An adventurous photojournalist of East Asian political turmoil in 1930s Shanghai
by Andrew Liu, UW-Madison Class of 2024, with research assistance from Lihao “Billy” Yuan, Class of 2023
In the early 1920s, as Chinese student enrollment increased rapidly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, local undergraduates became better informed about and ever more intrigued with what was then referred to as “the Far East.” One such UW student, Harrison Forman, left Madison to become a close spectator and interpreter of wartime Chinese culture and politics. From Tibetan lamas to the rise of the Chinese Red Army to the Japanese attack on Shanghai, Forman braved bullets and traveled widely to document key moments in modern Chinese history.
UW-Madison history alum Lihao “Billy” Yuan (Class of 2023) will be leading a “CityWalk” public history tour through Harrison Forman’s Shanghai on August 24 to examine more closely the colorful life of this Badger in China. Click here to register for the event.
Born in 1904, Forman grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of parents born in Russia who emigrated to the U.S. prior to his birth. His father was a fruit seller and his family was active in the Milwaukee Jewish community. Harrison and his younger brother, Joseph, pursued their studies at UW, where they lived in the same house at 114 South Orchard Street. (Joseph became a lawyer and later moved to Florida.) Harrison Forman acquired a degree in what was known then as “Oriental Philosophy.” His academic background and early interests laid the foundation for a career that would span journalism, photography, exploration, and authorship. Among Forman’s multiple personal voyages to China, his early experiences in Asia not only shaped his own worldview but also positioned him as a valuable contributor to media outlets like the New York Times and National Geographic. His unique insights and access to these remote regions broadened understanding of East Asian geopolitics for Western audiences in the 1930s.
As early as 1931, the Japanese military began occupying northeast China, which they called “Manchuria.” This extended to full-scale war on July 7th, 1937. In the wake of Japanese aggression against China, Americans and Europeans showed a drastic increase in sympathy for China, especially after the initial bombings near the international settlements along China’s coast. Having known and supported China militarily and diplomatically in the global theater, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed China as the “fourth global power.” It was through this understanding of Asian geopolitics that Forman dropped out of college in 1929, short of a few credits, “Shanghaiing” himself into China’s various corners, ranging from the Tibetan Plateau to the streets of Shanghai with his pen and camera. His journey in China was personal, yet he managed to be present at key historical anchor points and, in turn, report the events via his photojournalism.
“It was almost two years now (1931) since I had first come to China-which was a long way from Milwaukee, my birthplace, and the University of Wisconsin, where I had majored in Comparative Literature and Oriental Philosophies. Excellent qualifications, no doubt, for the field I went into immediately thereafter –aviation.” — Forman, Horizon Hunter
Forman initially worked as an aviator, a meteorologist, and as an aircraft salesperson based in Mexico and San Francisco, where he hoped to contribute to a small Mexican uprising that was crushed in short order. This experience, however, bumped him into a quick ship ticket to China in 1929. Without much second thought, Forman’s adventurous spirit gained its second wind — shipping weapons and warplanes to Chinese warlords on the brink of military action with Japan.
That was also when Forman first encountered Japanese aggression in China. By January 1932, Forman was an arms salesman based in Shanghai and partnered with an American-educated general called T.S. Shen, selling fighter planes to the Chinese KMT Nationalist leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Forman’s arms dealing helped him fully understand and immerse himself in the power dynamics of the Chinese warlords, imperial powers, and encroaching Japanese ambitions adjacent to the Shanghai international settlement.
“Chiang Kai-shek in 1931 was not yet ready to measure strength with Japan. He was impotent in the Manchurian conquest by Japan, for Chiang ruled there only through the real warlord-Chang Hsueh-liang.” –Forman, Horizon Hunter
At the time, the Shanghai commercial district had completely blocked Japanese businesses, following the infamous Mukden Incident (also known as九·一八事变). Westerners in the Shanghai International Settlement, fearing for their safety, relied on the Volunteer Force to protect foreign properties. Forman joined the Volunteers and watched the Shanghai Incident (also known as 一·二八事变, the January 28th incident) from across the settlement border. The incident involved a military clash between the Japanese and two Kuomintang (KMT) armies of China, stationed near Shanghai in the Chapei (Zhabei) district. The 19th (referred to by Forman as “the Cantonese”) and the 5th Route armies fought the Japanese ground forces and navy in the city, resulting in a stalemate. However, the incident did not escalate to full-scale war as the League of Nations intervened and brokered a ceasefire in March. Forman, although serving as a volunteer, did not see any action before the retreat and truce. He was so eager to follow the story that, at one point, he mistook the firecrackers at dusk celebrating the “victory” (claimed by both sides) of the 19th Route Army and the Shanghai civilians.
“Firecrackers! Firecrackers, not machine guns! What a joke! A grim joke, but a good one.” –Forman, Horizon Hunter
Forman spent time in other parts of China between 1932 and the outbreak of full-scale war in 1937. The temporary peace in Shanghai cooled Forman’s action-driven nature, as he also encountered fewer dealings with the central government (KMT nationalists). Inspired by the famous explorer Marco Polo, he shifted his focus to the vast, largely unexplored and unindustrialized interior of China. His “Marco Polo trail” expedition took him through today’s northwestern province of Xinjiang, where the Silk Road connected the Middle East and Europe.
The convoy of trucks, however, was stuck in Xinjiang, and Forman was left behind. Refusing to accept total failure, Forman turned his focus to the Himalayas in the Tibetan Plateau, due south, chasing a mountain he had heard was taller than Everest. The road was perilous. Although Forman lost his travel companions to bandits, he became one of the first Westerners to reach the hidden Buddhist tribes in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
Among the earliest Western journalists and explorers, Forman was arguably the most respected and well-connected to the rich Tibetan Buddhist culture. Not only did he capture thousands of photos of the monasteries, lamas, and rituals, Forman was also granted an audience with the Panchen (Banchan) Lama, whom he considered the “Pope” of Buddhism. In their conversations, Forman learned that the Panchen wished Tibet to be apolitical, a “Switzerland of Asia.” Yet modernism, industrialization, and political entanglement seemed to have sifted through the Himalayan mountains. Forman observed that railroads, airports, gifts, and handpicked troops from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek were sent to the Panchen Lama as political tributes, diplomatic gestures, and a military show of force. Forman believed that, by doing so, Chiang hoped to use the Panchen Lama’s religious idolatry to counter Japanese influence in Mongolia. The tailwind of the Japanese invasion in Shanghai followed Forman even to the spiritual depth of Tibet.
After returning to the U.S. from his Tibetan journey, Forman quickly submitted his photographs and journals to Hollywood, where he became the technical director for the 1937 film “The Lost Horizon.” The film was based on a book by the English writer, James Hilton, but showcased Forman’s 1936 book, Through Forbidden Tibet, and his extensive photojournalism, which provided detailed visual and narrative inspiration for the setting and atmosphere. Directed by Frank Capra, the film’s portrayal of the fictional Himalayan utopia of Shangri-La was seemingly overshadowed by the ever-so destabilizing dystopian Far East and the world.
In the summer of 1937, only a year after the film was made, Forman returned to Tibet for a deeper understanding of its culture and religion, as well as for further adventures. During this time, Forman found himself instead journeying through Tibet into the northwestern regions, meeting key figures and witnessing the complex dynamics between the KMT, Communists, and Japanese forces. One of the most notable episodes was his visit to Xi’an, where he was granted interviews with the Chinese Red Army’s Generals He Long and Peng Dehuai. Forman was also one of the first foreign photographers to be granted rare permission to photograph the Red Army. There, he learned about the recent union between Chiang Kai-shek and the Reds, which resulted from a coup d’état by the KMT Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang in the city of Xi’an. The historical unity foreshadowed the upcoming all-out conflict between China and Japan.
“War with Japan! Had it really come at last? Or was this just another “incident” which would be settled somehow like all the many others?” –Forman, Horizon Hunter
Ironically, as he called himself the modern Marco Polo, the Japanese launched a military invasion over the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7th, 1937 (七七事变). Within a month, Shanghai was also under attack. Forman hurried back from Xi’an to Shanghai upon hearing about “perhaps another Shanghai incident.” Recalling similar patterns from the 1932 incident, Forman observed the armies again through his camera. But unlike his previous experience in the Volunteer Corps, he was able to capture much more action. From August 13th onward (淞沪会战), the massive scale and seriousness of the invasion drew closer to the seemingly impregnable international settlements. Forman witnessed and documented the intense bombardments and street fighting that devastated the urban landscape. This time, he took many more photographs and reports that captured the chaos, wreckage, and suffering of civilians caught in the crossfire and bombings. Forman immediately understood that foreigners like him were no longer just bystanders when he saw the bombing of Cathay Hotel near Shanghai’s landmark Bund. The Western appearance no longer guaranteed him invincibility as it did in 1932.
“Jehoshaphat! Was I seeing things? The skyscraper Cathay Hotel bombed! The “Waldorf-Astoria”-the holy of holies of the white man’s “face” in Asia in the very heart of the inviolate International Settlement. Bombed! This was sacrilege!” Forman, 1937.
As Forman continued to photograph the urban battle, avoiding snipers and stray bullets, he took on different perspectives of the Volunteer Corps, the KMT troops, and the civilians reporting on the atrocities that befell the city, reflecting on himself as the arms dealer he once was.
It is noteworthy that the International Settlements and the volunteer corps were strictly segregated from the local Chinese in Shanghai. Even Forman himself thought the 19th Route Army was there to “kill all the foreigners” in 1932. The war in August 1937, however, showed a stark contrast in international sentiment and diplomacy. Forman witnessed and felt the same shift toward sympathy for the underdog — China. Japan did not declare war on the West until much later, so Forman was there to document the beginning of Shanghai’s “Isolated Island Period,” during which many Chinese refugees sought shelter in the international territories. Throughout his reporting, Forman tirelessly documented the role of Catholic and Protestant missionaries who sheltered tens of thousands of refugees during the heaviest Japanese attacks.
During the months of resistance of Shanghai, Forman also captured invaluable moments on camera. Conflict at the junction of Range Road (Wujin Road) and North Kiangse Road, near the Pantheon Theatre, happened just north of the International Settlement. The Pantheon Theatre became an outpost for a unit of Chiang Kai-Shek’s 524th Regiment of the 88th Division, where the soldiers used the location’s reconnaissance value and guerrilla tactics to maneuver around the superior Japanese Imperial Army. The Japanese, on the other hand, could not yet use heavy artillery on the Pantheon Theatre due to its proximity to the International Settlement.
As a result, people within the settlement witnessed months of close-quarters battles across this very junction. Forman taught his friend Malcolm Rosholt how to shoot with his newly acquired Leica camera, and together they actively documented the fighting units stationed at Pantheon Theatre. Amidst the ricocheting bullets, Forman and Rosholt helped document the heroic Chinese response in the three-month-long battle of Shanghai.
After the fall of Shanghai, Forman continued his photojournalism from the interiors of China. He also used other mediums like diaries and journals to vividly record the entire urban war and its aftermath following the retreat of KMT troops. His accounts detailed much of the KMT armies’ defeats while exposing the atrocities committed by Japanese troops, such as at the Battle of Lanfeng. Forman wrote an extensive diary describing the brutal treatment of Chinese non-combatants, especially women, by Japanese forces.
Later in 1940, he published a book called Horizon Hunter: The Adventures of a Modern Marco Polo about his adventures in China in the 1930s, which details his extensive personal knowledge, photographs, and biographical writings on the geopolitical changes during his decade-long visits to China.
Although it is not entirely free of cultural stereotypes and fantasies, Forman’s work from this period offered Western audiences a rare and vivid glimpse into the realities of the Sino-Japanese War. His photographs and writings remain valuable historical records, preserved in collections such as the Harrison Forman Papers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. His curious perspective and “Marco Polo” style risk-taking explorations offer a peek into his era’s struggling, divided, diverse, and highly complex China. His travels also shaped his worldview and strengthened his relationship with China, deepening this “Oriental Philosophies” major Badger’s bond with the country.
In 1942, after 13 years of travels and expeditions, Forman finally earned his degree, which he had come close to completing in 1929 when he left for China with only 3 credits remaining. As documented in the Wisconsin State Journal, the University of Wisconsin sent his diploma 10,000 miles overseas to his residence in Chungking, where he continued to report at the forefront of the Sino-Japanese War, though thenceforth as an alum.
For further reference:
Forman, Harrison. Harrison Forman’s diary, China, July 1938. Travel Diaries and Scrapbooks of Harrison Forman 1932 – 1973, UW Milwaukee Libraries.
Forman, Harrison. Harrison Forman Collection. American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. https://uwm.edu/libraries/agsl/collections/agsl-photographic-collections/harrison-forman-collection/
Forman, Harrison. Horizon Hunter: The Adventures of a Modern Marco Polo. 1st ed. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1940.
Forman, Harrison. Harrison Forman Papers, Coll 024, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.