Researching Eliza Scidmore

Scidmore was born October 14, 1856 in Clinton, Iowa. She attended Oberlin College. Her interest in travel was enhanced by the professional position of her brother, George Hawthorne Scidmore, a career diplomat who served in the Far East from 1884 to 1922. Often, Eliza was able to accompany her brother on assignments and his diplomatic position gave her entry into regions inaccessible to ordinary travelers.

Upon a return to Washington, D.C. in 1885, Eliza espoused her famous idea of planting many Japanese cherry trees in the capital. At that time, Scidmore found little public interest in her cherry tree project, but she did find a great deal of interest in her impressions of Alaska, the subject of her first book, Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago (1885).

Soon after its founding, she joined the National Geographic Society in 1890 and became a regular correspondent. Later, she became the first woman to become a trustee of the society.

Her further travels in the far east resulted in many published works. Among them is Jinrikisha Days in Japan, published in 1891. It was followed by a short guidebook, Westward to the Far East (1892). A trip to Java resulted in Java, the Garden of the East (1897). Visits to China and India resulted in several National Geographic Magazine articles and two books, China, the Long-Lived Empire (1900), and Winter India (1903).

Another stay in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War became the basis for Scidmore's only known work of fiction, As the Hague Ordains (1907). The novel purports to be the account of the wife of a Russian prisoner, who joins her husband at the prison hospital in Matsuyama.

After As the Hague Ordains, Scidmore published no new books and a dwindling number of articles for National Geographic, the last being a 1914 article entitled "Young Japan".

Scidmore's suggestion to introduce many cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C. began to bear fruit when incoming first lady Helen Taft took an interest in her idea in 1909. With the first lady's active support, plans moved quickly, but the first effort had to be aborted due to concerns about infestation. Subsequent efforts proved successful, however, and today many visitors enjoy the sakura of West Potomac Park, the grand planting near the Jefferson Memorial, and in other areas of the capital, particularly during the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

In support of the new conservation movement in the United States, Scidmore wrote a letter to the editor of The Century Magazine in September 1893 on "Our New National Forest Reserves" detailing the meaning and consequences of forest preservation on behalf of the public good.

She died in Geneva, Switzerland on November 3, 1928, at the age of 72. Her grave is at the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery, Yokohama, Japan next to the graves of her mother and brother George Hawthorne Scidmore, US consul to Japan. George and Elizabeth Scidmore's uncle was Gen. David Atwood, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, which was later purchased by Amos Parker Wilder, father of playwright Thornton Wilder.

Eliza R.Scidmore was honored by the Emperor of Japan for her service to the Japanese people.