<p>Minister Edwin Hurd Conger and his staff in the American Legation, c. 1901<br /> Beijing<br /> Photograph by Underwood & Underwood<br /> Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62477</p>

Minister Edwin Hurd Conger and his staff in the American Legation, c. 1901
Beijing
Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62477

<p>Wives of foreign envoys during an audience with Empress Dowager Cixi at the Summer Palace, 1902<br /> Beijing<br /> Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., SC-GR-249</p>

Wives of foreign envoys during an audience with Empress Dowager Cixi at the Summer Palace, 1902
Beijing
Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., SC-GR-249

In 1898, President William McKinley appointed Edwin Hurd Conger as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to China. Conger returned to the United States briefly after the Boxer Uprising before resuming his post, which ended in 1905. His wife Sarah (second from right) met with Empress Dowager Cixi and spoke out against Western interference in China’s sovereignty and domestic affairs.

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