author
E. C. (Elijah Coleman) Bridgman
1801–1861
A pioneering American missionary and writer, he spent more than three decades in China and became an important early bridge between Chinese and American readers. His work combined religious mission, journalism, translation, and close observation of Chinese society.
1 Audiobook
Letters to Children
by E. C. (Elijah Coleman) Bridgman
About the author
Born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, in 1801, Elijah Coleman Bridgman studied at Amherst College and Andover Theological Seminary before sailing to China in 1829 under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He is widely described as the first American Protestant missionary appointed to China, and he spent most of the rest of his life there.
Bridgman is remembered not only for missionary work but also for scholarship and publishing. He helped found The Chinese Repository, an influential English-language journal about China, and became known as a translator, editor, and interpreter of Chinese culture for Western audiences. His career placed him among the early Protestant figures working in China before and after the First Opium War.
He died in Shanghai in 1861. Today he is often remembered as a cultural intermediary as much as a missionary: someone who tried to explain China to the United States while also helping shape the earliest American Protestant efforts in East Asia.