Our History

 

1872 – The first Japanese students enrolled in the Law School of Harvard to earn degrees.

  • Kentaro Kaneko 金子堅太郎 (1853 – 1942). Kaneko earned law degrees in 1874. He helped draft the Japanese Imperial Constitution known as the Meiji Constitution. At Harvard he was a roommate of Jutaro Komua’s (seen below).
  • Yoshikazu Inoue 井上良一（1851-1879） Inoue was chosen to study at the Laws School of Harvard at the age of 16 and earned degrees in 1874. He became the only Japanese professor at the Law Faculty of the Tokyo Imperial University, later the University of Tokyo in 1877. However, he had difficulty re-adjusting himself to life in Japan and committed suicide.
  • Tanenaro Mekata 目賀田種太郎　(1853 – 1926) Mekata also earned degrees from the Law School in 1874. He became head of taxation in the finance ministry. He co-founded Senshu University in 1880 and became the first ambassador to the League of Nations in 1920.

 

  • Jutaro Komura 小村壽太郎 (1855 – 1911) earned his law degrees from the Law School of Harvard in 1877. He was a prominent diplomat and served as ambassador to many countries. He called for President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he was said to meet during his time in Harvard, to mediate bewteeen Japan and Russa at war and eventually as a plenipotentiary of Japan, signed the Treaty of Portsmouth with Russa in 1905. He aloso served as foreign minister of Japan for more than seven years.

 

  • Kikkawa Chokichi 吉川重吉　(1859 - 1915)　Kikkawa was one of the first Japanese undergraduates. He was the 47th of 211 students at the time of graduation with AB. He was secretary of the Signet Society. He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became a member of the House of Peers. James McDonald Gardiner (shown below) built Kikkawa’s house in Tokyo in 1910. His grave is in Yanaka Cemetery to which Harvard donated a stone lantern.

 

       Reference up to here: History of the Japanese at Harvard, The Harvard Gazette February 26, 2004  https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/02/history-of-the-japanese-at-harvard/

 

  • Ernest F. Fenollosa (1853- 1908) Fenollosa graduated from Harvard in 1874 in philosophy and sociology. He was invited by Edward S. Morse (see below) to take the teaching job at Tokyo Imperial University (later the University of Tokyo) in 1878. He found an interest in traditional Japanese art and became an advocate of preserving temples, shrines and their treasures that were left neglected amidst rapid modernization after the Meiji Restoration. In 1884, he helped to found the Tokyo Fine Arts School in 1887. From 1890, he headed the Oriental department of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which houses his collection of art works including Japanese traditional paintings.

 Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-F-Fenollosa

  • Edward S. Morse (1838 – 1925) Morse discovered the Omori shell mound in Tokyo in 1877 while travelling on a train between Yokohama and Tokyo. His excavation of the remains of the Jomo Era (17,000 to 2,400 years ago) paved the way for the establishment of the study in archeology and anthropology in Japan, where the academic disciplines of those fields have not been well known yet. Three years earlier, Morse was a lecturer at Harvard University. At the time of the discovery, he was professor of the Tokyo Imperial University to which he presented a report of his findings of the shell mound in 1882- 83.

Reference: Peabody Essex Museum https://pem.quartexcollections.com/collections/edward-s.-morse

 

  • James McDonald Gardiner (1857 – 1925) Gardiner enrolled in Harvard in 1875 but two years later he dropped out so that he could receive professional education. Eventually, in 1894,he submitted his senior thesis to receive AB from Harvard. In 1883, he became the first president of Rikkyo Daigakko 立教大学校（later Rikkyo University known as St. Paul’s). He was active as an educator to promote American-style liberal arts education system. After retiring from presidency, he engaged in architectural projects that produced the building of Rikkyo University, the ambassador’s house in Yokohama, St John’s Episcopal Church Kyoto (currently in Meiji-mura, Aichi) and St. Agnes’ Episcopal Church in Kyoto.

Reference: Photo Archive https://www.japan-photo.de/e-mo-a28.htm

The notable People Project https://notablepeopleproject.org/james_mcdonald_gardiner

 

In 1898, Jutaro Koura, Chokichi Kikkawa and James McDonald Gardiner established Harvard Club of Japan

<Insert files from Hollis Archives>

  • Anezaki Masaharu 姉崎正治　(1873 – 1949) Anezaki became the first Japanese visiting professor at Harvard in 1913. As a member of the Philosophy Department, he offered courses on Buddhism. He was the chair of science of religion at Tokyo Imperial University, later the University of Tokyo.

Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anezaki-Masaharu

 

  • Isoroku Yamamoto  山本五十六（(1884 – 1943) Yamamoto attended Harvard as a special student to study English between 1919 and 1921. He later carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Reference: Yamamoto at Harvard, and a Harvard Community Garden, Harvard Magazine July 1, 2010 https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2010/07/lessons-in-surprise

 

  • Serge Elisséeff　(1889 – 1975) Elisséeff became a Harvard Professor in 1930s. He founded the Department of Far Eastern Languages at Havard and became the first chair. He was born as Sergei Grigorievich Eliseyer in St. Petersburg, Russia and began studying Japanese at the University of Berling and later at Tokyo Imperial University in 1912 to become the first foreign student to graduate from it in 1912. He was also the first director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and founded the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Edwin O.
  • Reischauer (see below) was his doctoral student.

Reference:  Harvard University East Asian Languages and Civilization https://ealc.fas.harvard.edu/serge-eliss%C3%A9eff

 

  • In 1934, the Harvard baseball team stopped in Yokohama, Tokyo and Osaka as a part of Summer International Tour. The Harvard side was defeated 17 to 2 by the Waseda University team. But the Japanese side presented the trophy to the young Americans. It is held by the Harvard Athletic Department to this day.

Reference; Harvard Baseball Nine Returns From Japan Trip September 28, The Harvard Crimson https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/9/21/harvard-baseball-nine-returns-from-japan/

  • Shunsuke Tsurumi 鶴見俊輔 (1922 - 2015) After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, Tsurumi was the sole Japanese student after two Japanese graduate students were seized by the FBI.  He was confirmed in his dorm room and later sent to a cell in the Charles Street Jail. He worked on his senior thesis on the pragmatism of William James in an internment camp in Marland and received his AB degree in 1942. After the war, he became professor of the University of Tokyo and a well-known social critic.

Reference: Harvard University Take Note https://takenote.library.harvard.edu/31-education-shunsuke-tsurumi

 

  • Edwin O. Reischauer 1910 – 1990) Reischauer earned his PhD degrees from Harvard in 1939 and appointed US Ambassador to Japan by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He served the diplomatic role until 1966. During this period, he helped create the post-World War II US policy toward East Asia. In 1973, he founded the Japan Institute at Harvard University and served as its first director. It was renamed the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies in his honor in 1985. It is among the best known and highest regarded establishments for Japanese studies around the world.

Reference: https://rijs.fas.harvard.edu/edwin-o-reischauer

 

Directors of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute:

  • SHIGEHISA KURIYAMA, 2023-present
  • MARY C. BRINTON, 2018-2023
  • KAREN L. THORNBER, Fall 2020
  • THEODORE C. BESTOR, 2015-2018
  • WESLEY M. JACOBSEN, 2014-2015
  • THEODORE C. BESTOR, 2012-2014
  • ANDREW D. GORDON, 2011-2012
  • SUSAN J. PHARR, 2004-2011
  • ANDREW D. GORDON, 2003-2004
  • SUSAN J. PHARR, 2002-2003
  • ANDREW D. GORDON, 1998-2002
  • HELEN HARDACRE, 1995-1998
  • AKIRA IRIYE, 1991-1995
  • HAROLD BOLITHO, 1988-1991
  • HOWARD S. HIBBETT, 1985-1988
  • ALBERT M. CRAIG, 1983-1985
  • DONALD H. SHIVELY, 1981-1983
  • EDWIN O. REISCHAUER, 1974-1981

Reference: https://rijs.fas.harvard.edu/people/director

 

  • Ezra Feivel Vogel (1930 - 2020) Vogel graduated with his PhD from Harvard in 1958 and became a professor of the Social Sciences at the university. His book in 1978 Japan as Number One: Lessons for America was a best-seller in both English and Japanese. It was written at the height of the difficulties US automakers faced against Japanese counterparts. He was founding director of the Asia Center.

Reference: https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/person/ezra-vogel/

 

  • Kenzo Tange 丹下健三 (1913 – 2005) Tange was awarded Harvard’s Honorary Degree, ARD, in 1971 for his architectural achievements. He received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1987 as the first Japanese architect. His major works include the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 1955 and the designing of Hiroshima Peace Park complex, the Tokyo Olympic arenas for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and Tokyo Municipal building in 1991 as well as works in Sigapore, Pakistan and the rest of the parts in around the world.

Reference: https://www.japansocietyboston.org/post/kenzo-tange

             

  • Fumihiko Maki 槇文彦 (1928 – 2024) Maki, MAR 1954, GSA 1956, won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1993 as the second Japanese after Tange who was one of his professors at the University of Tokyo. Just like Tange, Maki designed notable projects around the world, including MIT Media Lab Extension in 2009 and 4 World Trade Center (150 Greenwich Street, Manhattan) in 2013 that was built after the destruction of the original building during the September 11 attacks.

Reference: https://www.architecturelab.net/architect/famous/fumihiko-maki/

 

  • Donald Keene (1922 - 2019) Keene spent a year in Harvard as a visiting student after his degrees from Colombia University in 1947 and before transferring to Cambridge University, UK. He introduced both classic and contemporary Japanese literature to the wider audience through his translation and academic publication both in English and Japanese languages. In 2008, He was awarded the Order of Culture , one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese Imperial House the first non-Japanese person to receive it.

Reference; Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture https://www.keenecenter.org/Donald_Keene.html

  • Minoru (Ben) Makihara (1930 - 2020) Makihara graduated from Harvard College in 1954. He joined the Committee on University Resources, a lifetime membership organization of major donors to Harvard. He chaired the Harvard Japan Campaign and helped raise funds for the Asia Center.  He served on the Visiting Committee of the East Asian Studies Department and as an Advisor on the Advisory Committee to the HJBS Global Research Center. He received the Harvard Medal in 2004, his 50th reunion year.

Reference: https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/announcements/minoru-ben-makihara-1930-2020

 

  • Ryoji Noyori 野依良治 (1938 - ) Noyori won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2001 for the work “on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions”. He spent his postdoctoral year in Harvard under Elias J. Corey (also a Harvard Scholar who won the Nobel Prize in 1969 – 1970. He returned to Nagoya and became a full professor in 1972.

Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noyori-Ryoji

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2001/noyori/facts/

  • The Empress Masako (nee Owada, 1963 - ) The Empress Masako graduated from Harvard College in 1985. She is the first empress of Japan who completed her higher education abroad. Following her graduation, she enrolled in the University of Tokyo and passed the diplomatic service test. She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was sent to Balliol College, Oxford. She married Crown Prince Naruhito 1993. As Akihito, the former emperor formally abdicated and her husband Naruhiot became the 126th emperor of Japan, she became empress in 2019.

Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Masako

  • Caroline Kennedy (1957 - ) Kennedy is the first US woman ambassador to Japan. She served in the role from 2013 to 2017 and solidified the US-Japan relationship as well as promoted cultural exchanges between the two countries. She paved the way for the visit by Barack Obama (JD ’91), as the first sitting US President, to Hiroshima in 2016. She graduated from Harvard University’s Radcliffe College in 1980.

Reference: https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/217581.htm