was the founder of the Women's Reform Society and president of Japan's
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
. An educator, pacifist, and
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
activist, she vigorously advanced the cause for the education of women in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Her name was usually seen as Kaji Yajima in the American press of her day.
Yajima worked with
Toyoju Sasaki, the secretary of Japan's WCTU. Together they attempted to advocate the reform of feudalistic customs which subjugated Japan to the West and women to men. Yajima in particular advocated for temperance due to her brief marriage to an alcoholic. Both worked towards the elimination of prostitution, as well as the elimination of
geisha
{{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha
{{nihongo, Geisha, 芸者 ({{IPAc-en, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ʃ, ə; {{IPA-ja, ɡeːɕa, lang), also known as {{nihongo, , 芸子, geiko (in Kyoto and Kanazawa) or {{nihongo, , 芸妓, geigi, are a class of female ...
culture and
concubinage
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.
Concubin ...
. Late in life, Yajima attended international meetings on peace and temperance, and met with American suffragists.
Early life
Yajima was born in 1833, in
Kumamoto
is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2.
had a population of 1,461,000, ...
, Japan and was the sixth child and fifth daughter of an influential farmer's family. As a girl instead of a boy her parents had little interest in her. Elizabeth Dorn Lublin wrote "the ideology of ''
danson johi'' (respect men and despise women) that informed this reception remained the dominant shaping force in Yajima's early years".
She had a traditional female education and it was not until she was twenty-five that she married a samurai named Hayashi Shichiro. Hayashi enjoyed sake and would become abusive when drunk. Yajima later left her husband and returned to her family, refusing to return and cutting her hair. Eventually she moved to Tokyo to take care of her brother. Since teaching was one of the few paying jobs available to women of her time, she became a teacher for the newly established public school system in Tokyo following her divorce. She later transferred to the Presbyterian mission school because it provided her with twice the income as her position with the Tokyo school system. It was during this time that she was drawn to Christianity and would eventually begin working with a Presbyterian missionary by the name of Maria True.
["A Little Great Woman: Madam Yajima of Japan"](_blank)
''Continent'' (November 17, 1921): 1327.
Career
![KajiYajima1921](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/KajiYajima1921.jpg)
Teaching
Kaji Yajima was headmistress of a Presbyterian mission school for girls in Tokyo, for forty years.
Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
In June 1886, the missionary Mary Clement Leavitt came to Japan. Her lectures were standing-room-only and influenced Yajima to start a union. In late 1886, Yajima helped create the Tokyo Woman's Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) along with twenty-eight other women and was appointed president along with Sasaki Toyoju as secretary.
The abuse at the hands of her husband and witnessing struggles of students with alcoholic fathers instilled in Yajima a strong dislike of alcohol and an interest in temperance. She pushed for the word temperance (''kinshu'') should be in the name of the Tokyo WCTU as a result of her past. The different histories of the secretary and Yajima was a source of conflict between the two. Yajima was more traditional in her views and believed that temperance was the most important problem the WCTU needed to address. She maintained that the members should "assist their husbands in the home
ndhelp gentlemen in society". Sasaki, on the other hand, thought that prostitution should be the focus of the union, causing the two to fight for control instead of work together.
Yajima maintained the presidency until an accident forced her to resign in 1889. Three years later she was able to be reelected and stepped back into her role until 1903 she was forced to leave position yet again, this time because she did not receive enough votes from union members. This only lasted a matter of months as the woman who replaced her died and Yajima took her place. It was not until 1921 that Yajima left the presidency permanently.
She edited the Japanese temperance newspaper, lectured, led protest marches, raised funds and represented Japan at international conferences.
International profile
Her leadership position took her abroad in her seventies and eighties.
["A Message to Christian Women of America"](_blank)
''Federal Council Bulletin'' (October-November 1921): 121. In 1906, she spoke at the world convention of the WCTU in Boston; on that trip she also visited New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco, and went to the White House with other temperance activists to meet president
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
. In 1920, with her countrywomen
Tsuneko Yamada Gauntlett and Michiko Kawai, she traveled to London and Geneva for international conferences on temperance and suffrage, respectively. In 1921, Kaji Yajima traveled at her own expense to the
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
for the Conference for the Limitation of Armaments, with her assistant
Azuma Moriya. She met with American suffragists, and with President
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
, to whom she delivered a 300-foot-long peace petition signed by Japanese women.
Prince Tokugawa held a reception in her honor at the conference. On the same trip, she visited New York City to address the Friends' Foreign Missionary Association, Presbyterian mission board, and the
Young Women's Christian Association
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
.
![AzumaMoriya1923](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/AzumaMoriya1923.jpg)
Her 1921 visit to the United States was covered by many American newspapers and magazines; she took the opportunity to express her hopes for world peace: "When I am gone, remember that I stood here looking into your faces expressing the hope that you will do all that is in your power as this old body will, that the world may know peace from now on. We have come to the time when we not only want peace, but know we must have it."
[Judy Yoneoka]
"'A Message from the Goddess of Peace': Analysis of News Articles on a Japanese Woman's Activities at the 1921 Washington Arms Limitation Conference"
''Intercultural Communication Studies'' 22(1)(2013): 256. In her message to the "Christian women of America", Kaji Yajima assured her audience that "the women of Japan want education, not battleships or armies. They want the government to spend money, not on military establishments, but on schools."
Personal life and legacy
Yajima was married unhappily and had three children; she left her alcoholic husband by age 40, and converted to Christianity in midlife; she was baptized as a Presbyterian at age 45.
She survived the
1923 Great Kantō earthquake
The struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...
, and died in 1925, aged 93 years.
While in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, Yajima had a baby out of wedlock. Instead of marrying the father, she kept the birth a secret, giving the baby to a farming family before adopting the child back later and raising her as an adopted daughter on her own with her own salary. This part of her life was kept a secret until after her death.
After her death, the building housing the offices of the Japanese WCTU was named for Yajima. In the 1950s, her biography was presented in American Christian literature as a tale of second starts, and triumph over obstacles. Her great-grandson, Yo Yuasa, was a prominent doctor in the treatment of
leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...
.
[Yo Yuasa]
''My Family, My Life, and My Work''
(Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation 2013): 12.
References
Other sources
* Yasutake, R. (2004). ''Transnational women's activism: the United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920''. New York: NYU Press.
External links
A photograph of Kaji Yajima from 1921, with American suffragists in the National Photo Company collection at the Library of Congress.
Another photograph of Kaji Yajima from 1921, with American suffragists in the National Photo Company collection at the Library of Congress.
{{authority control
Japanese educators
Converts to Christianity
1833 births
1925 deaths
Japanese women's rights activists
Woman's Christian Temperance Union people
Japanese women educators
19th-century Japanese women