Dorothy Lloyd Donaldson Papers

The small collection of letters, postcards and diary transcriptions were written by or to Dorothy Lloyd (Donaldson), documenting her time as a teacher at the North China American School in Beijing, China from 1925-27. In that capacity she taught the children of missionaries serving in China. She sailed to Beijng from San Francisco after graduating from Oberlin College in 1925.

The transcribed diary entries and correspondence from August 1925 cover her travel experiences in Oakland, Honolulu, Japan, Korea, and China. The American School was located in the Tongzhou (referred to in the letters as Tungchow) District of Beijing (Peking). Lloyd wrote to her family members with a great deal of description of her experiences living and working in China, and her social life with other teachers. In April 1926, Lloyd’s letters discuss the proximity of heavy gun and cannon fire from the conflict between the Kuomintang and the warlord Beiyang government in Peking, and the movements of Kuomintang soldiers. The 1927 letters discuss the fall of Shanghai and impending war. Her return travels to the U.S. took her through Siberia by train to Berlin and Paris, followed by two weeks in London. The letters end with her letter to her family from Paris on August 23, 1927.