Chiang village in the mountains above Wenchuan, Sichuan, China, 2019. David Crockett Graham helped build a school here. The 2008 earthquake devastated the village.
Thank you for your interest in the David Crockett Graham Historical Fund – a nonprofit organized to promote the legacy and ideals of David Crockett Graham, including through the preservation of primary source materials, fostering scholarship related to David Crockett Graham’s life and work, and other related charitable and educational purposes.
Please have a look at what we do. We hope that you will be inspired to make a contribution.
David Crockett Graham and Alicia Morey Graham studying Chinese in Shaohsing with their Sichuanese tutor, 1912.
Alicia Morey Graham and David Crockett Graham in Englewood, Colorado, 1954.
Featured News & Views
See all News & Views
December 2024 Sichuan University Conference
January 14, 2025 – by Chris Hoogendyk
On December 20, 2024, I posted an article on the 90th Anniversary of the 1934 Yueliangwan Excavation. The event was commemorated with a conference at Sichuan University at which I participated by sending in a video presentation titled “David Crockett Graham’s Legacy.” Jay Xu, who is an expert on the history and art of Sanxingdui, was at the conference and gave a presentation titled “Integrative investigation on the bronze vessels from the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits.”
Head of Archives and Special Collections Deborah Richards, Foundation Relations Officer Wendy Rua '94, David Crockett Graham Historical Fund Executive Director Christopher Hoogendyk, Emma Backbier '27, Associate Professor of History Lan Wu.
Working to preserve the legacy of David Crockett Graham
January 1, 2025 – Posted by Chris Hoogendyk
From traveling the Burma Road to being captured by Communist troops, David Crockett Graham cataloged his 37 years of explorations in China through handwritten letters. Now, nearly 1,000 of these letters will be digitally scanned, archived and preserved by Mount Holyoke College history major Emma Backbier ’27 from New York.
An interesting group of letters written by the Graham’s during their time in China.
The Secret Lives of Letters
January 1, 2025 – by Chris Hoogendyk
It goes without saying that a letter does not stay with the person who wrote it. Prolific letter writers, such as David Crockett Graham and Alicia Morey Graham in particular, scattered their thoughts and observations far and wide, sending greetings, missives, and sometimes lengthy descriptions to family, friends, professional colleagues and acquaintances around the world. During their early years in China, letters traveled by boat down the Yangtze and then by steamer across the Pacific Ocean. During the war of resistance against Japan, letters sometimes went through Russia by train, then through Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean. During World War II, they went by plane over “the hump” (the Himalayas) to India, then to North Africa and across the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo: Mr. Lin Min-juin, assistant curator, (left), D. C. Graham (right), with some of the Hanchow gentry who cooperated in carrying out the excavation.
90th Anniversary of the 1934 Yueliangwan Excavation
December 20, 2024 – by Chris Hoogendyk
90 years ago David Crockett Graham carried out the first archaeological excavation at the site now known as Sanxingdui. His report on the excavation was published in the Journal of the West China Border Research Society and received international acclaim. While he referred to it as the Hanchow excavation, the village where it took place is now known as Yueliangwan.