Our First Glimpse of Japan: Prominent American Visitors to Japan in the 1870's
Book talk by author Sam Kidder at Temple University Japan
co-sponsored by the Harvard Club of Japan
Temple University, in partnership with the Harvard Club of Japan, is pleased to present a brown bag lunch talk by Sam Kidder, author of Our First Glimpse of Japan.
Our First Glimpse of Japan collects original accounts from four prominent Americans who visited Japan in the 1870s, the first decade of globe-circling travel. These accounts reached a broad readership, forming impressions and opinions of Japan that continue to influence American attitudes today. The event will be moderated by Robert Dujarric of Temple University Japan.
Event details:
21 May 2025 12:15-13:45 (doors open at 12:00)
Brown bag lunch (no admission fee)
Temple University Japan room 405
1-14-29 Taishido, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo
東京都世田谷区太子堂1-14-29
By train: Sangenjaya Station/三軒茶屋駅
Exit South A/南口A
https://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo
https://www.tuj.ac.jp/jp/maps/tokyo
Contact for reservations & enquiries: robert.dujarric@tuj.temple.edu
Speaker profile:
Samuel Kidder first arrived in East Asia as an undergraduate exchange student. After training and deployment in Korea as a U.S. Army linguist, he studied East Asian history at Harvard, the University of Washington and as a Fulbright scholar at Yonsei University. After two years in New York City with Toyoda Tsusho Kaisha, he joined an Australian company, setting up their offices in Chicago and Seoul. He then entered the foreign service and was assigned tours in Seoul, Tokyo and New Delhi. The experience and knowledge he gained over a quarter of a century as a diplomat were invaluable preparation for his service as executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Kidder’s first book, Of One Blood All Nations, examined the 12 years Ohio Congressman and Reconstruction leader John Bingham spent as America’s senior diplomat in Japan. Serving four presidents, Bingham’s tenure remains the longest of any American ambassador to Japan.
About the book:
The earliest of the visitors: In 1871, former Secretary of State to Lincoln and Andrew Johnson William Seward experienced a Japan still uncertain of its political direction as the Meiji Restoration was just underway. By 1879, President Ulysses S. Grant spends ten weeks in a transformed Japan. Our First Glimpse of Japan reproduces the Japan portions, with spectacular lithotype illustrations of William H. Seward’s Travel’s Around the World (1873) and Around the World with General Grant (1879). Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s son, Charles, stayed in Japan from 1871 to 1873. Charlie’s journals and letters show a young man and wounded Civil War veteran exploring Japan’s natural beauties and sensual pleasures while requesting his father to send more money. Andrew Carnegie’s Round the World, was originally distributed to several hundred of his friends after his trip in 1879 then published for the public in 1884. His first-person account provides interesting insights into Japan’s rush to industrialize. Presenting the impressions of Japan in the travellers' own words and with expert introductions and notes to guide the reader, Our First Glimpse of Japan is an excellent introduction to Meiji Japan and American attitudes of those (and sometimes current) times.
Available in Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Samuel-Kidder/dp/1958669245
Available in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Our-First-Glimpse-Japan-Prominent/dp/1958669245