Aizu (会津) is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The principal city of the area is Aizuwakamatsu.
The Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy was a Japanese diplomatic voyage to the United States and Europe conducted between 1871 and 1873 by leading statesmen and scholars of the Meiji period. It was not the only such mission, but it is the most well-known and possibly most significant in terms of its impact on the modernization of Japan after a long period of isolation from the West. The mission was first proposed by the influential Dutch missionary and engineer Guido Verbeck, based to some degree on the model of the Grand Embassy of Peter I.
Tsuda Umeko was a Japanese educator who founded Tsuda University. She was the daughter of Tsuda Sen, an agricultural scientist, and at the age of 7, she became Japan's first female exchange student, traveling to the U.S. on the same ship as the Iwakura Mission.
Baron Yamakawa Kenjirō was a Japanese samurai, politician, physicist, academic administrator, and author of several histories of the Boshin War. He served as president of Tokyo Imperial University, Kyushu Imperial University, and Kyoto Imperial University. He also served as a Privy Councilor and a member of the House of Peers. Though his name is commonly written "Yamakawa," he himself wrote it as "Yamagawa" in English.
Alice Huyler Ramsey was the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States from coast to coast, a feat she completed on August 7, 1909.
Kuroneko is a 1968 Japanese historical drama and horror film directed by Kaneto Shindō, and an adaptation of a supernatural folktale. Set during a civil war in feudal Japan, the film's plot concerns the vengeful spirits, or onryō, of a woman and her daughter-in-law, who died at the hands of a band of samurai. It stars Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, and Kiwako Taichi.
Tsuda Sen was a politician, educator and writer in Meiji period Japan. He was one of the founders of Aoyama Gakuin university, and the father of noted author Tsuda Umeko.
George Williams Peckham and Elizabeth Maria Gifford Peckham were a married couple who were early American teachers, taxonomists, ethologists, arachnologists, and entomologists, specializing in animal behavior and in the study of jumping spiders and wasps.
Princess Ōyama Sutematsu, born Yamakawa Sakiko, was a prominent figure in the Meiji era, and the first Japanese woman to receive a college degree. She was born into a traditional samurai household which supported the Tokugawa shogunate during the Boshin War. As a child, she survived the monthlong siege known as the Battle of Aizu in 1868, and lived briefly as a refugee.
Charles Lanman was an American author, government official, artist, librarian, and explorer.
Leonie is a 2010 Japanese film directed by Hisako Matsui and starring Emily Mortimer and Shido Nakamura. The film is based on the life of Léonie Gilmour, the American lover and editorial assistant of Japanese writer Yone Noguchi and mother of sculptor Isamu Noguchi and dancer Ailes Gilmour.
Alice Mabel Bacon was an American writer, women's educator and a foreign advisor to the Japanese government in Meiji period Japan.
Charles Egbert DeLong was an American diplomat who served as the Envoy to Japan during the mid-19th century.
Viscount Yatarō Mishima was a Japanese businessman, central banker and the 8th Governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ). Viscount Mishima was a member of Japan's House of Peers.
Kawai Michi was a Japanese educator, Christian activist, and proponent of Japanese-Western ties before, during, and after World War II. She served as the first Japanese National Secretary of the YWCA of Japan and founded Keisen University.
Helen Ekin Starrett was an American educator, author, suffragist, and magazine founder. Long engaged in educational work in Chicago, she founded the Kenwood Institute (1884), and Mrs. Starrett's Classical School for Girls (1893), of which she was principal. Starrett also founded Western Magazine. She served as president of the Illinois Woman's Press Association (1893–1894), and was the author of several works.
Baroness Uryū Shigeko, was a Japanese educator, one of the first two Japanese women to attend a college, and one of the first piano teachers in Japan.
Michi Matsuda also written as Matsuda Michi) was a Japanese educator, head of the Doshisha Women's College from 1922 to 1933.
Anna Cope Hartshorne was an American educator and writer based in Japan. A member of a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family, she was a founder and faculty member of Tsuda University, with her close friend Tsuda Umeko.
Janice P. Nimura is an American author.
