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100. Caring for China—Sarah Pike Conger and the Empress Dowager

février 28, 2025

Image description: Collage of two photos. From left: A contemporary photo of an open-air tea house in China, with a characteristic Chinese gate under which pedestrians pass. A black and white photo of several women posing for a photograph together. The woman in the center (the Empress Dowager Cixi) is seated and dressed in a brocade dress. Four women stand around her, two to her left and two to her right, and appear to be of European descent with dresses and hats typical of Western women in the early 1900s. A young girl wearing a white dress stands with the women to the left.

This month, get to know Sarah Pike Conger (1843–1932), a fascinating “woman of history” who played a significant role in Chinese-American relations surrounding the Boxer Rebellion. In July 1900 she and her husband Edwin Conger—the American ambassador to China—survived a siege of Peking’s foreign quarter when the anti-imperialist Boxers, supported by Imperial troops, descended on the city for 55 days. Despite the conflict, Sarah Conger developed a strong relationship with China’s leader, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Although the Western media vilified Conger, her prayerful approach ultimately led to improved educational opportunities for Chinese women. Through it all, she corresponded with Mary Baker Eddy. Dorothy Rivera, Research Manager at the Library, shares Conger’s story, along with former Library fellow Áine Poland. And Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor’s Beijing Bureau Chief, discusses the importance of this historical period for modern-day China.

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Headshot of Aine Poland, with a bookshelf backdrop and medium-length pink hair.Áine Poland is an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in History at Queen’s University, Belfast. She holds a bachelor’s in history and sociology, and a master’s in social science research methods. Her doctoral research—“Mapping Connections: Exploring the Networks of Anglophone Foreign Women in Late Imperial China, 1860-1911”—employs social network analysis to examine the social and professional relationships of foreign women in China. A visiting research fellow at The Mary Baker Eddy Library, Poland gathered archival data contributing to her PhD research. Her work highlights the often-overlooked role of women in transnational history, emphasizing their networks of support and influence.

Headshot of Ann Scott Tyson, standing outdoors with a background of evergreen tree branches, with long brown hair and a dark green sweater.Ann Scott Tyson is The Christian Science Monitor Beijing Bureau Chief, covering China and Northeast Asia. She is an award-winning journalist and author whose career includes a decade covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and eight years as a foreign correspondent in China and Asia. Her US beats have included the Pentagon, Congress, and the Midwest. She has also reported for The Washington Post and contributed to The Wall Street Journal. Tyson is the author of a bestselling Afghanistan war memoir, American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant (William Morrow, 2014). She also co-wrote Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories from the Unofficial China (Westview Press, 1995). She holds an honors degree in government and East Asian studies from Harvard College, as well as an honors certificate from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po). She was awarded the Bagehot Fellowship for graduate studies in economics and business at Columbia University and the Rotary Graduate Fellowship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She speaks Chinese and French.

Headshot of Dorothy Rivera, with short brown hair and a beige sweater, outdoors with a white picket fence behind her.Dorothy Rivera is Manager of Research and Exhibits for the Library, where she began her work in 2014 as a researcher. She holds a bachelor’s in history and political science from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s in history from the University of Maryland, College Park. Rivera wrote an article on Conger for the Library’s “Women of History” series.

Collage images (from left): Local residents frequent Heming Tea House in People’s Park in central Chengdu, China, June 13, 2024. Photo by Ann Scott Tyson © The Christian Science Monitor. The Empress Dowager Cixi (center) in Leshoutang, Summer Palace, Beijing, with Sarah Pike Conger (second from right) and other foreign envoys’ wives. Xunling / National Museum of Asian Art Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Cixi, Empress Dowager of China, 1835-1908, Photographs, FSA_A.13_SC-GR-249.

Guest photos used by permission.

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