Emancipation, a defining feature of twentieth-century Chinese society, is explored in detail in this compelling study. Angelina Chin expands and reinterprets the meaning of women's emancipation by examining what this rhetoric meant to lower-class women. Challenging the nation-based framework of history by focusing on two cities, Chin compares colonial Hong Kong with Guangzhou, which allows her to seamlessly integrate colonial studies and China studies.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Geographies of Emancipation
Chapter 2: British Colonialism and Regulating Women in Hong Kong
Chapter 3: Emancipating Women from Social Customs (Fengsu) in 1920s Guangzhou
Chapter 4:  Nüling and Nü Zhaodai in 1920s and 1930s Guangzhou and Hong Kong
Chapter 5:  The Fenghua Protection Movement in Guangzhou, 1929-1935
Chapter 6: Social Control through Charity: The Role of the Hong Kong Po Leung Kuk in the 1930s
Chapter 7: Testimonies from the Po Leung Kuk
Chapter 8:  Women Service Workers and Labor Activism
Conclusion: Lower-Class Women, "Emancipation," and Urban Citizenship
Glossary
Works Cited