Abstract
Willard D. Straight – architect, diplomat, photographer, publisher, sketcher, and writer – arrived in Korea in 1904 as a correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, and became the US vice consul in Seoul in 1905. By utilizing a number of images from the Willard Dickerman Straight Papers of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, and by referring to other relevant sources of/about Straight, this essay presents a textual analysis and comprehensive visual reading about the country which Straight observed in a very crucial transition period in global history. It provides a glimpse at the perspective of an early twentieth-century American diplomat, eyewitness, photographer, and writer on the cultural, industrial, and technological transformations that Korea experienced in the early 1900s as a consequence of its interaction with major world powers.
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A Korean home with American and Korean flags. ca. 1904. Willard Dickerman Straight Papers, #1260. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:319613 (accessed September 8, 2021).Search in Google Scholar
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Line of children (orphans?) with American and Korean flags. ca. 1904. Willard Dickerman Straight Papers, #1260. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:319643 (accessed September 8, 2021).Search in Google Scholar
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Western man and Korean laborer resting by statues. 1905. Willard Dickerman Straight Papers, #1260. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:319625 (accessed September 8, 2021).Search in Google Scholar
Women washing laundry in stream. ca. 1904. Willard Dickerman Straight Papers, #1260. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:319534 (accessed September 8, 2021).Search in Google Scholar
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- WTO Crisis through the Lens of Hegemony Theories: When International Trade Law and Geopolitics Collide
- Sovereignty in the Digital Age – How Can We Measure Digital Sovereignty and Support the EU’s Action Plan?
- Crisis of Multilateralism and Cities’ Helping Hand
- Commentary
- “Civilization” in History and Ideology Since 1800
- Documentation
- Opening the Chrysalis: Willard D. Straight’s Sketches, Photographs, and Accounts of Korea’s Interaction with the Outside World, 1904–5
- Book Reviews
- The Truth about Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism
- Eswar Prasad: The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance
- Jean Burgess and Nancy Baym: Twitter: A Biography