The Rise of Women's Internationalism in the Countries of the Asia-Pacific Region during the Interwar Years, from a Japanese Perspective

Abstract

When the first wave of the international women's movement was emerging in the Atlantic during the interwar years, Hawai'i's elite haole (white) women took an initiative to convene the first Pan-Pacific Women's Conference (PPWC) in Honolulu in 1928. The first PPWC was attended by a broad spectrum of women from the Pacific nations, and resulted in the inception of a permanent international women's organisation, the Pan-Pacific Women's Association (PPWA) in 1930. Among the numerous international women's organisations that emerged during the era, the PPWA, founded under the leadership of women of European origin, was unique in its Pacific focus and its inclusive outreach toward Asian and Polynesian women. How and why was this so? By examining the emergence of the PPWA and the sustenance of its activities, this article examines the nature and structure of the rise of internationalism in the Pacific during the interwar years from a Japanese perspective.1

Notes

In this article, ‘the Atlantic’ is used to indicate Europe and Americas, which became the main theaters for trans-Atlantic women's movements, and ‘the Pacific’ to refer to the Asia-Pacific region, where the PPWA attempted to form a transnational community of women originally from Europe and those from Asia.

For works on the PPWCs and the PPWA, see Paul F. Hooper (1976) Feminism in the Pacific: the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association, The Pacific Historian, 20, pp. 367–377; Nagako Sugimori (1966) America no Josei Heiwa Undōshi, 1889–1931 [History of American women's peace movement, 1889–1931] (Tokyo: Domesu shuppan), pp. 196–230; Angela Woollacott (1998) Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian women's internationalist activism in the 1920s–30s, Gender and History, 10(3), pp. 425–448; Fiona Paisley (2002) Cultivating Modernity: culture and internationalism in Australian feminism's Pacific age, Journal of Women's History, 14(3), pp. 105–132; Ellen DuBois (2000) Woman Suffrage: the view from the Pacific, Pacific Historical Review, 69(4), pp. 539–551; Alexandra Epstein (2003) Linking a State to the World: female internationalists, California, and the Pacific 1919–1931 (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara).

Leila J. Rupp (1997) Worlds of Women: the making of an international women's movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press); Margaret H. McFadden (1999) Golden Cables of Sympathy: the transatlantic sources of nineteenth-century feminism (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

Pui-lan Kwok (1992) Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860–1927 (Georgia: Scholars Press); Ian Tyrrell (1992) Women's World/Women's Empire: the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press); Rumi Yasutake (2004) Transnational Women's Activism: the United States, Japan, and Japanese American communities in California, 1859–1920 (New York: New York University Press).

Patricia Grimshaw (1989) Paths of Duty: American missionary wives in nineteenth-century Hawai'i (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i); Noenoe K. Silva (2004) Aloha Betrayed: native Hawai'ian resistance to American colonialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

Ralph S. Kuykendall & A. Grove Day (1961) Hawaii: a history (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall); Laurence H. Fuchs (1961) Hawaii Pono: a social history (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World); Sandra C. Taylor (1984) Advocate of Understanding: Sidney Gulick and the search for peace with Japan (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press); Izumi Hirobe (2001) Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: modifying the exclusion clause of the 1924 immigration act (Stanford: Stanford University Press).

Alexander H. Ford (1920) Pan-Pacific Propaganda in the United States, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, April, pp. 7–10; Paul F. Hooper (1980) Elusive Destiny: the internationalist movement in modern Hawai'i (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i), pp. 65–104.

Anon. (1928) Mark Cohen's Last Letter to the Pan-Pacific Union, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, July, pp. 15–16.

Anon. (1924) The Pan-Pacific Women's Conference, 1928, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, December, p. 15; Anon. (1925) The Pan-Pacific Women's Conference, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, September, pp. 12–14.

Barbara Bennett Peterson (1984) Notable Women of Hawai'i (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press), pp. 361–364.

Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor (2003) Constructed Image of Native Hawaiian Women, in Shirley Hune & Gail M. Nomura (Eds) Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: a historical anthology (New York: New York University Press), pp. 25-41.

Anon. (1928) Conference Delegation, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, July, pp. 10–11.

Raymond A. Mohl (1997) Cultural Pluralism in Immigrant Education: the YWCA's International Institutes, 1910–1940, in Nina Mjagkij & Margaret Spratt (Eds) Men and Women Adrift: the YMCA and the YWCA in the city (New York: NYU Press), pp. 111–137; Bruce Bottorff (1999) Continuity and Change: a history of the YWCA of Honolulu, 1900–1945 (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hawai'i), pp. 149–150.

Women of the Pacific: being a record of the proceedings of the first Pan-Pacific Women's Conference which was held in Honolulu from the 9th to the 19th of August 1928, pp. 278–279.

Anon. (1925) The Pan-Pacific Women's Conference, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, September, p. 12; Women of the Pacific (1928), p. 7.

Allen Freeman Davis (1973) American Heroine: the life and legend of Jane Addams (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Jean Bethke Elshtain (2001) Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books), pp. 211–250; Carrie A. Foster (1995) The Women and the Warriors: the U.S. section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1946 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press); Robert Booth Fowler (1986) Carrie Catt: feminist politician (Lebanon: Northeastern University Press); Jacqueline Van Voris (1987) Carrie Chapman Catt: a public life (New York: Feminist Press).

Mrs. Frances M. Swanzy (1928) Greetings, Women of the Pacific (1928), p. 8.

Anon. (1928) The League of Nations and the Pan-Pacific Women's Conference, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, July, p. 7.

Alexander Hume Ford (1928) Greetings from the Pacific-Union, Women of the Pacific (1928), pp. 11–12.

Swanzy, Greetings, p. 8.

Eleanor M. Hinder (1928) Pan-Pacific Women's Conference in Relation to World Conferences, Pan-Pacific Union Bulletin, July, pp. 11–14.

Women of the Pacific (1928), p. 274.

Mrs. Francis M. Swanzy (1930) Aloha Kakou, Women of the Pacific: being a record of the proceedings of the second Pan-Pacific Women's Conference which was held in Honolulu from the 9th to the 22nd of August, 1930, pp. 3–4.

Women of the Pacific (1930), p. iv.

Ibid., pp. ii–iii, 393–395.

Helen Kim (1964) Grace Sufficient: the story of Helen Kim by herself (Nashville: The Upper Room), pp. 81–82; Sang Keum Lee (1997) Kim Hwal Ran: ai no shōrisha [Helen Kim: winner of love], in Toyoko Yamazaki (Ed.) Ajia no josei shidosha tachi [Women leaders in Asia] (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō), pp. 21–60.

In this article, the word ‘Anglo’ is used to refer to white women of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Women of the Pacific (1930), p. 395.

Women of the Pacific (1930), pp. 390–392.

Women of the Pacific (1930), p. 394. Instead of Dr Me-Iung Ting, Dr Zen Way Koh attended the third PPWC as the second vice president.

Women of the Pacific (1934): being a record of the proceedings of the third Pan-Pacific Women's Conference which was held in Honolulu from the 8th to the 22nd of August, 1934, p. 75.

Ichikawa Fusae Kinenkai (Ed.) (2000) Collection on Japanese Women's Suffrage Movement I (Tokyo: Ichikawa Fusae kinenkai), microfilm, reel 58: 1032–1055.

Ibid.; Fusae Ichikawa (1974) Ichikawa Fusae Jiden, senzenhen [Autobigography of Fusae Ichikawa: prewar years] (Tokyo: Shinjyuku shobō), pp. 192–196.

Tsune Gauntlett (1949) Nanajyū Nananen no Omoide [Memory of seventy-seven years] (Tokyo: Uemura shoten); Nihon kirisutokyō fujin kyōfūkai (1986) Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai Hyakunenshi [Centennial history of the Japan WCTU], pp. 688–690.

Andrew Gordon (2003) The Modern History of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 182–206.

Gauntlett, Nanajyū Nananen no Omoide, pp. 142–147.

The quorum for the Pan-Pacific Women's Council, the administrative body of the PPWA, was five, which should include members of the United States, China, Japan, and two members from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Women of the Pacific (1937), p. 71.

Nihon kirisutokyō fujin kyōfūkai (1986) Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai Hyakunenshi, pp. 623–631, 664–667; Nihon YWCA (1987) Mizuo Kazeo Hikario: nihon YWCA hachijyūnenshi, 1905–1985 [For water, wind, and light: eighty year history of the Japan YWCA] (Tokyo: Nihon YWCA), pp. 137–183; Noriyo Hayakawa (2002) Teikoku Ishiki no Seisei to Tenkai: nihon kirisutokyō fujin kyōfūkai no baai [Formation of great nation consciousness: case of the Japan WCTU], in Tomisaka Kirisutokyō Sentā (Ed.) Josei Kirisutosha to Sensō [Christian women and war] (Tokyo: Kōrosha), pp. 147–189.

Tsuneko Gauntlett, Fumiko Hayashi & Yuriko Mochizuki (1937) Shina o Kataru [Talking about China], Josei Tenbō 11(1), pp. 10–13; Tsuneko Gauntlett (1937) Kaigi wa Seiko Seri [The conference ended in success], Josei Tenbō 15(9), pp. 20–21.

Headed by Mrs. H. C. Mei, the Chinese delegation was composed of Mrs Benjamin Wong from Shanghai, vice president of the Chinese Women's Club; Miss M. H. Mei-Yu from Nanking, dean of women and instructor of National Central University; Mrs D. G. Goon from Seattle, Washington; and Mrs Soun Lew from Seattle, YWCA board member and member of League of Women Voters. Women of the Pacific (1937), p. 14.

Anon. (1934) Who's Who in China: biographies of Chinese leaders (Shanghai: China Weekly Review), p. 315.

The Japanese delegation was headed by Sizue Komai from Kyoto who was active in the Japanese WCTU, the Japanese YWCA, and the International Association of Japan. Along with Tsune Gauntlett and Sizue Komai, the delegation was composed of Hisako Matsuoka from Tokyo, member of the Japanese YWCA and dean of Jiyū-Giyū Gakuen, a school established by the former Japanese YWCA's General Secretary Michi Kawai; Yoko Matsuoka, daughter of Hisako Matsuoka and student of Swarthmore College; Shinaye Ozaki from Kanagawa, Japan, member of the Women's Peace Association; Mrs K. Shimotakahara from Vancouver, Canada; and Alice C. St John, principal of St Luke's College of Nursing. Women of the Pacific (1937), p. 15. See Anon. (1937) Han-Taiheiyō Fujin Kaigi Nihon Daihyō Kettei [Japanese delegates to the PPWC decided], Josei Tenbō 11(6), pp. 20–21; Women of the Pacific (1937), p. 15.

Gauntlett, ‘Kaigi wa Seiko Seri’, pp. 20–21.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rumi Yasutake

Rumi Yasutake is a faculty member of Konan University in Kobe, Japan. Her publications include Transnational Women's Activism, the United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859–1920 (New York University Press, 2004) and The First Wave of International Women's Movements from a Japanese Perspective: western outreach and Japanese women activists during the interwar years, Women's Studies International Forum, 32(1) (2009), pp. 13–20.