New Life Movement
Created in 1934, the New Life Movement was a campaign to revive Confucianism in China and implement several educational and financial reforms. Hemenway was a strong supporter of the movement, though she did not realize at the time that it was inspired as opposition to the nation’s growing Communist party. Her dedication to the policy programs showed when she wrote, “After Christmas 1936, I became interested in the New Life Movement, which the Nationalist government now sponsored. Occasionally I met with Dora Wong, the new chairman of the Woman’s Department of the New Life Movement...it was very exciting to see that people were beginning to sense the need for real reform.” Much of the Nationalist agenda revolved around improving the nation’s cities and promoting modernization. Although she believed that these policies would help with China’s regeneration, she firmly believed that the future of the nation lay in the area’s rural areas, where 80% of the Chinese people lived at the time.