“104.  Spencer Laisun” [a.k.a. Zeng Dugong and seen at right] c. 1872.  Photograph by Thomas Houseworth & Co., (from the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, New York Public Library).  The photograph of Spencer Laisun and his older brother seen at left, Elijah Laisun (a.k.a. Zeng Pu) was probably taken after their arrival in San Francisco as members of one of the several delegations of students comprising the Chinese Educational Mission to the US from 1872 -1881.   Each of the students posed for portraits at photography studios in San Francisco before traveling on via the new transcontinental railroad to schools in New England.

The Chinese Educational Mission Boys

At first glance, the stereograph of two young Chinese men who sat for their portrait in a San Francisco studio appears as typical example of late 19th century studio portraiture of Chinese.  As Erin Garcia for  the California Historical Society observed on May 24, 2021, for an online exhibit about Chinese Likenesses from San Francisco Portrait Studios, “portrait studios offered a predictable product: a dignified image of the person in front of the camera. If the number of surviving portraits is any indication, it was a fairly common practice for Chinese men, and sometimes women, to pay to have their portraits taken at San Francisco studios.”  

However, the name of Spencer Laisun (a.k.a. Zeng Dugong), identified as a subject of the stereograph on the stereo mounting of the photo, is intertwined with the story of his father Zeng Laishun (曾来顺, pinyin: “Céngláishùn;”  canto: “Jung Loi Seun;” a.k.a. “Chan Lai-sun,” “Chan Laisun,” or “Tsang Lai Sun”) and the Chinese Educational Mission.  

The imperial Chinese government created the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) in 1872 at the urging of Yung Wing (容閎; pinyin: Róng Hóng; Jyutping: “Jung4 Wang4”) (November 17, 1828 – April 21, 1912).  Yung is forever remembered as the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university, Yale College in 1854.  After graduating, Yung returned to Qing-era China to work with western missionaries as an interpreter.  As a proponent of China’s modernization, he persuaded the Qing Dynasty government to send young Chinese to the United States to study science and engineering.  And, in 1872, the Qing government sent 120 boys to live and study in New England for extended periods.

As historian Edward J.M. Rhoads asserts in his book, Stepping Forth into the World: The Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, 1872–81 (Hong Kong University Press 2011), Yung’s exploits have overshadowed the pioneering achievements of CEM’s original interpreter (and father of the young men in the stereograph), Zeng Laishun. 

Officials of the Chinese Educational Mission, San Francisco, September 1872.  Translator Zeng Laisun (曾来顺) on right, Commissioner Chen Lanbin at center, and Chinese instructor Ye Yuanjun on left. Photograph by Thomas Houseworth and Co., from the collection of the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

“As I began to delve into the mystery of Chan Laisun,” Rhoads wrote, “I discovered that his Chinese name was Zeng Laishun, that he had come to the United States and enrolled in an American college four years earlier than Yung Wing (though he did not graduate), that he was the Chinese Educational Mission’s translator (not its commissioner), and that two of his sons were among the one hundred and twenty students of the mission. It was thus from the Chinese shoemakers of North Adams via Zeng Laishun and his two sons that I arrived at this study of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM).”

Other Chinese students had traveled to the US prior to the CEM group.  A half-century prior to the CEM, missionaries for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) brought five Chinese boys In the 1840s for studies in US.  Spencer Laisun’s father, Zeng Laishun, was one of two ABCFM students from Singapore.  Zeng attended Bloomfield Academy, in Bloomfield, New Jersey, in 1846, and Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, for two years.  Thus, contrary to popular belief, Zeng was the first Chinese to attend an American college.

Zeng Laishun and his wife Ruth Ati Laisun (1825 – 1917) raised their two CEM sons, Elijah and Spencer, to also speak English.  Ruth Ati, had attended an English missionary school in the Dutch East Indies, and later taught at another in Ningbo.  According to Rhoads, “[t]he two Zeng brothers, as a result, knew enough English to serve as their father’s teaching assistants at the CEM school. Zeng Dugong was subsequently chosen as a member of the first detachment, but Zeng Pu was not, perhaps because of his advanced age (Zeng Pu would have been nineteen sui old). Nevertheless, Zeng Pu, along with the rest of the Zeng family, accompanied the first detachment to the United States in 1872, and a year later, despite his age, he too joined the CEM as a member of the second detachment.”

“Mrs. Chan Laisun and Daughters” c. 1872.  Photograph by Thomas Houseworth & Co., (from the Jeffrey Kraus Collection).  From l. to r.: Ruth Ati and daughters Lena and Annie.  

According to Rhoads, “Zeng Laishun’s official position in the CEM was a translator; however, he was the third-ranking member and often took upon the role of a Chinese ambassador. In March of 1873, Zeng and his family were invited to attend President Ulysses S. Grant’s inaugural and the reception at the White House.  Zeng also assisted in the successful end of over 60,000 to 70,000 Chinese involuntary contract workers trafficked in Spain in the 1870s.”

Unfortunately, the CEM was short-lived.  The Qing government grew concerned about the Americanization of the boys, and the US government refused in 1878 (contrary to the Burlingame Treaty) to allow CEM students to attend the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  Hence, one of the key objectives for the students – the acquisition of western military expertise – could not be achieved.  In 1881, the Chinese government ended the CEM.  

Zeng Laishun family poses for photos in San Francisco c. 1870. Photo by Thomas Houseworth & Co. (From left to right: Ruth Ati, Annie, Willie, Amy, Lena, and Zeng Laishun.) 

With the end of the CEM, the Zeng family re-migrated back to China.  Zeng Laishun would spend the rest of his life in Tianjin as the personal secretary to Viceroy Li Hung Chang. The North-China Herald reported that Zeng “‘assisted at nearly every important transaction with foreign powers with which the Viceroy Li has been concerned.’” His older son, Elijah, graduated Yale with an engineering degree and is remembered as China’s first scientific engineer. Spencer dropped out of Yale and became a journalist.  He was said to be “one of the first to forecast the gravity of the Boxer rebellion.” Zeng’s two daughters, Annie and Lena, both married Westerners.  Annie founded the Chinese Red Cross and was a crusader against foot-binding practice in China.  She married a Danish ship captain.  Lena married a “land agent and broker” based in Shanghai.

Zeng Laisun late in his career.  From the Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, Department of Anthropology, Division of Ethnology.  The Smithsonian misidentifies this photo as “Portrait of Li Hung Chang, Viceroy of Chilhli in Costume with Fur Cost n.d.” Researchers have asserted that the photo is of Zeng Laisun and not the Viceroy.  Moreover, the photo is signed “Tseng Laisun” (which is the way Zeng spelled his name in his later years).  The Smithsonian has declined to correct its catalog.  Zeng passed away at age sixty-nine in 1895.