The Grassroots Chinese History Archive (GCHA) aims to facilitate research by scholars worldwide in modern Chinese history, with a focus on the social, political, and cultural history of China's 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. GCHA contains unique grassroots documents that the team collected from flea markets and vendors, mostly in the city of Tianjin, between 2003 and 2011. Some files were created by mass organizations and individuals during the 1960s and 1970s. Many others were created and later discarded by offices and archives in China because these places have determined that they are no longer worth keeping. This introduction to files created by mass organizations in Tianjin explains their format and diversity of content, and includes links to specific items.
GCHA is also the sole worldwide open online host of the Chen Xiuliang and Sha Wenhan Family Collection, featuring files related to the life and careers of Chen Xiuliang (1907–1998), who served as the Zhejiang Provincial Minister of Propaganda during the 1950s, and Sha Wenhan (1908–1964), who was governor of Zhejiang Province during the 1950s. This introduction to the collection outlines its parts and how to navigate them.
Finding Documents
Because each way of searching the database yields unique results, try multiple search methods for your chosen topic, including:
- the keyword search in the upper right corner of each page, which does a full-text search on each item and displays a list in order of relevance, which can then be limited by Tag and Collection;
- the Advanced Search, which allows researchers to limit searches to a particular collection or subject, and by title, creator, and other criteria.
You can also browse documents by subject headings created by the GCHA team.