This dataset is derived from the Whoʻs Who of American Returned Students 遊美同學錄 [Youmei Tongxue Lu] published in Peking [Beijing] in 1917, compiled by the Returned Students’ Information Bureau (Liumei xuesheng tongxunchu 留美學生通訊處) established at Tsinghua School in 1915. This book is crucial for documenting the early liumei's experiences during the transitional period between the late Qing dynasty and the early years of the Republic (1911-). The dataset provides biographical information on the 401 individuals recorded in the directory, including their multiple names, gender, date and place of birth, family situation, date of arrival in the United States, date of return, source of funding, field of study. The data has been first retrieved automatically using Natural Language Processing techniques , and then manually checked and validated by the author. The information is given in both Chinese and English. The Excel file contains two tabs, one for the data, one for the description of variables (key).

This research has been funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (Project n° RG004-U-21).