iIndependence Seaport MuseumPenn's Landing
Seeking Profit and Power: Philadelphia, China Trade, and the Making of America
Around 150 rarely seen objects trace how the young United States, cut off from British trade after the Revolution, turned east to China and built itself into a global economic power.
More in Philadelphia
Look into a Chinese porcelain punch bowl from around 1784 and you find a small ship flying the American flag painted on the inside. That was the year the Empress of China, captained by Philadelphian John Green, made the first American voyage to Canton. Green's own sea chest is here too.
About 150 objects, many rarely shown and some lent by Mount Vernon, follow a country cut off from British trade as it turns to China: porcelain made to order, letters, sailors' journals, silver coins. Then the harder part. China wanted only silver, and American merchants copied the British and paid in opium. A decade after Boston dumped British tea in the harbour, the new country was sailing to Canton for its own, and tea made up about 90 percent of what came back.
Broad Street Review notes the show deals with opium and with slavery's links to the trade rather than skipping them. It's included in the $23 general admission, and the museum is closed on Wednesdays.
Look for
Captain John Green's sea chest
Look for the mahogany and bald cypress chest he took to Canton in 1784, later fitted with iron and brass mounts he bought in China to mark the voyage.
Martha Washington's bowl
Made in 1795, it shows all 13 states linked together in a chain.
Chopped pieces of eight
Spanish silver coins minted in Mexico City, stamped by Chinese merchants with small "chops" to vouch that the silver was real.
Houqua's portrait
Wu Bingjian, the Canton merchant who became the world's richest man, painted in Western style for the Philadelphia merchant Benjamin Chew Wilcocks.
The Monongahela in a hard gale
George Robert Bonfield's 1851 painting of a Philadelphia ship riding out a storm, heeled over at about 45 degrees.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
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Image credits
7
- Seeking Profit and Power: Philadelphia, China Trade, and the Making of AmericaCourtesy of Independence Seaport Museum
- The Declaration's JourneyPennsylvania Evening Post / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- An Endless Meeting: Still Taking MinutesCourtesy of Vox Populi
- Independence Seaport MuseumGeorge100 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museum of the American Revolutionajay_suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- National Constitution CenterBeyond My Ken, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- African American Museum in Philadelphiaajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0