Beatrice Bartlett

Professor of History

Betsy Bartlett, B.A. Smith College, Ph.D. Yale, your specialization is modern Chinese history, covering the long period between 1600 to the present. Because of the absence of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China, your dissertation research had to be carried out in Taiwan, chiefly in the Taipei Palace Museum’s archives of the Qing dynasty. But following the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1980, you were one of the first American scholars to undertake research in the Qing archives in Beijing. In 1985 you were selected as one of nine representatives to participate in a Beijing conference and tour of archival sites across China, and this conference and tour inspired your chief research interest: the history and use of the archives of the Qing dynasty, a subject on which you have published 20 articles. Your research on the Qing archives led to your major work, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723-120.

These are some of the facts of your scholarship. But beyond all of this, yours is a remarkable story. You were born in New Haven and your brilliant Yale summa cum laude father, Russell Sturgis Bartlett, class of 1917, Ph.D. 1924, was for some years a Professor of Physics here. But your blue line is actually extraordinarily long on both sides, going back to your great, great, great, great grandfather, Yale class of 1753, and including in your lineage a host of Daggets and Bartletts, two legendary Yale names. Your ancestors include Russell Sturgis, the architect of Battell Chapel, Farnam, Durfee, and the President’s House at 43 Hillhouse Avenue; David Daggett, 1783, one of the 3 founders of the Law School; and Anna Alice Cutler, a Philosophy Graduate in one of the early PhD programs for women, who taught for many years at Smith. Yung Wing, the first Chinese to graduate from a North American university, married the daughter of the sister of your great-grandfather. The Yung Wing grandchildren are your third cousins, and you know them all.

You yourself started graduate school at Yale very late, after a long career as a teacher and Chair of the History department at The Brearley School in New York and your road to tenure after such a start is in itself a remarkable tribute to you. Your retirement last June marked the first time a woman in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences started as a beginning assistant professor and was promoted through the ranks of associate professor, full professor, and into retirement. Your Yale ancestors would be extraordinarily proud of your work, of your story, and of the place you have come to assume in this community. So are your colleagues, and as you retire we extend to you our warm congratulations and our highest regard.

Tribute Editor: Penelope Laurans