Wilma Cannon Fairbank personal archive

Wilma Cannon Fairbank (1909-2002), artist, diplomat, and historian of Chinese art, archaeology, and architecture, was born Wilma Denio Cannon on April 23, 1909, in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Dr. Walter B. Cannon, professor at Harvard Medical School, and author Cornelia James Cannon. She received her BA in Fine Arts from Radcliffe College in 1931, and, soon after, became an apprentice to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. In 1932, she traveled to Beijing (then romanized as Peking or Peiping), where she married John King Fairbank (1907-1991), who became a leading scholar of modern China in the United States and Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History at Harvard University.

While in China, Fairbank became interested in Chinese archaeology, and she participated in several expeditions to sites in remote North China to study Buddhist cave temples, ancient stone tomb carvings, and bronze vessels. She then applied her research to write scholarly articles on the methods and materials of early Chinese artists and the mural art of the Han Dynasty. An artist, she also exhibited her watercolors in Beijing (then romanized as Peking) and Shanghai.

The Fairbanks returned to the United States in 1936, when John Fairbank was appointed to Harvard University’s Department of History. During World War II, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., where Fairbank began her diplomatic work. She conducted a survey and wrote a report on Organizations in America Concerned with China for the American Council of Learned Societies. The following year, she became the first employee in the China section of the State Department’s Cultural Relations Division, which dealt with scholarly and cultural exchange. In May 1945, she returned to China to spend two years as the Chief Cultural Officer in the American Embassy in Chongqing, and later in Nanjing.

Upon her return to the United States in 1947, Fairbank embarked on several initiatives, in addition to adopting the couple's two daughters: Laura in 1950 and Holly in 1953. In 1947, she was commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to write a report on Chinese Educational Needs and Programs of U.S-Located Agencies to Meet Them. During this time, she also researched and wrote papers on Chinese education and technical training of Asian students in the United States; served as secretary for the newly founded Far Eastern Association in 1948 and 1949; and organized and conducted a weekly radio program, “The World and You,” sponsored by the Boston World Affairs Council from 1950 to 1952. The Fairbanks traveled through and lived in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, and in the People’s Republic of China in 1972.

Fairbank published several books throughout her career, including Adventures in Retrieval: Han Murals and Shang Bronze Medals (1972) and America's Cultural Experiment in China (1976). Her most well-known publication, Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China's Architectural Past centered on Chinese architects Liang Sicheng (1901-1972) and Lin Whei-yin (1904-1955), who became close friends with the Fairbanks while living in China in the early 1930s. In 1984, Fairbank edited Liang Sicheng's, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture.

Fairbank died at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 4, 2002.

John King Fairbank (1907-1991) was a leading scholar in modern and contemporary China studies. He was the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History at Harvard University and Director of its East Asian Research Center, later renamed the Fairbank Center in his honor.

From 1932 to 1936, he and his wife Wilma Cannon Fairbank lived in Beijing (then romanized as Peping or Peking), where they learned Chinese, traveled extensively, and worked on their respective research projects. His research primarily focused on the foreign relations of the Qing dynasty.

After completing his doctorate in 1936, Fairbank returned to the United States and joined Harvard's History Department. His academic career was interrupted by service during World War II, when he served in the Office of Strategic Services and in the Office of War Information. He then spent two years in China, first as Special Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador, then as Director of the United States Information Service.

Fairbank died on September 14, 1991, at the age of 84, two days after delivering his final manuscript to the Harvard University Press.

Liang Sicheng (1901-1972) (sometimes stylized as Ssu-Ch'eng) and Lin Whei-yin (1904-1955) (sometimes stylized as Huiyin) were Chinese architects and architectural historians. The couple married in 1928, and began working together on ancient Chinese architectural structures in the 1930s. They are widely considered to be China's first architectural preservationists.

Wilma Fairbank befriended the couple, and in 1994, published her book, Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China’s Architectural Past, an English-language story about the couple's lives and work.