by Patricia Stark Mansfield Freeman made perhaps the most significant contribution to East Asian Studies at Wesleyan. He was born in Waltham, Massachusetts on September 16, 1895, the son of Luther Freeman, a Methodist minister who had served in Shanghai. His grandfather was John Freeman, Wesleyan 1855. Mansfield Freeman graduated with the class of 1916, and went to Tsing Hua College, Peking, China to teach English and Philosophy from 1919-1924. He married Mary Houghton in 1919, shortly before going to China. One son, Houghton "Buck" Freeman, Wesleyan class of 1943, was Wesleyan's first Japanese major. A second son died in infancy. In 1924, Freeman began what would be a distinguished career in the world of insurance, becoming the Peking Manager of the Asia Life Insurance Co., later American Life Insurance Co. Over the next seventeen years, he would move up the ranks to become President of the U.S. Life Insurance Co. from 1941-1947. Freeman returned to the U.S., serving as vice-chairman of C.V. Starr and Co., Inc., in New York from 1947 until his retirement in 1960. Freeman earned a reputation as a scholar of Chinese philosophy and as a philanthropist, chiefly in famine relief. In 1972, three decades after leaving China, he published an introduction to and translation of Preservation of Learning by Yen Yuan, a 17th century Chinese philosopher. In 1990, he co-authored Tai Chen and Mencius: Explorations in Words and Meaning with Ann-Ping Chin, visiting assistant professor of religion at Wesleyan. Mansfield Freeman died on November 17, 1992 at his farm in Greensboro, Vermont. He was 97 years old. In the two decades before his death, Freeman helped develop the study of East Asia through gifts that expanded the libraries and established the Mansfield Freeman East Asian Studies Center and the Mansfield Freeman professorship in East Asian Studies at Wesleyan. After his father's death, Buck Freeman established the Freeman Foundation for the purpose of strengthening the bonds of understanding between the United States and China. Most of the Foundation's annual giving of nearly $30 million goes to organizations that foster greater Asian-American appreciation and understanding.

 

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