Eugene Wen-chin Wu
{{Short description|Chinese librarian and bibliographer (1922–2022)}}{{More footnotes needed|date=May 2025}}{{distinguish|Eugene Wu}}
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{{Use American English|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox Chinese
| order = ts
| t = 吳文津
| s = 吴文津
| p = Wú Wénjīn
| w = Wu2 Wen2-chin1
}}
Eugene Wen-chin Wu ({{zh|first=t|t=吳文津}}; Eugene Wu; July 12, 1922, Sichuan, China – August 1, 2022, Menlo Park, California) was a Chinese-born American scholar, bibliographer, and librarian. He was best known as head of the Harvard-Yenching Library from 1965 to 1997. Wu was an English major at National Central University in wartime China, served as an interpreter between Chinese and American soldiers, and was sent to the United States to help train pilots for the Chinese Air Force. After earning a degree in Library Science from University of Washington, Seattle he developed the Chinese collection at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He worked toward a PhD there, but instead became head of the Harvard-Yenching Library, where he stayed until retirement in 1997. Wu was a key figure in organizing American Chinese and East Asian libraries.{{cite web |last=Yang |first=Jidong |title=Eugene Wu, 1922-2022: In Memoriam |year= 2022|url=https://www.harvard-yenching.org/news/eugene-wu-1922-2022/ |publisher=Harvard Yenching Institute}}
Early life
Wu's father was an official in the Sichuan provincial police and became county magistrate of Xinjin county, near Chengdu, where Wu was born, his family's fifth child.{{Cite book |last=王婉迪 Wang |first=Wandi |title=Shu jian wan li yuan: Wu wen jin lei song ping he zhuan 書劍萬里緣 : 吳文津雷頌平合傳 The Fate of Books and Swords: A Biography of Wu Wenjin and Lei Songping|date=2021 |isbn=978-957-08-5689-7 |edition=初版 |location=Xin bei shi|url=https://www.linkingbooks.com.tw/LNB/book/Book.aspx?ID=178163&vs=pc}}
{{rp| 41–63}} He studied English at Central University in Chongqing, while the city was subjected to constant bombing during Second Sino-Japanese War. He volunteered to join the army, and became a translator in the Foreign Affairs Bureau. In 1945 the United States Army asked China to send 100 translators to help train American pilots. Wu became the team leader of these 50 translators.{{rp| 102}}
Career
After the end of the war in 1945, he enrolled in the History department of University of Washington. When the university decided to catalogue the one or two thousand Chinese language volumes in their library, Wu became a student assistant. This task started him on his library career. He then went to the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where in 1956, he became deputy director of the Chinese Library. He and Mary Clabaugh Wright worked for several years to assemble documents and publications on the history of the Chinese Communist Party, which became known as the Chen Cheng Collection.Wu, Meiguo Yuandong Tushuguan Shi pp. 359–376.
In 1965 he succeeded Alfred Kaiming Ch'iu at the Harvard-Yenching Library, becoming its second director.
Selected publications
- Eugene W. Wu, Leaders of Twentieth-Century China : An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Chinese Biographical Works in the Hoover Library. Stanford Calif: Stanford University Press; 1956.
- ___ with Berton Peter, Contemporary China: a Research Guide. Stanford Calif: Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Pace. 1967
- ___, "Recent Developments in Chinese Publishing". The China Quarterly, no. 53, 1973, pp. 134–38. {{JSTOR|652510}}.
- ___, The Harvard-Yenching Library and Its Chinese Local Gazetteers Collection and Other Related Materials: A Brief Survey. Harvard University, 1985.
- ___, Introduction, The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao : From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward. Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University : Distributed by Harvard University Press 1989
- {{cite journal |first=Eugene W. |last= Wu |author-mask=2|title=The Founding of the Harvard-Yenching Library |journal= Journal of East Asian Libraries |year= 1993|volume= 101 | number= 1 |pages= 65–69}}
- ___, [https://www.eastasianlib.org/CEAL/OriginsofCEAL.pdf Organizing For East Asian Studies In The United States:The Origins Of The Council On East Asian Libraries, Association For Asian Studies*]
- ___, 美國東亞圖書館發展史及其他. (Meiguuo Dongyatushuguan fazhanshi ji qita The history of American Far Eastern Libraries and other things) 聯經出版 Taibei 2016.
References
{{Reflist}}
= Sources =
- Wan Weiying and Wu, Eugene (1998) [https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jeal/vol1998/iss116/3 "Tribute to Eugene Wu"], Journal of East Asian Libraries: Vol. 1998 : No. 116, Article 3
External links
- [https://www.angelfire.com/zine2/jungchiu/WuEugne.html Eugene Wu], Angel Fire
- [https://sites.google.com/site/rendepot/home/w/wu-eugene-w Interview]
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Category:American librarians of Chinese descent
Category:National Central University alumni
Category:Harvard University librarians
Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States
Category:Chinese bibliographers