ABSTRACT
The past twenty years have witnessed increasing interest in the history and archaeology of the overseas Chinese communities that were common throughout much of the western United States during the late 19th century (cf. Praetzellis and Praetzellis, 1990:9-12). Most of the resulting studies concentrate on analysis of EngliSh-language documents that reflect the Chinese presence, or on description of the physical remains of these neighborhoods and settlements. The studies provide important insights into the demographics and material culture of the Chinese in America. Nevertheless, these avenues of inquiry by themselves often provide only limited information about Chinese individuals or their establishments, daily life in an overseas Chinese community, or Chinese perceptions of life and identity in America (cf. Praetzellis, Praetzellis and Brown, 1987:38-40). Our understanding of these aspects of overseas Chinese life should be enhanced through analysis of Chinese-language records, but this approach has been limited both by the scarcity of historic Chinese document collections in the United States, and by the fact that many of the researchers active in this field are not fluent in Chinese. The senior author's translation of sections of a collection of 19th century California Chinese business records of the Kwong Tai Wo Company, and our analysiS of the data provided, are efforts to broaden our research base. These documents have yielded a considerable amount of information about both the economic development of an overseas Chinese mercantile venture and the
152 I HIDDEN HERITAGE
The Kwong Tai Wo Company (Kuang T'ai Ho) operated a general store in northern California during the last half of the 19th century. The store sold a wide range of goods, probably both wholesale and retail, to the Chinese residents of the area. The records of the company have outlasted both the owners and the store itself, and are now' preserved in the manuscript collections of the Bancroft Ubrary at the University of California in Berkeley (Kwong Tai Wo Company, 1871-1883). These business records constitute a rare and valuable resource; relatively few such collections are available outside Asia (Gardella, 1982:63).
