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Janet Wulsin's 'Vanished Kingdoms'

<i>Vanished Kingdoms</i> chronicles Janet Wulsin's Tibet expedition.
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Vanished Kingdoms chronicles Janet Wulsin's Tibet expedition.

Mabel Cabot describes her mother, Janet Wulsin, this way: "A privileged, spoiled daughter of a New York railroad baron who lived... in that cocoon-protected world at the end of the golden age in the early 20th century in New York. And she was looking for an escape..."

NPR's Renee Montagne talked to Cabot about that escape: a four-year long expedition through China, Mongolia and Tibet. In 1975, Cabot found her mother's archives at Harvard, archives with 1,900 photographs from an expedition Wulsin undertook with her husband, Frederick.

"It was dangerous," Cabot says. "They went by camel, mule and horse, and rafted down the Yellow River. It's extraordinary." From Peking to Taiyuanfu in 1921, to the "living Buddha" at Kumdum and the final three-week raft ride down the Yellow River in 1923, the Wulsins saw wondrous landscapes and people. She wrote in her diary after meeting the living Buddha: "It is quite a thing to be received by a Buddhist divinity, and I guess not many of the Junior League girls in New York can boast of it."

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.