Ida Pruitt

Ida C. Pruitt (1888–1985) was a China-born American social worker, author, speaker, interpreter and activist in Sino-American understanding.

In the 1920s and 1930s she supervised social work in the Peking Union Medical College, then after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War was a major actor in the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives.

After the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, she retired to the United States but continued to advocate warmer relations with China.

[3] When her brother John died, Ida returned to China to be with her family and became a teacher and principal of Wai Ling School for Girls in Chefoo (1912–1918).

During the Japanese occupation of China (1937–1945), Ida assisted Rewi Alley as he organized the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives.

Indusco, the fundraising arm of the CIC in the United States, was formed, and Pruitt served as its executive secretary from 1939 to 1951.

While living in Beijing Ida adopted two girls, one Chinese, Kueiching [Kwei-ching], the other a Russian refugee, Tania Manooiloff.

Ida Pruitt sitting with woman and two dogs, by an unknown photographer, 1935-1938. Judging by photographs in that book, the woman is evidently Ning Lao T'ai T'ai, whose as-told-to-Pruitt autobiography "A Daughter of Han" shows Ning sitting with Pruitt in similar clothing.