Welcome to the Snow archives!

The Edgar Snow collection at the UMKC Libraries contains the personal archives of international journalist and Kansas City native Edgar Snow, including photographs, correspondence, and film footage from his wartime reporting years (1928-1957). Highlights of the collection include materials related to the development of American-Chinese relations in the 20th century and Chinese history from the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912 to the present. In spring of 2025, the generous Missouri Humanities Council awarded UMKC Libraries with a grant which has provided limited funding for us to hire a fellow who can digitize and describe this collection, making it digital for researchers across the globe.

As the grant does not cover all costs, consider giving to our fundraising campaign, with a goal of $10,000, to finish this enormous digitization project: https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1236/lg24/form.aspx?sid=1236&gid=1&pgid=5831&cid=11772 

If you'd like to inquire about our work, please email us at digital.projects@umkc.edu.

“The truth is that if I have written anything useful about China it has been merely because I listened to what I thought I heard the Chinese people saying about themselves. I wrote it down, as honestly and as frankly as I could.” -Edgar Snow