Social surveys in modern China were exceptionally active in the 1930s and 1940s. Among them, native crafts and folk crafts were an important part of the investigation on the conditions of daily life, labor, culture as well as arts, and became the major content in the social surveys. Based on the mastery of the scientific methods and tools, the ethnographic writing of the subjects of the native crafts and folk crafts survey in this period became the basis for the cultural interpretation and construction. In addition to its irreplaceable academic value, the results of the survey were also an important support for maintaining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as constructing the nation-state and its overall cultural pattern when the nation was at stake at that time.