Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, born in 1856, was an American journalist and travel writer who authored books and magazine articles on Alaska, Japan, Java, China and India. She was the first woman to serve on the board of the National Geographic Society and is credited with being the person responsible for the planting of Japanese cherry blossom trees around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1890. A future writer, Eliza spent several years of her early childhood in Madison, Wisconsin before moving to Washington, D.C., with her mother and brother during the Civil War. She attended Oberlin College but did not obtain a degree. She broke into newspaper work in the 1870s and started her career as a "society writer" in Washington. Her strong interest in geography led her to become a travel writer for newspapers. Accounts of her voyages to the territory of Alaska in 1883 and 1884 resulted in her first book, Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago (1885) and a second, more comprehensive book in 1893. Her interest in and frequent travel to Japan were inspired by her brother, George Hawthorne Skidmore, a career diplomat who served in the Far East from 1884 to 1922. His position offered her advantages in reporting on areas and subjects not generally accessible to ordinary travelers. Jinriksha Days in Japan, published in 1891, became one of her best-known books, making her a recognized U.S. expert on Japan. She also wrote short guidebook, Westward to the Far East (1892), written for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Impressed by her travels in Japan, Ms. Scidmore envisioned creating a cherry blossom park in Washington, D.C. She first approached the city's park management about the idea in the 1880s, but received no interest. Over two decades later, she found an ally in First Lady Helen Taft who shared her enthusiasm and took on the project in 1909. Despite the First Lady’s support, the first effort was aborted when an initial shipment of several thousand trees, a gift from Tokyo, was infested and destroyed. The second shipment was a success, and led to the planting of the first cherry trees in West Potomac Park in 1912. Today, over a million visitors a year come to Washington to enjoy the blossoms surrounding the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial, and other areas of the capital, during the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. Ms. Scidmore received a medal of Honor from the Emperor of Japan for her service to the Japanese people. She passed away in 1928. Her ashes were interred in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery.