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Matsumoto Eiko (1866-1928)
Jul. 12th, 2024 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiMatsumoto Eiko was born in 1866 in present-day Chiba, where her father was a prosperous, well-connected farmer with an interest in education. He taught Eiko calligraphy from age two; by the time she was seven, it was her characters adorning the village road signs and the shrine banners (some of them still used today). When she was eight, her father sent her to Tokyo to get a better education; she lodged with the family of his friend Tsuda Sen, whose daughter Ume was studying in America. Eiko attended various prestigious girls’ schools of the time, learning English and becoming a Methodist. By the time she was eighteen, Tsuda Umeko had returned from the States; Eiko, two years younger, admired and envied her.
After graduating from normal school, Eiko married the Foreign Ministry translator Ienaga Toyokichi and had a son, Katsunosuke (or possibly Shonosuke, in either case meaning “victory” to commemorate the end of the Sino-Japanese War), but the marriage dissolved when both his family and her birth family fell on hard times. Giving her son to her ex-husband’s family, she was left to fend for hersel. For some time she taught English at the School for Noble Girls, working with Umeko, Shimada Utako, and Ishii Fudeko, but her real dream was to become a journalist.
In 1900, she was hired by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. Her first big project was an investigation of the Ashio Copper Mine environmental pollution incident, not far from her place of birth. In 1901, she went with Yajima Kajiko, Ushioda Chiseko and others from the Japan Christian Women’s Organization to investigate the site; in addition to writing articles for the Mainichi about the harm done, she formed an association with the other women which took responsibility for having the sick treated in Tokyo and sending clothes and food to the affected villages. Although they underwent police investigation more than once, women and girls around the country supported their work, including the socialist Nishikawa Fumiko in Kyoto. Eiko wrote some 59 articles in total on the topic, often quoting the victims themselves in their own voices at length, under the penname “Midoriko”; they were later released as a book.
At the end of 1902 she moved unexpectedly to the US (the reasons are unclear: out of frustration with Japan’s political and social state of affairs, to get away from a failed love affair, all of the above?), visiting several cities and working for a Japanese booth at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1905. As “Tama Ide,” she gave numerous lectures on Japan, fuelled by the rise in attention to Japan upon its victory in the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1906, having settled in San Francisco, she married the all-around businessman Nagai Gen, who had grown up not far from her own hometown and gone to school in America. One of the first things she did after marriage was to work for relief for victims of the San Francisco Earthquake. Thereafter, she studied literature, languages, and botany at the University of California, Stanford, and the College of the Pacific, earning her BA and MA. Her husband’s insurance business boomed with her assistance. When World War I broke out, Eiko was not shy about voicing her pacifism in poems and essays published in a journal for Japanese women in the US. She argued that textbooks should no longer praise war heroes, that Departments and Ministries of War should be replaced by their equivalents of Peace, and that women were the heralds of peace and hope, among other points.
She died in 1928, cared for by her husband, amid a stack of half-read books including Rousseau, Flaubert, Maupassant, Pierre Loti, and Zola.
Sources
Mori 1996
https://tais.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/113/files/%E5%B1%B1%E7%94%B0%E7%9F%A5%E5%AD%90%E3%80%8CAshio%20Coppermine%20Mineral%20Pollution%20Problem%20and%20Women's%20Movement-Focusing%20on%20Polluted%20Area%20Relife%20Women's%20Association-%20%E3%80%8D.pdf (English) Essay on the work of Eiko and other women for the Ashio Mine problem and the background issues
https://ac.cdn-aoyamagakuin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/jyenda_nenpou_2021.pdf (Japanese) Article on Eiko’s life with various contemporary photos and reproductions
After graduating from normal school, Eiko married the Foreign Ministry translator Ienaga Toyokichi and had a son, Katsunosuke (or possibly Shonosuke, in either case meaning “victory” to commemorate the end of the Sino-Japanese War), but the marriage dissolved when both his family and her birth family fell on hard times. Giving her son to her ex-husband’s family, she was left to fend for hersel. For some time she taught English at the School for Noble Girls, working with Umeko, Shimada Utako, and Ishii Fudeko, but her real dream was to become a journalist.
In 1900, she was hired by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. Her first big project was an investigation of the Ashio Copper Mine environmental pollution incident, not far from her place of birth. In 1901, she went with Yajima Kajiko, Ushioda Chiseko and others from the Japan Christian Women’s Organization to investigate the site; in addition to writing articles for the Mainichi about the harm done, she formed an association with the other women which took responsibility for having the sick treated in Tokyo and sending clothes and food to the affected villages. Although they underwent police investigation more than once, women and girls around the country supported their work, including the socialist Nishikawa Fumiko in Kyoto. Eiko wrote some 59 articles in total on the topic, often quoting the victims themselves in their own voices at length, under the penname “Midoriko”; they were later released as a book.
At the end of 1902 she moved unexpectedly to the US (the reasons are unclear: out of frustration with Japan’s political and social state of affairs, to get away from a failed love affair, all of the above?), visiting several cities and working for a Japanese booth at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1905. As “Tama Ide,” she gave numerous lectures on Japan, fuelled by the rise in attention to Japan upon its victory in the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1906, having settled in San Francisco, she married the all-around businessman Nagai Gen, who had grown up not far from her own hometown and gone to school in America. One of the first things she did after marriage was to work for relief for victims of the San Francisco Earthquake. Thereafter, she studied literature, languages, and botany at the University of California, Stanford, and the College of the Pacific, earning her BA and MA. Her husband’s insurance business boomed with her assistance. When World War I broke out, Eiko was not shy about voicing her pacifism in poems and essays published in a journal for Japanese women in the US. She argued that textbooks should no longer praise war heroes, that Departments and Ministries of War should be replaced by their equivalents of Peace, and that women were the heralds of peace and hope, among other points.
She died in 1928, cared for by her husband, amid a stack of half-read books including Rousseau, Flaubert, Maupassant, Pierre Loti, and Zola.
Sources
Mori 1996
https://tais.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/113/files/%E5%B1%B1%E7%94%B0%E7%9F%A5%E5%AD%90%E3%80%8CAshio%20Coppermine%20Mineral%20Pollution%20Problem%20and%20Women's%20Movement-Focusing%20on%20Polluted%20Area%20Relife%20Women's%20Association-%20%E3%80%8D.pdf (English) Essay on the work of Eiko and other women for the Ashio Mine problem and the background issues
https://ac.cdn-aoyamagakuin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/jyenda_nenpou_2021.pdf (Japanese) Article on Eiko’s life with various contemporary photos and reproductions
