Explores the complex history and legacy of elite wives, concubines, and daughters of warlords in twentieth-century China.
 
In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives and personalities of the female relatives of the military rulers who governed regions of China from 1916 to 1949. Posing for candid photographs and sitting for interviews, these women did not merely advance male rulers’ agendas. They advocated for social and political changes, gave voice to feminist ideas, and shaped how the public perceived them. As the first publicly political partners in modern China, the wives and concubines of Republican-era warlords changed how people viewed elite women’s engagement in politics. Drawing on popular media sources, including magazine profiles and gossip column items, Merkel-Hess draws unexpected connections between militarism, domestic life, and state power in this insightful new account of gender and authority in twentieth-century China.

Kate Merkel-Hess is associate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of The Rural Modern: Reconstructing the Self and State in Republican China, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

List of Illustrations
A Note on Terms

Introduction
1. Finding the First Ladies of China
2. Women at the Front
3. Not Just a Good Wife and Wise Mother
4. A Revolutionary Family Affair
5. The First Lady and the Second Wife
Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Glossary of Personal Names and Terms
Notes
Bibliography
Index