Snow, Edgar
SNOW, EDGAR (1905–1972). Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and educated at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Edgar Parks Snow rose from his midwestern background to international fame as an intrepid journalist. After graduating from college, he made his way to New York City, where he landed a small fortune through investments in the stock market. He accrued enough money to fund a trip to Shanghai, China. At the age of twenty-two, he traveled by railroad through much of the rest of the country, which was in a chronic state of turmoil due to conflicts among warlords, the Kuomintang, and the young Communist movement. Snow reported on the situation in China for a number of newspapers and journals.
After several years of teaching in Peking, Snow made his way to far western China’s Yenan province, where Mao Tse-tung had established a stronghold. In Yenan, Snow obtained the confidence of Mao and other leaders, who had just survived the epic long march of several thousand miles from southern China. Snow’s account of this, Red Star over China (1937), was the first by any Western journalist and brought the remarkable story of China’s Communist movement to world attention.
Snow also covered events in Burma, India, and Indochina, as well as the Soviet Union during World War II and published some eleven books during his lifetime. His honest, straightforward, and plain-speaking style gained him the confidence of leaders as diverse as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Gandhi, and his books enjoyed wide circulation.
Further reading
Farnsworth, Robert. From Vagabond to Journalist: Edgar Snow in Asia 1928-1941. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996.
Hamilton, John Maxwell. Edgar Snow: A Biography. Revised edition. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
Snow, Lois Wheeler. Edgar Snow’s China. New York: Random House, 1981.
Thomas, S. Bernard. Season of High Adventure: Edgar Snow in China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.
Edgar Parks Snow Papers. Collection Finding Aid. University of Missouri Kansas City University Archives.