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Martha Jane Cunningham

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Martha Jane Cunningham
Born3 June 1856
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Died22 April 1916 (age 59)
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Occupation(s)Missionary, educator, school principal

Martha Jane Cunningham (3 June 1856 – 22 April 1916) was a Canadian missionary educator in Japan. She was first principal of Shizuoka Eiwa Girls' School in Shizuoka, which was founded in 1887.

Early life and education

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Cunningham was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of William Cunningham and Matilda Ellen Burns Cunningham. Her father was a clothier.[1] Both of her parents were born in Ireland.

Martha Jane Cunningham with five students in Sault Ste. Marie in the 1910s, from a 1917 publication

Career

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Cunningham was a teacher with the Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada.[2] She went to Japan in 1887.[1] She worked with a Japanese Methodist minister and a local official, and became the first principal of the first girls' school in Shizuoka that year.[3][4] She traveled in Japan, often with other Western women teachers.[5] While in Canada on furloughs, she taught and spoke to Canadian audiences about Japan and her work,[6][7][8] with illustrations.[9] She left Japan after her third term of service, during the 1906–1907 academic year.[10]

Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakuin University, which traces its origins to the girls' school founded by Cunningham and others, as it appeared in 2009

Beginning in 1913, Cunningham was a mission teacher in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, working mainly with European immigrant women and children.[10] She was a member of the Daughters of the Empire and of the Red Cross Society.[11]

Personal life and legacy

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Cunningham died in 1916, at the age of 59, in Sault Ste. Marie.[11] In Shizuoka, the alumnae of Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakko, the Methodist Church, and local officials held a memorial service in June 1916, and the school placed a portrait of Cunningham in the students' library, along with books donated in tribute.[12] At the centennial of the school in 1987, a memorial marker was placed for Cunningham on the school's grounds. The school is still operating as of 2023, as is the women's college it launched in 1966, now a university.[13]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Going to Japan! The First Through Passenger from Halifax; Miss Cunningham Leaves To-Day for the Kingdom of the Rising Sun via Canadian Pacific Railway and Steamer". The Halifax Herald. 1887-08-09. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Miss Jane Cunningham and pupils, Japan". United Church of Canada Archives. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  3. ^ Dugal, Alexandria. "Martha Jane Cunningham: A Women's Missionary Society Pioneer" International Bulletin of Mission Research 42(1)(January 2018): 76-84.
  4. ^ Gagan, Rosemary R. (1992). A sensitive independence : Canadian Methodist women missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881-1925. Internet Archive. Montreal [Que.] : McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 78, 88–90, 99. ISBN 978-0-7735-6330-8 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Shannon, Anne Park (2012). Finding Japan: Early Canadian Encounters with Asia. Heritage House Publishing Co. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-927051-55-9.
  6. ^ "Miss Cunningham Gives Address on Japan". The Evening Mail. 1909-01-26. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "Summer School for S. S. Workers; The Gathering Will Take Place at Berwick Beginning Next Week". The Evening Mail. 1907-07-30. p. 7. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Woman's Missionary Convention". The Montreal Star. 1907-09-28. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Miss Cunningham's Illustrated Address". The Sault Star. 1914-03-05. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ a b Platt, Harriet Louise (1917). The story of the years : a history of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, Canada, from 1881 to 1906. Emmanuel - University of Toronto. Toronto. pp. 92–94, 117–119 – via Internet Archive.
  11. ^ a b "Untitled death notice". The Sault Star. April 24, 1916. p. 2. Retrieved August 31, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Memorial Service in Japan for Late Miss Cunningham". The Sault Star. 1916-10-06. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School, English pamphlet.
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