Diana Parsell
Featured by NBC’s “Today” Show, Wall Street Journal, C-SPAN, Japanese TV, National Geographic and and other outlets
“Inspiring, well researched and a compulsive page turner, this biography is a thrilling look at an incredible woman and a fascinating era in history.” — Amy Stewart, best-selling author of The Drunken Botanist and The Tree Collectors
During the Gilded Age, when most American women spent their lives close to home, the boldly defiant Eliza Scidmore hit the road as an intrepid journalist. Her colorful accounts of distant places captured the romance of travel and made her a celebrity. By the end of the 19th century, her adventures were so legendary she was introduced at a meeting in London as “Miss Scidmore, of everywhere.”
Her pioneering writings on Alaska won her esteem as the first female board member and photographer for National Geographic. Frequent journeys to the Far East led to groundbreaking books on Japan, Java, China and India. Like a Forrest Gump of her day, she rubbed elbows with famous people–from John Muir and Alexander Graham Bell to U.S presidents and Japanese leaders—and provided eyewitness accounts of many historic events.
Inspired by her love of Japanese culture, Scidmore nursed a vision of creating a cherry blossom park on the banks of the Potomac in her adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. The men in charge of the city’s public land balked—but she persisted. Finally, with the backing of First Lady Helen Taft, Scidmore saw her dream become a reality with the 1912 planting of 3,000 cherry trees donated by the Japanese.
This lively and deeply researched biography of Scidmore draws heavily on her own writings to follow American progress and exploration over half a century, as seen through the eyes of a remarkable woman who was far ahead of her time.