Shanghai American School Records, including the Phoebe White Wentworth Collection of Shanghai American School History and Memorabilia

The Shanghai American School, a day and boarding school from kindergarten through senior high, was founded in 1912, primarily to educate the children of American missionaries. The school was open to the children of all American citizens living in China, however, and from its inception attracted students from the business and professional communities. Children of Europeans, able to handle instruction in English, also attended. SAS opened with 38 students. The school quickly outgrew its original site on North Szechuen Road and by 1918 a committee was established to purchase land and build a permanent school. Eventually land was secured at 10 Avenue Petain where the school opened on a new campus in 1923. By 1925, during the tenure of Charles L. Boynton, principal, enrollment reached 417.

SAS was incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1921. The Board of Trustees, based in New York, held the title to the property. The school was locally controlled by a Board of Managers in Shanghai, appointed by the Board in New York.

In 1926, Mr. Elam J. Anderson, Ph.D. was appointed as principal. The school continued to grow in size and stature under his direction and in 1931-1932, the final year of his tenure, enrolment stood at 595 with a staff of 43. In 1932, Henry H. Welles, Ph.D. was appointed as the new principal. Enrolment continued to rise under his direction and in 1934 it went above 600. During his five-year tenure, Welles focused on improving the school's academic standards to the level of the best American prep schools.

Life in China changed greatly in 1937 because of the Sino-Japanese War. Nevertheless, SAS remained open until 1941 when most Americans were evacuated from China due to the ongoing war and the mounting tensions between Japan and the United States. Reduced to 20 percent of its former size, the Shanghai American School officially closed after commencement 1941.

Though SAS officially closed after commencement in April 1941, a spin-off, organized by Frank W. Cheney and other former faculty, managed to keep the school going through 1942-1942 under the name of the American Private School, and through 1943 on the premises of the Community Church, under the name of the Community Private School.

Vestiges of the Shanghai American School even continued during 1943-1945 in a Japanese internment camp where hundreds of Americans remaining in Shanghai after the 1941 evacuations, plus many Britons and Dutch, were interned following Pearl Harbor. This school, known as the Chapei Civilian Assembly Camp School, under the leadership of R. J. McMullen, Frank Cheney, and Eric Schmidt, graduated classes in 1943, 1944, and 1945.

In September 1945 Cheney organized the Shanghai American Private School at the Community Church, which, in the spring of 1946, reoccuped the SAS campus. In September 1946, Thomas C. Gibb, a former SAS teacher, was appointed principal of the postwar SAS by the reconstituted Board of Managers of the Shanghai American School. The postwar school grew to an enrolment of about 500 in 1948, but closed after graduation in 1949 when Communist armies occupied Shanghai.

The final spin-off of SAS, the Private American School, located at the Community Church, and under the leadership of Val Sundt, former SAS vice-principal and teacher, continued the SAS curricula until commencement 1950, when pressures from the Communist government made it impossible for an American institution to continue.