Manuscript Copy Book and related papers of a Chinese-American merchant in New Haven, Connecticut, ca. 1883. Unbound; original marbled boards detached but present. Approximately 200 handwritten pages, 170 of these being copies of personal letters written to Frank, with a few business notes written by him, dated from January 1876 to March 1883, The book also has some 30 pages not in his handwriting, with lines from Homer’s Iliad and 12pp. in his hand titled “Testimony, My Christian Friends and Prayers”. Also loosely tipped in: Printed Bible Lesson brochure of 1883; Frank’s copies of three letters, 2 written by him from San Francisco and Hong Kong, Aug.-Sept. 1886, to teachers in New Haven, and 1 written to him from a Church friend who had moved to New York; a 2.25 x 4.25 inch color-illustrated trade card for Frank’s business, “Wing Ying Loong, Importer of all kinds of Teas & China Goods”; and a New Haven newspaper clipping of Nov. 13, 1883, “The Chinaman Goes to Sunday School” with a brief interview with Frank and other Chinese who attended the First Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School.
Ung Loy Frank was born in San Francisco in 1858, the son of Chinese Gold Rush immigrants from Canton who took him back to China as a child. He returned alone to America at age 16, probably “imported” to work in a Massachusetts factory, and finally settled in New Haven, a city with only 27 Chinese residents, most of whom were laundrymen. Frank had higher aspirations. He attended a Christian Grammar School until “his money gave out”, learned English which he spoke with “a few ‘pidgin’ idioms”, then went into successful partnership with 2 “thoroughly Americanized” Chinese friends to import Chinese Tea, gaining “the confidence of the community as gentlemen who not only understand perfectly the goods in which they deal, but who can be relied upon to truthfully represented the articles they sell” in “square honorable dealings”. A period New Haven guide hailed these “educated gentlemen who not only dress as we do but speak perfect English”, their “exquisite skill and neatness” delighting those “whose acquaintance with Chinamen has hitherto been confined to the uneducated class.” Warmly regarded in the white community – as many letters in this book indicate - Frank later married an 18 year-old Caucasian girl from Virginia with whom he had three children. Before Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, he became a US Citizen, “voted the straight Republican ticket”, joined a Baptist Church – and expressed “ no intention of ever returning to China.” He did, however, visit his homeland on business trips; in his letter from San Francisco, en route to China, while apologizing for “my poor writing and mistakes”, he thanked his teachers for helping him “understand the mighty God and His Son, Jesus” and hoped that someday “the heathen land” of China would become “a great christian nation”, The letters to Frank have not been transcribed, but appear to be mostly from white friends he had met in Church, one woman who signed as “Sister Ella” writing that she wished she could again be back in their Sunday School “and see all these dear China boys”, Such English-language papers of Chinese-Americans of this period are rarely encountered outside of institutions.