Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Photograph, on paper bearing official seal, 10.5" x 8" (matted, in a 21" x 17" frame)

Madame Chiang presented this photograph to Mrs. Dorothy Thomas in 1941. In 1985, Mrs. Thomas (the former Dorothy Quincy Hancock Read) donated the photograph to the Thomas Room. This photograph is located on the second floor, at the northern entry to the Thomas Reading Room. When the proposal for the creation of the Thomas Reading Room was announced, Madame Chiang wrote a letter of endorsement. This letter is displayed on the second floor, at the southern entrance to the Thomas Reading Room.

Chiang Kai-Shek (1886-1975). In the early 1920s, he became chief of staff to Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Chinese Kuomintang, or Nationalist party; after Dr. Sun's death in 1925, Chiang took over Kuomintang, subdued feudal warlords, and became ruler of mainland China from 1928 to 1949, when the Chinese Communists won the civil war. Chiang, together with the remaining Nationalist forces, moved to the island of Taiwan (Formosa), where he set up a government-in-exile.

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, the former Mei-Ling Soong, was the daughter of Charles J. Soong, who had attended Trinity College. Mei-Ling's sister, Chungling Soong, married Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.

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