The Snapshots in Time Collection
Steamship and Sampans in Chinese Harbor, Pre-WWII
A merchant steamer rides at anchor amid a flotilla of traditional sampans in a bustling Chinese harbor of the 1930s. Photographs like this one, preserved in a U.S. Navy China Station album, document the mingling of Western commercial shipping with local watercraft in the treaty ports where American naval forces maintained a presence in the years before the Pacific War. Project: 218181