Ōyama Sutematsu
Ōyama Sutematsu | |
---|---|
大山 捨松 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Yamakawa Saki February 24, 1860 Wakamatsu, Aizu domain |
Died | February 18, 1919 Tokyo, Japan | (aged 58)
Cause of death | pneumonia, by Spanish flu |
Resting place | Nasushiobara, Tochigi 36°53′5.79″N 139°59′30.99″E / 36.8849417°N 139.9919417°E |
Nationality | Japanese |
Spouse | |
Children |
|
Parents |
|
Relatives | Yamakawa Misao (sister) Yamakawa Futaba (sister) Yamakawa Kenjirō (brother) Yamakawa Hiroshi (brother) Takamori Saigo (cousin-in-law) |
Residence(s) | Harajuku (then Onden), Tokyo |
Alma mater | B.A., Vassar College, magna cum laude 1882. |
Known for | One of the five girls among the Iwakura Mission, the first Japanese woman to receive a college degree; the model of heroin's mother-in-law in Tokutomi Roka's novel. |
Awards | Memorial badge for the enthronement of emperor Taishō[a] |
Other names | Yamakawa Sakiko Stematz Yamakawa |
[2] | |
Template:Japanese name Princess Ōyama Sutematsu (大山 捨松, born Yamakawa Saki (山川 さき),[3] later Yamakawa Sutematsu (山川 捨松); February 24, 1860 – February 18, 1919) was a Japanese woman of the Meiji era. As a child, she survived the Battle of Aizu. Yamakawa was then sent to America for ten years as part of the Iwakura Mission to become the first Japanese woman to receive a college degree. Yamakawa spent her later years as a philanthoropist advocating for women's education and volunteer nursing in Japan.[4]
Early life
She was born Yamakawa Sakiko (山川 咲子) on February 24, 1860 in Aizu, an isolated and mountainous region in what is now the Fukushima Prefecture.[3] Yamakawa Sakiko was the youngest daughter of Yamakawa Shigekata (山川 重固), a karō (senior retainer) of the lord of Aizu,[3] and his wife neé Saigō En (Tōi) (西郷 艶) (えん) of another karō family, the Saigō. Yamakawa Sakiko had five siblings:[5] sisters Futaba (二葉, 1844–1909),[6] Misao,[6] and Tokiwa;[6] and two brothers, Hiroshi (浩, 1845–1898)[7] and Kenjirō (健次郎, 1854–1931).[7] Their father Yamakawa Shigekata died in 1860, the year of Yamakawa Sakiko's birth, and her eldest brother Hiroshi became head of their family.
Yamakawa Sakiko was raised in a traditional samurai household in the town of Wakamatsu, in a several-acre compound near the northern gate of Tsuruga Castle.[3] She did not attend school, but was taught to read and write at home, as part of a rigorous education in etiquette and obedience based on the eighteenth-century neo-Confucian text Onna Daigaku ("Greater Learning for Women").[8]
Battle of Aizu
In 1868–1869, Yamakawa's family was on the losing side of the Boshin War. The Boshin War was a civil war at the end of Japan's bakumatsu ("end of military government"), in which pro-shogunate forces resisted the new imperial rule that began with the 1867 Meiji Restoration. On October 8, 1868, when Yamakawa was eight, imperial forces invaded and burned her home town of Wakamatsu.[9] Yamakawa took shelter within the walls of Tsuruga Castle with her mother and sisters.[5] Several hundred people from other samurai families instead committed ritual suicide.[10][7] This invasion marked the beginning of the Battle of Aizu, a monthlong siege.
The 600 women and children inside the castle, led by Matsudaira Teru,[12] formed work groups to cook, clean, and make gun cartridges,[13] as well as nursing nearly 1,500 wounded soldiers.[14] One of Yamakawa's sisters attempted to join Nakano Takeko's Shōshitai (娘子隊, "Girls' Army"), but on her mother's orders remained inside the castle making gun cartridges.[13] Yamakawa herself, age eight, carried supplies for the cartridge makers.[13] Toward the end of the siege, Yamakawa's mother sent her and other girls to fly kites as a gesture of defiance while imperial cannons bombarded the castle and the women smothered the shells with wet quilts.[13] One shell which was not smothered in time exploded near her, grazing Yamakawa's neck with shrapnel, and killing her sister-in-law Toseko.[13]
After the battle
The siege ended with the castle's surrender on November 7, 1868.[15] Yamakawa was taken to a nearby prisoner camp with her mother and sisters, where they were held for a year.[16] In the spring of 1870, they were exiled to the newly-created Tonami District.[16] The 17,000 refugees exiled there had no experience of farming, and the winter saw shortages of food, shelter, and firewood which threatened Yamakawa's family with starvation.[16] Yamakawa, turning eleven, spread night soil on the fields and scavenged for shellfish.[17]
In the spring of 1871, Yamakawa was sent to Hakodate, without her family,[18] where she was lodged with Takuma Sawabe and then with French missionaries.[19]
Education in America
Departure with the Iwakura Mission
In December 1871, when she was eleven years old, Yamakawa was sent to the United States for study, as part of the Iwakura Mission. At this time, her mother changed her name from Yamakawa Sakiko (咲子) ("little blossom") to Yamakawa Sutematsu (捨松) ("thrown-away pine tree");.[4][20]the mother gave up (捨, suteru) her youngest daughter to the government mission, while awaiting for (待つ, matsu) her safe return and wished her good luck by choosing the second character of the new name meaning pine (松, matsu), or one from among Three Friends of Winter. Yamakawa was one of five girls chosen to spend ten years studying Western ways for the benefit of Japan, after which she was to return and pass on her knowledge to other Japanese women and to her children, in accordance with the Meiji philosophy of "Good Wife, Wise Mother".[20]
The other girls were Yoshimasu Ryo (age 14), Ueda Tei (14), Nagai Shige (10) and Tsuda Ume (6).[20] All five girls were from samurai families on the losing side of the Boshin War.[21] Before leaving Japan, they were the first samurai-class girls to be granted an audience with the Empress Haruko, on November 9, 1871.[22] They departed with the rest of the Iwakura Mission on December 23 1871 aboard the steamship America, chaperoned by Elida DeLong[23] (wife of the American diplomat Charles E. DeLong), who spoke no Japanese.[24] After a stormy and difficult journey, they arrived in San Francisco on January 15 1872. Yamakawa and the other girls spent two weeks in San Francisco, largely solitary in their hotel room but the subjects of intense newspaper coverage.[25] Americans typically spelled her name as Stemats Yamagawa,[26][27] and referred to her and the other girls as "Japanese princesses".[28] After two weeks in San Francisco, the Iwakura Mission embarked on a monthlong cross-country train tour, arriving in Washington, DC on February 29,[29] where Charles Lanman (secretary to Arinori Mori) took custody of the girls.[23] Yamakwa lived briefly with Mrs. Lanman's sister, a Mrs. Hepburn,[23] then in May 1872 all five girls were moved to their own house with a governess, to study English and piano.[30]
By October, however, they had separated: Yoshimasu and Ueda returned to Japan,[26] Tsuda moved in with the Lanmans,[26] and on October 31, 1872 Nagai and Yamakawa were moved to New Haven, Connecticut.[31] In New Heaven, Yamakawa's elder brother Yamakawa Kenjirō was studying at Yale University.[32] To ensure that Nagai and Yamakawa practiced their English, they were placed in separate households, Nagai living with the minister John S. C. Abbott and Yamakawa living with the minister Leonard Bacon.[33] Yamakawa would spend the next ten years as part of the Bacon family, growing particularly close with his youngest daughter of fourteen children, Alice Mabel Bacon.[27]
Yamakawa attended Grove Hall Seminary, a primary school for girls, with Alice Bacon.[34] In 1875, Yamakawa passed the entrance exam for Hillhouse High School, a prestigious public school, and began her studies there.[35] She attended the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia with both Nagai and Tsuda, a rare reunion.[36] In April 1877, Yamakawa graduated from Hillhouse High School.[37]
Vassar
Yamakawa began her studies at Vassar College in September 1878, the fourteenth year of the still-new women's college.[38][39] To her regret, the Bacons couldn't afford to send Alice to college, but she was reunited with Nagai.[38] The two of them were the first nonwhite students at the school, and the first Japanese women to enroll in any college.[38] Nagai enrolled as a special student in the music department, while Yamakawa pursued a full four-year bachelor's degree.[38]
While at school, Yamakawa Sutematsu began styling her name as Stematz Yamakawa, using the American name order and a spelling which matched the pronunciation of her name.[40] Her teachers included Henry Van Ingen and Maria Mitchell.[41] During her time at Vassar, she studied Latin, German, Greek, math, natural history, composition, literature, drawing, chemistry, geology, history, and philosophy.[42][43] She also mastered chess and whist.[44] Yamakawa was a reserved and ambitious student, whose marks were among the highest in the class.[40] She was elected class president for 1879, and invited to join the literary club of the Shakespeare Society.[40] In 1880, she was a marshal for the college's Founder's Day celebration.[45] In June 1881, Nagai returned to Japan.[46] The ten-year period of the girls' educational mission had ended, but Yamakawa extended her stay to complete her degree.[46] In her senior year, she was named president of the Philalethean Society, the largest social organization at Vassar.[47]
Yamakawa graduated with from Vassar College with a B.A., magna cum laude,[39] on June 14 1882.[48] Her thesis was on "British Foreign Policy Toward Japan,"[39] and she was chosen to give a commencement speech on the topic at her class's graduation.[49] After graduation, Yamakawa studied nursing at the Connecticut Training School For Nurses in New Haven in July and August.[50] She and Tsuda (who had also extended her stay, to complete a high school degree) finally departed for Japan in October 1882.[51] They travelled by rail to San Francisco, whence they left aboard the steamship Arabic on October 31.[52] After a rough three-week journey across the Pacific, Yamakawa arrived in Yokohama on November 20, 1882.[53]
Marriage and family
When she first returned to Japan, Yamakawa looked for educational or government work, but her options were limited, especially because she had never learned to read or write Japanese.[54][49] Yamakawa initially expressed in her letters a resolution to remain unmarried and pursue an intellectual life, turning down at least three proposals.[55] As she struggled to find work, however, she wrote that Japanese culture made marriage necessary.[56] In March 1882, when he proposed a second time, Yamakawa agreed to marry Ōyama Iwao.[57]
Ōyama Iwao at this time was 40 years old, with three young daughters from a first marriage which had just ended with his wife's death in childbirth.[59] He was also a wealthy and important general in the Imperial Japanese Army who had lived in Europe for three years, spoke French, and sought an intelligent and cosmopolitan wife.[59] As a former Satsuma retainer, his military activity included serving as an artilleryman during the bombardment of Sutematsu hometown of Aizu.[49][59] He later liked to joke that she had made the bullet which struck him during that battle.[49] They married in a small ceremony on November 8 1883.[60] At her marriage, Yamakawa Sutematsu became known as Ōyama Sutematsu or Madame Ōyama.[60]
Ōyama Iwao left Japan to study Prussian military systems early in 1884, relieving Ōyama Sutematsu of the social duties of a minister's wife for the year he was away.[61] In July 1884, the Peerage Act of 1884 made Iwao a Count and Sutematsu Countess Ōyama.[62] Ōyama Iwao left Japan again in 1894, at the head of Japan's Second Army, for the First Sino-Japanese War.[63] When the war concluded eight months later, the American press credited Sutematsu's influence for Japan's superiority to China.[64][c] After the war, Iwao was promoted to a Marquess, and Sutematsu became Marchioness Ōyama.[66] Iwao served again in the Russo-Japanese War beginning in 1904, commanding troops in Manchuria.[67] At the end of the war in 1905, his rank was raised again, to Prince, and Sutematsu finally became the "Japanese princess" which the American newspapers had once mistakenly called her, with her title becoming Princess Ōyama.[67]
During Sutematsu and Iwao's marriage, they had two daughters, Ōyama Hisako (born November 1884,[68] later Baroness Ida Hisako) and Ōyama Nagako (born prematurely in 1887, lived only two days),[69] and two sons, Ōyama Takashi (winter 1886–April 1908)[70][67] and Ōyama Kashiwa (born June 1889).[71] Sutematsu was also a step-mother to Iwao's three daughters from his first marriage: Nobuko (c. 1876–May 1896)[72][73] and two younger girls. Despite the fact that Ōyama Sutematsu was not motivated by love when she accepted Iwao's proposal,[57] her biographer Janice P. Nimura calls their marriage "unusually happy,"[74] with Sutematsu as the intellectual equal and helpmeet of her husband.[75]
Promotion of women's education and nursing
After her marriage, Ōyama Sutematsu took on the social responsibilities of a government official's wife, and advised the Empress on western customs, holding the official title of "Advisor on Westernization in the Court."[54][74] She also advocated for women's education and encouraged upper-class Japanese women to volunteer as nurses.[4] She frequently hosted American visitors to advance Japanese-American relations, including her friend Alice Mabel Bacon, the geographer Ellen Churchill Semple and the novelist Fannie Caldwell Macaulay.[49] In 1888, Ōyama was the subject of negative press from Japanese conservatives, and withdrew somewhat from public life.[69] Positive press in 1895, at the conclusion of the First Sino-Japanese War (in which her husband had military victories and she had philanthropic success), returned her to the public eye.[65]
Education
Ōyama assisted Tsuda and Hirobumi Ito in establishing the Peeresses' School in Tokyo for high-ranking ladies,[76] which opened on October 5, 1885.[77] It was overseen by the new minister of education, Arinori Mori, who had frequently met with the girls of the Iwakura Mission while in America.[78] In its first years, the school was a relatively conservative institution, where aristocratic students dressed in formal court dress and studied Japanese, Chinese literature, English or French, and history alongside the less academic subjects of morals, calligraphy, drawing, sewing, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, household management, and formal etiquette.[79] From 1888–1889, Ōyama's old friend Alice Bacon joined the school as an English teacher.[80] At this point, the school began requiring Western dress for students.[81]
In 1900, she was a co-founder with Alice Bacon and Tsuda Ume of the Women's Home School of English (or Joshi Eigaku Juku), to teach advanced studies and progressive Western ideals in English.[54][82] At that time, women's only option for advanced study was the Women's Higher Normal School in Tokyo, which taught in Japanese and provided a more conservative curriculum.[82] While Tsuda and Bacon worked as teachers, Ōyama served as a patron of the school.[83]
Philanthropy
Ōyama also promoted the idea of philanthropy (not a typical part of aristocratic Japanese life) to high-ranking Japanese ladies.[84] In 1884, she hosted the first charity bazaar in Japan, raising funds for Tokyo's new Charity Hospital.[84] Despite skepticism of the concept in the Japanese press, and suggestions that the activity was not ladylike, the bazaar was a financial success and became an annual event.[85]
In addition to promoting monetary charity, Ōyama was active in volunteer nursing. She was Director of the Ladies Relief Association and the Ladies Volunteer Nursing Association, President of the Ladies Patriotic Association, and Chairman of the Japanese Red Cross Society.[4] At the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, she formed a committee of sixty aristocratic ladies to raise funds and gather supplies for the troops.[63] Ōyama herself rolled bandages for the Red Cross during this war,[63] and worked again as a volunteer nurse during the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905.
Death
At Ōyama Iwao's death on 10 December 1916, Ōyama Sutematsu made her final retreat from public life, retiring to live in their son Kashiwa's household.[86] She was not involved with the Red Cross during World War I.[87] When the 1918 flu pandemic reached Tokyo in early 1919, Ōyama sent her family to the countryside in Nasushiobara, but remained in Tokyo herself to oversee the Women's Home School of English (Joshi Eigaku Juku) and seek a replacement president after Tsuda's retirement.[87] She fell ill on February 6,[87] and died of related pneumonia on February 18, 1919.
Gallery
-
Yamakawa Sutematsu
-
Yamakawa Sutematsu at Vassar
-
Princess Ōyama
-
Ōyama Sutematsu in evening dress
-
Ōyama Sutematsu in later years
See also
Further reading
- Kuno, Akiko (1993). Unexpected destinations: The Poignant Story of Japan's First Vassar Graduate. New York: Kodansha International. Kuno is Yamakawa's great granddaughter.
- Nimura, Janice P. (2015). Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back. WW Norton & Company.
External links
- Oyama Sutematsu in Vassar's special collections.
- Photo Gallery collected by Janice P. Nimura.
Bibliography
Notes
- ^ Recipients of the memorial badge for the emperor Taishō's enthronement were those guests to the ceremony of accession to the throne.[1]
- ^ Image source: Rekidai Shusho tou Shashin, call no.:Constitutional Government Documents Collection, #1142; Monochrome, 15.1×20.2 cm[58]
- ^ An article in the New York Times commented as follows: "Through Japan, China must soon give way to civilization, and when she does who can say that Uncle Sam has not materially aided in the result? ... Mme. Oyama has exerted a wide influence, and undoubtedly helped on the progressive spirit." qtd. in Nimura, 2015.[65]
- ^ Organizers' names are printed at the top center of this triptich, with Mōri Yasuko, Nabeshima Eiko, Yamagata Aritomo's second partner Sadako, ja:佐々木高行|Sasaki Takayuki's wife Sadako, Toda Wakako, Enomoto Tazuko, Kabayama Toshiko, and Nagano Wakuko.
Citations
- ^ "Chapter 20 : Insignia and medals ‐ list of main metal products", Centennial history of the mint (Appendix), Japan National Mint, Ministry of Finance (ed), 15 March 1974, p.384.
- ^ Portrait of Yamakawa was probably sourced from: Iwasaki, Sodo (岩崎徂堂) (1903). 明治大臣の夫人 [Wives of Ministers in Meiji Government] (in Japanese). Daigakukan. pp. 85–99. doi:10.11501/778815. Published in the 36th year of Meiji.
- ^ a b c d Nimura 2015, p. 19.
- ^ a b c d Howe 1995, p. 91.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 35.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 163.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 36.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 25.
- ^ Wright 2001, p. 402.
- ^ Wright 2001, p. 403.
- ^ Yamakawa, Kenjiro, ed. (1933). "会津戊辰戦史" [History of Boshin War in Aizu]. National Diet Library (in Japanese). Tokyo, Japan: 会津戊辰戦史編纂会 (Aizu Boshin Senshi Hensan-kai). 0006.js (left). doi:10.11501/1921057. JPNO 53010833. Retrieved 2020-03-24.
(identifier:NDLJP): info:ndljp/pid/1921057. Thumbnail URL: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1921057
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Wright 2001, p. 410.
- ^ a b c d e Nimura 2015, p. 37.
- ^ Wright 2001, p. 411.
- ^ Wright 2001, p. 414.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 38.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 40.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 47.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 48.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 49.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 50.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 51.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 90.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 62.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 77.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 101.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 108.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 89.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 88.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 95.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 105.
- ^ Sase 1900, pp. 112–119.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 107.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 110.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 112.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 121.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 124.
- ^ a b c d Nimura 2015, p. 129.
- ^ a b c Howe 1995, p. 92.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 133.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 130.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 131.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 140.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 132.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 134.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 135.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 139.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 141.
- ^ a b c d e Adams 2014.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 145.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 147.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 151.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 156.
- ^ a b c Finkel 2009.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 172.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 176.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 179.
- ^ "Picture 2, Oyama, Iwao (1842 - 1916): Categories:Alphabetical Order:O; Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures". National Diet Library. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 177.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 182.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 198.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 206.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 237.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 23.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 239.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 245.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 270.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 203.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 215.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 208.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 222.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 242.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 243.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 232.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 231.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 199.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 204.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 210.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 211.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 212.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 214.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 257.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 259.
- ^ a b Nimura 2015, p. 200.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 202.
- ^ Nimura 2015, p. 274.
- ^ a b c Nimura 2015, p. 275.
References
- Adams, Ellen E. (2014). "Colonial Geographies, Imperial Romances: Travels in Japan with Ellen Churchill Semple and Fannie Caldwell Macaulay". The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 13 (2): 145–165. doi:10.1017/S153778141400005X. ISSN 1537-7814.
{{cite journal}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help)
- Nimura, Janice P. (2015). Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back. WW Norton & Company.
{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help)
- Howe, Sondra Weland (1995). "The Role of Women in the Introduction of Western Music in Japan". The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education. 16 (2). ISSN 0739-5639. JSTOR 40214860.
{{cite journal}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help) Proo - Finkel, Laura (2009). "Guide to the Sutematsu Yamakawa Oyama Papers, 1872-1983 (bulk 1882-1919)". specialcollections.vassar.edu. Archives & Special Collections Library at Vassar College. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
{{cite web}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help)
- Sase, Suibai (1900). 当世活人画 : 一名・名士と閨秀 (Tōsei katujinga: meishi to keishu) [The Modern Portraits: individual gentlemen and their accomplished ladies] (in Japanese). Vol. 2 (続). Sase, Tokuzō 佐瀬得三; 佐瀬酔梅. Tokyo: Shunyōdō. doi:10.11501/778426. JPNO 40016403.
{{cite book}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=
(help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
- Wright, Diana E. (2001). "Female Combatants and Japan's Meiji Restoration: The Case of Aizu". War in History. 8 (4). doi:10.1177/096834450100800402.
{{cite journal}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help)