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Video: Scidmore’s Historic 1883 Trip to Glacier Bay
Of all I’ve learned about Eliza Scidmore so far, nothing has excited my imagination so much as her pioneering Alaska travel. She went for the first time in the summer of 1883, in a journey that became historic, as I show in the video below. Scidmore, then 26, was working at the time…
Read MoreWashington’s New “It” Girl: Eliza Scidmore
Ah, if only I’d stumbled on Eliza Scidmore‘s story sooner I might have a book coming off the presses in time for the centennial of Washington’s first Japanese cherry trees next spring. Talk about the perfect book-signing opportunity! When I began research on Scidmore not long ago, it didn’t hit me at first that the…
Read MoreMeet Eliza Scidmore’s Cousin
The day I received a package in the mail from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois, is when I finally knew that writing a book on Eliza Scidmore might be possible. The package contained a master’s thesis I’d requested through an interlibrary loan, “Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore: More Than a Footnote in History” (2000). I tracked it…
Read MoreBooks: 4 Great Reads By or About Women
I love literature, and as an English major I’ve read a lot of fiction over the years. But these days it seems I read mostly nonfiction. Just finished dipping into an academic book I picked up in the Library of Congress’s gift shop, titled Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War, by…
Read MoreWashington-Area Classes for Book Writers
Writing is never easy, and the long-haul process of writing a book — especially if it’s your first — can feel overwhelming at times. When I started thinking about a book on Eliza Scidmore, I decided to do what I’ve always done when there’s something I’m not sure I can easily figure out on my own:…
Read MoreOn Serendipity in Research
Serendipity is like the crack cocaine of research. It gives you a lasting high.
I remember well the first time I came to understand the term. It was 25 years ago. I was in graduate school, studying journalism at the University of Missouri. For a science writing class I had arranged to interview several researchers on campus who were studying different aspects of cystic fibrosis. It’s an insidious disease in which a faulty gene and its protein product cause the body to produce a tick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and impedes proper digestion. A pediatrician was working to improve clinical observations; a pair of biochemists hoped to develop a reliable diagnostic test for the disease; another researcher was studying glandular secretions in a rat model.
Read MoreEliza Scidmore’s American Fan Club
I’m not the only one with a fixation on Eliza Scidmore. After I began researching her I met two other women equally fascinated by her remarkable life. Washington writer Ann McClellan learned a lot about Eliza while writing The Cherry Blossom Festival, published in 2005 as a souvenir book for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.…
Read MoreEliza Scidmore Grave in Yokohama
Last week I received an e-mail from a Japanese friend that made my day. The message had a photo attached. When I opened it, there was a picture of Eliza Scidmore’s gravesite in Yokohama! I knew from my reading that Scidmore was interred at the Foreign General Cemetery. But here was physical evidence of it…
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