Wong Chin Foo was born as Wong Ka See in Jimo, Shandong Province in 1847. Due to his father’s financial troubles, his family fell into poverty and he was adopted by Baptist ministers in 1861 and brought to the United States in 1867 to receive a western education. He attended both the University of the District of Columbia and Bucknell but left without receiving a degree from either and returned to China in 1870. In 1873, Wong came to the United States and became one of the country’s first naturalized Chinese citizens. In the late 1860s Wong began lecturing on Chinese cultures and customs, but as anti-Chinese sentiment swelled in the early 1870s, he sharpened his focus from education to advocacy, striving to bridge the cultural and legal divide between Chinese immigrants and white America. He founded the first association of Chinese American voters and the Chinese Equal Rights League, which was created specifically in reaction to the Chinese Exclusion Act. He published one of the country’s first Chinese language magazines, “The Chinese American” (the earliest known example of the term), and in the 1880s brought a Chinese theatre troupe to New York City to perform. Wong possessed a keen wit and flair for showmanship -- He offered up a five hundred dollar reward to anyone who could prove rats or cats were found in Chinese cuisine, and once challenged the anti-Chinese demagogue Denis Kearny to a duel. Albumen photographs (4), each measuring 4x2.5 inches. Photographer’s stamps verso. Despite his myriad achievements and notoriety, photographs of Wong are exceedingly rare. There is one in the archives of Bucknell University and five in private hands (four in a prominent collection of 19th century Chinese American images). Three of the photographs were taken in Ohio by J.F Rider of Cleveland, G.W Chase of Newark and J.D Cadwallader of Marietta. The fourth was taken by Henry Ulke in Washington D.C.Two of the four images in this collection are previously unknown. Three of the four photographs are signed “Wong Sa Kee”, (one in both Chinese characters and english, and the other two in Chinese). Soon after Wong’s permanent move to the United States he changed his hairstyle (from the traditional braided queue) and became Wong Chin Foo, therefore we believe these were taken during his first trip to the United States, circa 1867-70.