In the nineteenth century, foreigners in China wrote prolifically about so-called "baby towers"—structures that were erected outside cities to house the remains of dead children. In the minds of many foreigners, baby towers came to embody both a peculiar rendering of Chinese death practices, as well as a growing animus toward certain aspects of Chinese social life. This talk will attempt to contextualize these structures, by describing and mapping the history of campaigns to bury children in the late imperial period.

Jeff Snyder-Reinke is a professor of Chinese history at The College of Idaho. He earned his PhD in modern Chinese history from the University of Michigan in 2006. He conducted dissertation research at the Institute for Qing History in Beijing while on a Fulbright fellowship. Out of this research came his first book, "Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China," which was published by the Harvard University Asia Center in 2009. He is currently working on a book-length study of infant burial in the Qing dynasty. In what little spare time he has, he serves as the CEO of a company that manufactures fruit tea.

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