Sarah Pike Conger

Sarah Pike Conger (July 24, 1843 – February 1932) was an American writer. She was married to American diplomat Edwin H. Conger and accompanied him on his postings as envoy and minister to Brazil (1890–93, 1897–98) and China (1898–1905). Pike Conger developed an interest in Chinese culture and maintained a collection of ethnographic artifacts. The couple survived the 1900 Siege of the International Legations, during the Boxer Rebellion, and afterwards remained in the legation quarter. Pike Conger met frequently with Empress Dowager Cixi, whom she considered a friend, and was criticized for this in the press as Cixi had supported the Boxers. After returning to the United States and the death of her husband, Pike Conger wrote a recollection of her time in China and a children's book about Chinese culture.

Early life Pike Conger was born in Ohio, United States, on July 24, 1843, to Edward and Laura Bainbridge Pike. Shortly afterwards she moved with her parents to Galesburg, Illinois, where they helped to found the Universalist Church's Lombard College. Pike Conger was the only woman present who had endured the siege, and in a speech made during the audience she asked for "more frank, more trustful, and more friendly relations with foreign people".

Pike Conger afterwards met often with Cixi, whom she considered a friend, and persuaded her to sit for her first Western-style portrait. She also had influence on government policy, successfully advising Cixi to issue orders that selected Chinese boys should be educated abroad and supporting the education of girls in China. For her closeness to Cixi, Pike Conger was demonized in the American press, which claimed she was too quick to forget the horrors of the rebellion.

Edwin Conger's posting ended in 1905, and the family returned to the United States. At a final audience with Cixi, Pike Conger was given a Tang dynasty red jade good-luck amulet which Cixi had been wearing. The Dowager Empress wore the amulet on her flight from Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion and in her subsequent exile. The pair remained frequent correspondents and, before her 1908 death, Cixi sent Pike Conger gifts for her granddaughter and also a significant financial donation for the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.

Later life The Congers settled in Pasadena, California, where Edwin died on May 18, 1907, of ill health, that had been exacerbated by his experiences during the siege. Pike Conger became a writer and in 1909 published, in Chicago, Letters from China about her life in that country. It was followed, in 1913, by Old China and Young America, a children's book celebrating Chinese culture. Pike Conger died in February 1932 at the Christian Science Pleasant View Home in Concord, New Hampshire. She is buried beside her husband in Altadena, California.

A collection of Pike Conger's papers are held by the library of Knox College, Illinois. Knox College was closely associated with Lombard College, which closed in 1931. Pike Conger's personal papers and surviving ethnographic artifacts were donated by her granddaughter to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in 1991.

Publications Letters from China (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co. 1909) Old China and Young America (Chicago: F.G. Browne & Co. 1913)