Archive for March 2012
Guest Blogging on Eliza Scidmore at ‘Viral History’
Ken Ackerman, the author of books on J. Edgar Hoover, “Boss” Tweed and other larger-than-life characters, writes a blog on people, politics and the world, Viral History. He offered me space today to write about Eliza Scidmore while the cherry trees are in bloom. Visit his blog and check out my post.
Read MoreCherry Tree Planting in March 1912 Shaped Public Face of Washington, D.C.
(This article was originally posted March 26, 2012, on National Geographic’s News Blog) The cherry trees are blooming in Washington. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, marks 100 years since First Lady Helen Taft and the Japanese ambassador’s wife, Viscountess Iwa Chinda, planted the first two trees. No photographs of the event exist, and newspaper accounts were…
Read MoreHappy Birthday, D.C. Cherry Trees!
The cherry trees are blooming, and Washington is now celebrating a very special event: the centennial of its first trees donated by Japan. On March 27, 2012, First Lady Helen Taft stood by the Tidal Basin and planted the first of 3,000 flowering cherry trees sent from the mayor of Tokyo. The Japanese ambassador’s wife…
Read MoreQuoted as ‘Scidmore Scholar’ by Washington Post
The Washington Post published a special supplement today spotlighting the 100th anniversary of the city’s Japanese cherry trees. Reporter Michael Ruane quoted me at length in his very good article about Eliza Scidmore. She’s finally getting her due, after being overlooked for a very long time.
Read MoreSmithsonian Has Scidmore Photo Collection
Remember back in the ’60s and ’70s when travel was such a big deal that everyone took hundreds of slides? And insisted on sharing them. As you sat for what seemed like hours watching poorly cropped and focused images projected on a white sheet hung across a wall in the living room. Today, with cellphones,…
Read MoreAt National Geographic, Scidmore Photos and Samurai
Photographs from Eliza Scidmore‘s days in Japan are going on display at the National Geographic Society in Washington starting today. The exhibit is twinned with an exhibit on samurai. Included are two dozen hand-colored photos from the early 1900s, which the National Geographic attributes to Eliza Scidmore. Some were published in National Geographic; others are…
Read MoreScidmore Book Titles at 1893 World’s Fair
Women’s History Month begins this week. The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress kicked things off things with a presentation March 2 on a new scholarly work, Right Here I See My Own Books. The book describes the woman’s library of 8,000 titles assembled for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (officially the…
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