In 1883, an Iowa woman traveled alone to Alaska. She published its first travel guide and helped bring Washington’s famous cherry trees to America

Long before Alaska became a popular destination for tourists and long before Washington, D.C. became known for its spring cherry blossoms, an Iowa-born woman was already travelling across places that were still unfamiliar to many Americans. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore went to Alaska in 1883, wrote about what she saw there and later published what is regarded as the first Alaska travel guide.

Her life did not stop with Alaska. Scidmore went on to travel across Asia, became an important early member of the National Geographic Society and spent years pushing for Japanese cherry trees to be planted in Washington, D.C. Her efforts eventually helped lead to the famous 1912 planting at the Tidal Basin.

Eliza Scidmore’s journey to Alaska

Born in Clinton, Iowa, in 1856, Scidmore had already started working as a newspaper writer after spending some time at Oberlin College. According to the National Park Service, she travelled through Alaska’s Inside Passage in 1883 aboard the steamship Idaho with Captain James Carroll.


She visited parts of Southeast Alaska, including Glacier Bay, and recorded what she saw in newspaper and magazine articles. Her writing brought attention to the landscape, communities and difficult journeys of the region at a time when Alaska was still largely unfamiliar to western travellers.

Scidmore later gathered her Alaska experiences into a book published in 1885. The Anchorage Museum describes it as the first Alaska travel guide, while the National Park Service says her publications helped influence the opening of Alaska to western tourism.

Her account of Muir Glacier showed how strongly the place had affected her. She wrote: “Words and dry figures can give one little idea of the grandeur of this glacial torrent flowing steadily and solidly into the sea, and the beauty of the fantastic ice front, shimmering with all the prismatic hues, beyond imagery or description.”

Her connection to the region lasted long after those journeys. Scidmore Bay and Scidmore Glacier in what is now Glacier Bay National Park carry her name.

From Alaska to Japan and National Geographic

Scidmore travelled to Japan for the first time in 1885 to visit her brother, who worked for the U.S. Consular Service. The trip left a lasting impression on her, especially the Japanese flowering cherry trees.

In 1890, she joined the newly formed National Geographic Society. Over the following years, she worked as a writer, editor, photographer and lecturer and became the first woman to serve on its Board of Managers.

But her biggest idea in Washington came from those trips to Japan.

The long fight to bring cherry trees to Washington

After returning to Washington, Scidmore began arguing that Japanese cherry trees should be planted around the reclaimed land near the Potomac. She kept approaching officials for years, but her proposal went nowhere.

Scidmore later recalled that her requests “were of no avail, no matter how fervent, long or often repeated to successive indifferent and obdurate S.P.B.G.s (Superintendents of Public Buildings and Grounds).”

The situation changed when she gained support from plant explorer David Fairchild and First Lady Helen Taft. Scidmore wrote to Taft in 1909, and the first lady quickly supported the idea. Japan eventually offered a gift of 2,000 trees, but U.S. inspectors found that shipment was carrying insects and disease, so the trees had to be destroyed.

Japan did not give up. Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki and other officials arranged a new gift of 3,020 carefully inspected trees. They arrived in Washington in March 1912, and on March 27, Helen Taft and Viscountess Iwa Chinda planted the first two Yoshino cherry trees beside the Tidal Basin.

Today, Washington’s cherry blossoms are one of the city's best-known sights. And behind that familiar springtime scene is the story of Scidmore, whose first major adventure took her from Iowa to Alaska and whose later determination helped leave another lasting mark thousands of miles away.