Posts Tagged ‘National Geographic’
Eliza Scidmore Sports a New Look
On a research run through the Internet I come across this woodcut illustration of my book subject, Eliza Scidmore. It was made by an L.A. artist named Bijou Karman for an online National Geographic series on “21 Women Travelers Who Changed the World.” You can see the list of women and their portraits here. I…
Read MoreFrom Early ‘Lady Writer,’ Washington Cherry Blossoms and a National Geographic Legacy
From NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY NEWSROOM Originally posted January 16, 2018, on National Geographic Voices Blog (Under the transition to Disney partnership in 2020, National Geographic removed previous blog content by contributors. The article below is copied as it appeared on the site.) Eliza Scidmore went to Japan for the first time in 1885. She was…
Read MoreScidmore, National Geographic Female Explorer
Eliza Scidmore is known largely for her role as the earliest visionary of Washington’s cherry trees. She was also an intrepid traveler. And the National Geographic Society considers her its first female explorer. The Geographic recently spotlighted some of its pioneering women on its blog. I kicked off the series with an article on Eliza…
Read MoreLibriVox Adds Scidmore Writing on Alaska
Eliza Scidmore has made her debut on LibriVox, the free online service of audio books in the public domain. LibriVox has started adding back volumes of National Geographic, some containing articles by Scidmore. I discovered LibriVox a couple of years ago and am now a big fan. The selections consist of only older works —…
Read More‘Pen Pal’ in Japan Aids My Book Research
This is Ichiro Fudai. We’ve never met. But he and I have corresponded online for many weeks, after he learned about my book project on Eliza Scidmore through a TV program that aired during my research trip to Japan in 2013. Ichiro, who has visited the United States and has an excellent command of English,…
Read MoreEliza Scidmore and Earthquakes in Japan
Last Friday a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck the northeast coast of Japan, in a region known as Sanriku. The eruption, originating on the ocean floor 150 miles away, caused severe shaking but no reported deaths. The catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, which killed about 19,000 people and caused meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant,…
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 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…
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