” on November 19, 1935, the author, Jean Lyon, interviewed “New York’s leading women architects” including Salomonsky. Lyon stated that women architects had to be “seething with original ideas” and be “awfully good” in order to be successful in the male-dominated field. In Lyon’s interview, Salomonsky, who lived on Madison Avenue, admitted to "having once been somewhat of a social butterfly” but, stated that if “you do your work well, and attack it with confidence, I don’t think you ever have any trouble making people feel that you are just as good as a man architect would be.” Salomonsky advised Lyon that “you must forget that you are a woman” and "you mustn’t look for discriminations against you because you are a woman.” Like the other women architects, Salomonsky instigated trendy ideas to gain recognition. Salomonsky’s trademark design was the first house in Scarsdale, New York, to feature a front door painted bright red. This house was known “for miles around” and “since she built it, red doors have broken out like measles.” Concluding the article, Salomonsky stated that she had “grown sick of these cute little informal houses” and that her “motivating idea” was to “build small houses that have as much dignity as large mansions.”
— taken from the “Statement of Significance,” evidently written by Robbie D. Jones and originally published in The Historic Architecture of Sevier County, Tennessee by the Smoky Mountain Historical Society in March 1997. : link
Verna Cook Salomonsky (1890-1978)
wikipedia : link
Jean Lyon, “Her Favorite Perfumes are Cellars, Paint and Wood,” New York Sun (September 1937)
have not seen, referenced (note #6) in entry for Elisabeth Coit in Pioneering Women of American Architecture by Jessica Fetcher (The Graduate Center, CUNY : link
Elisabeth Coit (1892-1987), architect specializing in “housing in the public sector,” principal planner for the New York City Housing Authority, 1948-62
wikipedia : link
Jean Lyon. “Well-known Chinese Women organize to Help War Sufferers of Their Homeland
All Money Raised Will Go to Victims as There Will Be No Overhead Expenses
Mme. Chiang Kai Shek Is the Honorary President.”
New York Sun (November 17, 1937)
starts thus —
Four of New York’s best-known Chinese women have organized a new relief association, to raise money for the war sufferers in China. The four women are Mrs. C. H. Wang, wife of the manager of the Bank of China, and the sister-in-law of the Ambassador to Washington; Mrs. K. C. Li, wife of the head of the Wah Chang Trading Corporation; Mrs. Lin Yu Tang, wife of the author of “My Country and My People,” and Miss Mai-mai Sze, known to New Yorkers for her part in the Broadway play “Lady Precious Stream,” daughter of the former Chinese Ambassador to Washington, Dr. Alfred Sze.
found via Chinese American Eyes
Famous, forgotten, well-known, and obscure visual artists of Chinese descent in the United States
post on Mai-mai Sze
which includes various clippings and transcriptions, including the Jean Lyon article.
(September 12, 2014) : link
Mai-mai Sze (1909-92), painter, writer, designer...
wikipedia : link
Jean Lyon, “Have Women No Place in Explorations? But, Mr. Andrews, There They Are...” New York Sun, n.d., n.p., scrapbook clippings,
referenced in Katherine Crooks, Cold Comforts : Women Making Inuit and Qallunaat Homes in the Eastern Arctic and North American Cultures of Exploration, 1890-1940 (dissertation, Dalhousie University, October 2020) : link (pdf)

other writing (The New York Times)
“Chinese Women Gain Politically; They Now Must Win Rights in Psychological Field, Says Returned Writer.” The New York Times (October 5, 1944) : link (paywall)
no by-line. transcription (entire) —

Women in China have won their rights politically; now they must win them psychologically, Jean Lyon of the Chinese News Service said yesterday.
Just back after a six-month stay in China where she visited four provinces, Miss Lyon said that although more and more women in larger cities are becoming accepted in offices, businesses, in universities and politically, the great mass of China’s 450 millions are still agricultural workers, unaware of the possibilities of industrialization.
“China’s industrial future is not entirely in her own hands,” she continued. “Many of the questions which will affect her development are now under discussion at Dumbarton Oaks.”
In Chungking, Miss Lyon found circumstances among professional and business women much like those here. There are girls on the staffs of the Chungking newspapers and several women’s magazines are being established.
“These aren't like popular American women’s magazines, though,” Miss Lyon pointed out. “They are far more serious, dealing with political issues, the need for thinking citizens in a constitutional government, and with moral questions.
“One of the main objects of attack just now is the ‘puppet family’ — it seems that the men who left families in occupied China are starting new ones in Free China. The women don’t approve!”
Precludes the “Double Life”
Although there are “working wives” in the larger cities, the set-up of factories in the provinces precludes this “double life.” To avoid being easy targets, owners built their plants outside the cities, and lack of transportation makes it necessary for workers to live in dormitories on the factory grounds. Miss Lyon believes this paternalistic system may disappear, however, when normal building can be resumed.
In the universities emphasis is swinging from literature and poetry to engineering and science and women are entering these fields almost as rapidly as men, Miss Lyon reported.
The greatest contribution of the Chinese woman to the war, Miss Lyon believes, is her “steady, hard-working backing of her man.” In the outlying agricultural sections women can do little directly for the war.
Some younger girls, wanting to do something more direct, have been sent close to the front lines to work on nutritional problems. Others have activities similar to Red Cross Gray Ladies, visiting hospitals, cheering the men, helping them write letters.
More Children Going to School
More and more children in rural areas are being sent to school and laws regulate their entrance to factory work. No laws govern their working at home, however, and they may help their mothers in the home industries now being developed to get “pin money” for farm women. Because of the set-up of the Chinese home, usually with several generations, the older women care for the children while the younger ones work about the house or at home industries.
The politically conscious women in China are very active, Miss Lyon said. They see the war as only a part of China’s great revolution. All work is war work to them — whether it is working in a munitions factory or giving lectures on constitutional government.
“Newspaper Women Give Prizes to Five; Their New York Club Makes Its Annual Awards for Outstanding Work.” The New York Times (April 13, 1945) : link : (paywall)
regards ninth annual awards of The New York Newspaper Women’s Club.
“Miss Jean Lyon of the China News Service was head of the award committee.”
Jean Lyon. “Crowds in Mukden Grow Hysterical; Many Beg Seats on Chennault Planes — Others Threaten to Shoot if Not Taken Out.” The New York Times (October 31, 1948) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “Chinese Miners Prefer Red Rule To a Nationalist ‘Scorched Earth’; Survey of Tangshan Coal Basin Indicates Communist Aim to Preserve Properties That Give Livelihood to Residents.” The New York Times (December 3, 1948) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “3 Americans in Jeep Visit Peiping Front; Eerie Calm Marks Communist Encroachment.” The New York Times (December 9, 1948) : link (paywall)
I transcribe the piece entire, below, for its je-ne-sais-quoi quiet humor, as if describing a Sunday outing —

Peiping, Dec. 8. — An eerie stillness pervaded this war front today when three Americans in a jeep arrived at the last Nationalist outpost on the Peiping-Kupehkow railway, some twenty miles, as the crow files, northeast of Peiping.
A war front is notoriously hard to find in this scattered civil war. It is even more notoriously difficult to reach because of the country’s overabundance of self-iimportant armed guards at every bridge and village along the bumpy country roads.
But today we reached it. We were shot at just enough to be thoroughly convinced that it was the front. There was, however, no battlefield.
A handful of Nationalist troops in a crude, mud fortification on top of a hillock waved at the jeep and explained somewhat casually that the Communists were less than a mile away. They pointed to five villages, all visible from the hillock, saying that four of them had been taken by the Communists yesterday. The fifth, about a quarter of a mile down the road, was still held by the Nationalists, they said.
They did not want the jeep to go there but they turned their backs as it crept down the uncannily silent quarter of a mile. The village seemed abandoned until a group of villagers emerged and bowed. Their village had no soldiers in it, they said. The Nationalists had retreated yesterday and the Communists had not yet arrived.
At the rear of the Nationalist outpost black figures could be seen in the distance — small specks moving across the horizon. They were Communists, the Nationalists said.
The black specks, the nearness of the Communists and the fact that this was the front, all seemed unreal until we were invited to take a short run toward the Communist position in an armored train standing on the near-by tracks. The train moved forward almost half a mile and opened fire on what liked like empty fields, with a few grave mounds in them. Our car was struck by a barrage of rifle fire. After five minutes of shooting the train pulled back and all was still again.
No one on the Nationalist side was injured but there was no doubt that it was the front line.
Five miles back, toward Tungchaow and Peiping, at the walled city of Shunyi, the population knew that the front was near. They were streaming out of the city on foot, carrying bunches of bedding and clothing. The front was moving in on them.
Jean Lyon. “Peiping Defenders Launch an Attack; Push Out From City to Engage Foe in First Initiative — Reds Gain on Huai Front; Relief Forces of Nationalists Narow Gap — Resignation of Chiang Reported Urged.” The New York Times (December 16, 1949) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “Peiping Prepares for Red Assault; City Walls to Mount Defense — 2 Key Points Are Given Up and Air Aid Is Paralyzed.” The New York Times (December 12, 1948) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “Communists Shell Heart of Peiping; Tientsin Truce Off; First Artillery Blows at China’s Cultural Capital Cause Casualties on Ice Pond; Nanking Hails General Tu; Aide Says Army Head, Reported Captured by Reds, Completed Time-Bargaining Mission.” The New York Times (January 14, 1949) : link (paywall)
“Three ice skaters, one a 21-year-old student, were killed.”
Jean Lyon. “Peace Moves in Peiping.” The New York Times (January 18, 1949) : link (paywall)
“PEIPING, Jan. 17 — Peiping's citizens received an open letter today from the Peiping Military Control Committee of the ‘People’s Liberation Army.’ It was slipped into their daily newspapers and pasted on some shop windows and public walls...”
Jean Lyon. “War in North Ends; Transitional Coalition Is Arranged — Safety Assured Foreigners; Nanking Presses Peace; Accepts Communist Formula as Basis, Names Mission to Talk With Reds.” The New York Times (January 23, 1949) : link (paywall)
“PEIPING, Jan. 22 — Peiping fell to Communists today — quietly, politely and in accordance with her traditions — a feat possible only in China. The Nationalists are bowing their way out while the Communists bow their way in under complicated and somewhat unfathomable agreement...”
Jean Lyon. “Peiping Is Festive in Red Take-over; Actual Changes Still Obscure — Prices Are Higher and Shops Refuse to Open.” The New York Times (February 8, 1949) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “Communists Seize Peiping ECA Flour; Confiscate 100 Tons on Ground It Belongs to Nanking — U. S. Aide Protests Action.” The New York Times (February 20, 1949) : link (paywall)
Jean Lyon. “Chinese Communist Moves Into South Are Predicted; Communists seen planning to move into Yangtze Valley area; seek takeover of personnel through ads; seen planning early take-over of Shanghai.” The New York Times (February 28, 1949) : link (paywall)
aside —
mention here and elsewhere of General Fu Tso-yi, quite an interesting case. Fu Zuoyi (1895-1974) : wikipedia : link
[no by-line; Jean Lyon “reached by radiotelephone” cited]. “China Reds Insist on Secret Talks; Reject Nanking Appeal to Allow Correspondents to Report on Negotiations in Peiping; Efforts of Acting Pres Li to get Communists to lift ‘bamboo curtain’ fail as Communists reject Govt request to permit Chinese and foreign newsmen to cover Peiping peace talks.” The New York Times (April 1, 1949) : link (paywall)
photographs by Jean Lyon. “The Village — Problem of India.” The New York Times Magazine (March 23, 1952) : link (paywall)
Photographs and captions used in conjunction with Chester Bowles (“American Ambassador to India since Oct. 12, 1951”), his essay “Asia Challenges Us Through India; Our aid is needed to help the Indians keep democracy as a bastion against communism.”
link (paywall)
Given Lyon’s reservations about Bowles’s ideas in her chapter 42 “The American Revolution Comes to Delhi” — roughly, that American “democracy” was only a rationale given for self-interested anti-Communism — she might not have appreciated her photographs being used to support his argument for American involvement there.
Jean Lyon. “Le Corbusier Builds A City in India; France’s great architect is erecting a capital of ‘sky, space and trees’ for the Punjab.” The New York Times Magazine (September 13, 1953) : 14-15, 58, 60 : link (paywall)

other writing : 1920-1952
three pieces in The Abbot Courant, a literary journal of Abbot Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts (merged with Phillips Academy in 1973); Jean D. Lyon was Class of 1920
Abbot Academy : wikipedia : link
transcriptions of all of these at 319b.

1
“Sonnet”
The Abbot Courant 46:1 (January 1920) : 7 : link
2
“Lizzie”
The Abbot Courant 46:2 (June 1920) : 17-18 : link
3
“Mokanshan — My Birthplace”
The Abbot Courant 46:2 (June 1920) : 23-25 : link
The Abbot Circle (Yearbook, 1920)
Philips Academy (via archive.org) : 57 : link

listed among the “One Year Girls”
Jean Doolittle Lyon
“Pudge”
149 North Broadway, Yonkers, N.Y.
One year / Wellesley
Arm Band ’20

“Happiness courts thee in her best array.”
“Want to know anything about Shanghai? Ask Jean, she knows. Although she hails from China she is far from having a yellow streak as she is one of the best sports we know and is always ready for anything. Jean has only been with us one year but she has won her way with the girls as well as the teachers, and as far as marks are concerned she has put it over us all.”
Jean D. Lyon, Union Theological Seminary. “Attitudes in Washington,” The Chinese Students’ Monthly 21:7 (May 1926) : 40-42
U Michigan copy, via google books : link
Cornell copy, via hathitrust : link
This number of The Chinese Students’ Monthly is largely devoted to what would become known as the May Thirtieth Movement : wikipedia : link
table of contents, of that number (from Cornell copy : link ) below —
Jean Lyon, “Shopping Guide for Boycotters.” The Nation 145:17 (October 23 1937) : 427-428
archive.org : link
“This is not an argument for boycotting Japanese goods. It is a statement about how to boycott Japanese goods. The two principal rules for boycotters are: (1) Don’t buy anthing marked ‘Made in Japan’; (2) Don’t buy silk.”
There follows a quite detailed list that, in addition to silk goods, includes items like canned crabmeat, electric light-bulbs, cultured pearls, toys, umbrellas with wooden handles, and less expensive types of magnifying glasses.
The article concludes thus :
“This list though not complete, covers the more important Japanese goods which the consumer can readily distinguish. Japanese materials which go into the manufacture of American products will have to be boycotted by organized pressure on American manufacturers. If boycotters will take this list with them when they shop, if they will remember the two principle rules — no silk and nothing marked ‘Made in Japan’ — they will be using their buying power most effectively to induce Japan to abandon its ruthless aggression in China.”
one letter to the editor (from T. Feinfeld, New York), in positive response to the above The Nation 145:19 (November 6, 1937) : 516
archive.org link
Jean Lyon, “Foils and Foibles,” in Independent Woman 17 (January 1938), 12. 13
“A 1938 article notes Mayer’s championship status was revoked ‘after she had held the title for a day or two’ on the grounds that ‘fencing involved a form of bodily contact, even though it was just with the tip of a foil, and that a chivalrous man found it difficult to do his worst when he faced a woman.”
referenced (note 34) in Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano, Playing with the boys : why separate is not equal in sports (2008)
borrowable at archive.org : link
Jean Lyon, with H. P. Tseng, one of two “Advisory Editors,” China Handbook, 1937-1944 (November 1944), Chinese Ministry of Information, P. O. Box 107, Chungking, China; printed by W. Newman & Co., Ltd. Calcutta, India)
This is a revised edition (in effect, vol. 2 of 10), in which “more space is given to a detailed coverage of the period from January, 1943 to June, 1944, or even later. What has been previously published is, in most cases, condensed...”
626 pages, + table of contents i-vi, and index i-xvi. Chapter 25 is a “Chinese Who’s Who” (pp555-626)
scan of Claremont School of Theology copy (perhaps from library of D. W. Lyon, Jean’s father?), borrowable via archive.org : link
earlier edition (U California copy) via hathitrust : link
hathitrust offers limited search only for subsequent editions, through vol 10 (1956/57)
Lyon, Jean. “China’s Underground Press.” China at War 12:6 (June, 1944) : 27
have not seen
referenced in Te Chin, Mass Media in the Republic of China: a Survey of Newspapers, Broadcasting, Television, Film, and Advertising (Masters Thesis, Oklahoma State University, May 1982) : link
Jean Lyon, “Chinese Students.” The Nation 173:14 (June 28, 1947) : 279-280
archive.org : link
on student demonstrations in Peiping (as well as Nanking, Shanghai, Tientsin and elsewhere); crackdown by the Generalissimo...
“Moreover, throughout the war period and in their trek back east last summer, the students have seen more of the country and of the conditions prevailing in vast areas of it than any other student generation in all China’s history. It is not strange, therefore, that in their demonstration at Peiping they had two slogans: The people of China must not starve; the civil war must stop. With irrefutable logic they maintain that the nation’s economy has been distorted by the heavy costs of civil war, and that until the civil war ends the people will not have enough to eat. They have carried their protest far beyond their own personal needs.
The demonstration was impressive....”
Jean Lyon. “Report on Peiping Shooting.” China Weekly Review (July 17, 1948) : 203-206
have not seen
referenced in Jessie G. Lutz, “The Chinese Student Movement of 1945–1949.” Journal of Asian Studies (23 March 2011)
Jean Lyon. “Southeast Asia’s Chinese Puzzle.” The Nation 171:24 (November 25, 1950) : 483-484
archive.org : link
on Indonesia —
“Indonesia has recognized the Chinese Communist government, and an ambassador from Peking has already presented his credentials; so the situation there is quite different [from those in Singapore and the Philippines, treated in preceding paragraphs]. The new Chinese ambassador, I was told by Indonesians, appeals to his people in Indonesia to support Peking on the ground of nationalism rather than of communism. Indonesian nationalists who are working for social change by peaceful means are concerned over the possibility that Chinese wealth in Indonesia may be used to finance the Indonesian Communists in the name of Chinese nationalism.”
Jean Lyon devotes a more detailed analysis, in three longer paragraphs, to Malaya (both the Federation and the Crown Colony of Singapore), “where the proportion of Chinese is the largest, [and] the problem is the most serious.”
Jean Lyon, “Nepal : Fairy Tale in Technicolor.” The Nation 171:24 (December 9, 1950) : 524-526
archive.org : link
“Nepal’s fugitive king and a few hundred of its more articulate and aggressive political exiles have managed to raise the curtain on the incredibly medieval rule in that mountain-locked Himalayan kingdom. At the same time, in spite of the tiny dimensions of their revolution, they have placed their little country of some five and a half million people on the growing list of international problems.”
see thumbnail overview of period that includes that presented by Jean Lyon, at wikipedia : link
Jean Lyon, “Hungry India.” The Nation 172:10 (March 10, 1951) : 279-280
archive.org : link
“Many ardent Indian nationalists are restlessly calling for action rather than words. Whether famine will bring revolution or not, it is already clear that it may postpone political stability for years.
With respect to Indo-American relations, the question now is how much can we be disliked by the Indian people and still call them friends. From this end it looks as if we had almost reached the limit. Indians have deeply resented the suggestion that their country’s vote in the United Nations could be bought with American wheat. Indian national pride may perhaps be over-sensitive, but the arrogance of some loud-spoken Americans has been hard to bear...”
Jean Lyon. “When the Communists Entered Peking.” Harper’s Magazine (February 1950) : 78-86 archive.org : link
personal experience, anecdotes, and analysis. solid.
Jean Lyon. “How Jonny Wu Became a Communist; The Conversion of a Peking Student.” The Reporter (January 9, 1951) : 25-27
The Unz Review : link
Jean Lyon was in Peking at the time the city was entered by the Communists. Johnny Wu is a student of journalism at Peking University, his father a Nanking official, and is optimistic about his career prospects. Is disabused of the Kuomintang (that sends its thugs to campus); later disappears, only to reappear, after changing his name, with some news-related job under the Communist regime.
The Reporter (“The magazine of facts and ideas”) was founded by Max Ascoli (1898-1978) and James Reston in 1949 and merged with Harper’s Magazine in 1968). See wikipedia on Ascoli, maybe simply characterized as an anti-fascist intellectual : link.
Jean Lyon. “India's Submerged Majority: The Unknown Villagers.” The Reporter (March 6, 1951) : 21-24
The Unz Review : link
Jean Lyon. “India Waits for Famine; Tragedy Will Follow the Worst Drought in More than Eighty Years.” The Reporter (April 3, 1951) : 29-31
The Unz Review : link
excerpt —
“‘The situation is explosive,’ according to a representative of an agricultural workers’ union. Hunger strikes and demonstrations are already being reported by Crossroads, the Communist weekly, although the numbers are still small and the demonstrations have not yet received attention in the rest of the press.
How violent hungry men in India can get no one knows. Some say that starving people are lethargic, submissive, fatalistic. Others say that the peasant in India is waking up, that the Congress Party made pre-independence promises that the peasant will not forget, and that the longer the fulfillment of those promises is postponed, the more sense Communist arguments will make to him.”
Jean Lyon, “The Zemindars and Due Process.” The Nation 172:20 (May 19, 1951) : 279-280
archive.org : link
Jean Lyon, “Press Gag for India.” The Nation 173:14 (October 6, 1951) : 279-280
archive.org : link
on a press bill, sponsored by the government as a “protective measure designed to preserve law and order at home and friendly relations abroad... Opposed by three groups — the All-India Newspaper Editors’ Conference, the All-India Working Journalists’ Federation (a fledgling reporters’ trade union), and the various opposition political parties, ranging from the Hindu Mahasabha to the Socialists and the Communists...
may be relevant to present-day (2024) circumstances.
Jean Lyon. “India at the Polls; ‘The first large-scale test of the illiterate Asian peasant in ballot-box democracy’” The Reporter (November 27, 1951) : 30-33
The Unz Review : link
Jean Lyon. “I Guess I’d Rather Be Molested; A western woman’s guide to Indian trains.” The Reporter (December 11, 1951) : 34-36
The Unz Review : link
Jean Lyon. “Indo-Pakistan Relations Are Improving.” Letter to the editor, The Nation 174:2 (January 12, 1952)
archive.org : link
Jean Lyon. “Foreign Intelligence : India Goes to the Polls.” American Mercury 74 (March 1952) : 19-28
(google books, U Michigan copy) : link
ground covered in Just Half A World Away
Jean Lyon, “The Ballot Comes to Bhuti.” The Nation 174:13 (March 29, 1952) : 301-302
archive.org : link
re: the Indian election; some close analysis of the results, showing “widespread dissatisfaction with the Congress government.”
Jean Lyon. “Where Women Rule the Roost.” The Reporter (June 10, 1952) : 33-36
The Unz Review : link
restated in chapters 31-33, Just Half a World Away (1954/55), on Malabar’s matriarchy, the “tharwad” (matriarchal home); a quite interesting section in that book.
Jean Lyon. “U.S. Aid Prescription for India.” The Reporter (October 15, 1952) : 33-36
The Unz Review : link
toward its conclusion :
“There is a strong need in these young people [trainees] to be caught up into a movement that attracts both their idealism and their energies. So far in the new India they seem to have found nothing that has captured them as their parents were captured by the fight for independence. Many of them are turning to the disciplined but exciting program the Communists offer. But the community-development projects may yet capture their imaginations.”
aside —
the tenor of the highlighted passage is found elsewhere in these later reports/essays by Jean Lyon, including one re: China (that I will similarly point to). She seems, at this point in her life, ambivalent about which side one takes, whether it be communism or U.S.-styled “democracy” with its associated scientific methods. What matters more is idealism and perhaps romance, that can yield change and also exert pressure on governments to produce long-term results.
will return to this theme. (20240630)
Jean Lyon. “The Greatest Show in India.” The Reporter (June 23, 1953) : 22-24
The Unz Review : link
on India’s first popularly elected Parliament, at the end of its first year’s run.
“Below us is India. There are Rajput and Sikh turbans and Muslic black caps. There are men from southern India in sarong-like skirts and men from northern India in dhotis hiked up between their legs like giant diapers. There are dapperly dressed men in western business suits, and there are sporty types in English blazers with old-school insignia on the pockets. There are women in white homespun cotton and others in rich silks. A saffron-robed swami leans back with his eyes on the pigeons that are flying around the dome above. A maharaja in a gay printed silk sports shirt leans forward with his elbows on his desk. A Hindu sage, with a long white beard and his long white hair curled at the ends like a Hollywood star’s, shuffles through a pile of papers. And sometimes, when she isn't attending sessions of the United Nations, Madame Pandit is there, looking sophisticated and even regal in her sleeveless choli.”
extract, at almost random —
“Other members find nothing humorous in the language problem. Purushottamdas Tandon, president of the Congress Party, spoke recently for forty minutes in Hindi berating the railway administration for printing its timetables in Arabic instead of Hindi numerals.”
reframed (with less and/or different detail) in chapter 49, “People’s Parliament,” in Just Half a World Away (1954/55)
Jean Lyon. “Chester Bowles, New-Style Diplomat.” Harper’s Magazine (November 1952) : 78-86
Jean Lyon. “‘Safe Days’ and ‘Baby Days’; India Tries Birth Control” The Reporter (September 14, 1954) : 18-20
The Unz Review : link
Jean Lyon. “Indonesia : Flotsam From the Receding Tide.” The Reporter (January 13, 1955) : 29-31
The Unz Review : link
a rather sad story, about the circumstances of Mrs. van Fleugel, a Dutch woman, and then later a couple, all born in Indonesia, with no ties to the Netherlands.
“The barracks were originally built by the Dutch to house coolie labor from the kampongs while they worked on temporary city jobs, she explained. ‘For most of these people they are palaces,’ she said.
Some unscrupulous speculator had now bought them and was renting them to low-salaried people — Indonesians mostly, with dirty habits, said Mrs. van Fleugel. But there were several score of Dutch families her too — Dutch who, like her, had lived in Indonesia all their lives and nothing to show for it. Nothing but this.
Most of the other Dutch had gone back to Holland. But what could she do? Her home was here. For her there was no one left in Holland...”

other writing
Jean Lyon. Just Half A World Away; My Search for the New India
two editions :
New York, Crowell, 1954. 373 pages. “Photographs by the author” on title page
London, Hutchinson, 1955. 335 pages. “With 28 illustrations” on title page
reviewed by Robert Trumbull in The New York Times (August 22, 1954) under title “She Lived To Learn” (with a photograph not by Jean Lyon but Henri Cartier-Bresson) : link (paywall)
aside —
This book is as much about the author’s own evolving understandings, as it is about India.

in progress.

22 July 2024