The Chinese Historical Society of America (abbreviated CHSA) is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California.

History

The CHSA was conceived in the fall of 1962 and incorporated on January 5, 1963, founded by Thomas W. Chinn, C.H. Kwock, Chingwah Lee, H.K. Wong, and Thomas W.S. Wu D.D.S. The five challenged the accepted history that excluded the contribution of Chinese immigrants to building California and the West Coast.

Location

Until 1966, CHSA held meetings in different peoples' homes, when the Shoong Foundation "donated" (rented at a low cost) a small space in a building that the foundation owned at 17 Adler Place (Off 1140 Grant Avenue) (now Jack Kerouac Alley, San Francisco, CA 94133) to function as a museum, and a first permanent headquarters. In June 1989, CHSA moved to 650 Commercial Street. Chinatown YWCA "'CHSA headquarters relocated from Adler, Commercial, and Broadway.'" In 1916, the first Chinatown YWCA branch was established in a former saloon at Stockton and Sacramento; the San Francisco YWCA passed a resolution in October 1929 to build a new facility on three adjacent lots bounded by Joice, Clay, and Powell. Noted architect Julia Morgan was contracted to design the now-historic building, and after consultation with Chinese-Americans, included cultural elements from Chinese arts and crafts. The building housed the Chinatown branch of the YWCA from 1932 until it was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; the board of the YWCA decided to sell the building to the CHSA in 1996 with the help of Supervisor Tom Hsieh and Mayor Willie Brown. November 2001 CHSA relocation In November 2001 the CHSA relocated and opened the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum and Learning Center in the Chinatown YWCA building. The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded the CHSA its National Preservation Honor Award in 2004 for its work restoring and retrofitting the 1932 building, nicknamed the "Lantern on the Hill". In 2005, CHSA received another award from the California Heritage Council for its restoration of the YWCA building.

Exhibitions

The CHSA Museum features the set of twelve Gum Shan paintings by Jake Lee which were originally commissioned for a private dining room in Johnny Kan's eponymous restaurant, which opened in 1959. The museum also has on permanent display the large mural One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America by James Leong, commissioned for the Ping Yuen Housing Project in the early 1950s.

Publications