author
Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
1856–1928
A pioneering travel writer and photographer, she helped bring distant places vividly to American readers at a time when few women traveled so widely. She also left a lasting mark on Washington, D.C., by championing the planting of the city’s famous Japanese cherry trees.
3 Audiobooks
Java : The garden of the East
by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
Jinrikisha days in Japan
by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago
by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
About the author
Born in 1856, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore was an American journalist, photographer, and travel writer known for her vivid writing on Alaska, Japan, Java, China, and India. She became closely associated with the National Geographic Society and broke new ground there as its first female board member.
Scidmore traveled extensively in Asia and wrote books and articles that introduced many American readers to places they might never see themselves. National Geographic remembers her as a pioneering female writer and photographer for the magazine, and her work helped shape how the publication told stories about the wider world.
She is also remembered for persistently promoting the idea of planting Japanese cherry trees in Washington, D.C. That vision was finally realized in 1912, and it became one of her most visible legacies. She died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1928.