“A Bryn Mawr School in the East”: Transpacific Initiatives for Japanese Women's Higher Education

Abstract

With crucial help from American women, Tsuda Umeko founded Joshi Eigaku Juku (JEJ), one of the first private women's colleges in Japan. This article examines Tsuda's strategies for seeking assistance from Bryn Mawr College and the latter's response from 1900 to the mid-1910s. Tsuda and her Bryn Mawr supporters' fund-raising efforts for JEJ were anchored on intersecting arguments that higher education was a means to elevate the conditions of Japanese women and JEJ was an extension of Bryn Mawr. Amid strained U.S.-Japanese relations, Tsuda also argued that JEJ was a bridge across the Pacific. This study illuminates the complexity of a transnational initiative for Japanese women by showing how it reflected and helped sustain differences among women and among nations.