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, letters, and diaries (1928-1972). A major highlight of the collection includes materials related to the development of American-Chinese relations in the 20th century. 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. In spring of 2026, the Missouri State Library via IMLS (LSTA) contributed $10,000 to this digital archives project. We are so grateful for state and federal funds to help this project become a digital reality!

As the grants do not cover all costs, consider giving to our fundraising campaign, with a goal of $17,000, to fund one year of this enormous digitization project: https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1236/lg24/form.aspx?sid=1236&gid=1&pgid=5831&cid=11772 We have generously received $1,500 from Kansas Citian Fred Logan, and any donors wishing to donate over $1,000 will be listed by name here.

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