Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore was an American writer on Asian topics and traveler. She was also an early proponent of planting Japanese cherry trees in Washington.
Background
Eliza Ruhamah was born on October 14, 1856 in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, the daughter of George Bolles and Eliza Catherine (Sweeney) Scidmore. She was a descendant of Thomas Skidmore (Scudamore), who came to America from Gloucester, England, in 1635 with the company of Gov. John Winthrop, Jr.
Education
Eliza was educated in private schools and spent a year, 1873-74, at Oberlin College.
Career
After studies Scidmore began writing society letters from Washington to such newspapers as the New York Times and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Later she went to Alaska, where she obtained material for newspaper articles which were later incorporated in her first book, Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago (1885). From that time on, she was an inveterate traveler, not only visiting Europe, but also living for many years in the Orient, where she made prolonged stays in Japan, India, China, Java, and the Philippines at a time when "around the world" cruises and guidebooks to the East were still unborn.
She joined the National Geographic Society in 1890, three years after its organization, and during the earlier part of her long membership served as corresponding secretary, associate editor, foreign secretary, and member of the board of managers, the only woman upon whom this honor had ever been bestowed. In 1891 she published Jinrikisha Days in Japan, and in 1893, Appletons' Guide-Book to Alaska and the Northwest Coast.
She served as one of the secretaries to the Oriental Congress held in Rome in 1897 and published her Java, the Garden of the East the same year. In 1900 her China, the Long-Lived Empire appeared. She was a delegate to the Oriental Congress held in Hamburg in 1902, and the following year brought out her Winter India. In 1907 she published As the Hague Ordains, for which she was decorated by the Japanese Emperor.
In addition to writing she appeared frequently as a lecturer. She was a regular contributor to such publications as the National Geographic Magazine, Outlook, Century, Asia, World Today, and Harper's Weekly. Her work for the Geographic was especially noteworthy because of its illustrations, for she was an accomplished photographer. In an article in the Century (1910) she relates her long-continued efforts to have Japanese cherry trees planted in Washington, a project which was later carried out by others.
In 1925 she settled in Geneva, where she was an ardent advocate of the League of Nations. She died in 1928.