Soong Mei-ling
Visits to the U.S.

Soong Mei-ling made several tours to the United States to lobby support for the Nationalists' war effort. She drew crowds as large as 30,000 people and in 1943 made the cover of Time magazine for a third time. She had earlier appeared on the October 26, 1931, cover alongside her husband and on the January 3, 1937, cover with her husband as " Man and Wife of the Year ".

Soong dressed ostentatiously during her tours to seek foreign aid, bringing dozens of suitcases filled with Chanel handbags, pearl-decorated shoes, and other luxury garments on a visit to the White House. Soong's approach shocked United States First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and prompted resentment from many officials in the Republic of China government.

Arguably showing the impact of her visits, in 1943, the United States Women's Army Corps recruited a unit of Chinese-American women to serve with the Army Air Forces as "Air WACs", referred to as the "Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Air WAC unit".

Both Soong Mei-ling and her husband were on good terms with Time magazine senior editor and co-founder Henry Luce, who frequently tried to rally money and support from the American public for the Republic of China. On February 18, 1943, she became the first Chinese national and the second woman to address both houses of the US Congress. After the defeat of her husband's government in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Madame Chiang followed her husband to Taiwan, while her sister Soong Ching-ling stayed in mainland China, siding with the communists. Madame Chiang continued to play a prominent international role. She was a Patron of the International Red Cross Committee, honorary chair of the British United Aid to China Fund, and First Honorary Member of the Bill of Rights Commemorative Society.
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