Hu Shih was born in 1891, with family roots in Jixi, Anhui. In 1910 he won a Boxer Indemnity scholarship to the United States and studied under John Dewey at Columbia. In 1917 his essay in New Youth calling for writing in the vernacular made him the best-known figure of the New Culture Movement. During the war with Japan he was ambassador to the United States, and afterwards president of Peking University.

He left China in 1949 and that November helped Lei Chen and others found the fortnightly Free China in Taipei. The masthead named him as publisher; he was mostly in the United States. As the magazine moved from supporting the anti-communist cause to criticising the government, his name was a layer of protection.

In 1958 he came back to Taiwan as president of Academia Sinica. Two years later, when Lei Chen was arrested for organising the China Democratic Party, Hu hurried back from America and said publicly he was disappointed, but could not change the verdict; Lei got ten years. Chiang Kai-shek complained about Hu in his diary; some younger people complained he had not been firm enough.

On 24 February 1962 he had a heart attack while hosting a reception at Academia Sinica and died on the spot, aged seventy. His grave is in Nangang, on the hillside across from the Academia.