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The Gift
National Geographic board member, travel writer and photographer Eliza Scidmore is the person most responsible for bringing cherry blossom trees to Washington.
After traveling to Japan in 1885, Scidmore advocated creating a "Mukojima on the Potomac," for people to gather and celebrate the coming of spring.
President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia visited Japan in 1879. They planted trees as gifts from the United States at Ueno Park and Zojoji Temple. The cultural exchange between the two countries continues to this day.
First Lady Helen Taft liked Scidmore's proposal to beautify Washington and used her social connections to make it happen. She and Iwa Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambsassador [sic], planted the first trees on March 27, 1912.
Hanami is the Japanese custom of flower viewing. Each spring in Japan, coworkers, classmates, friends, and families congregate under the trees to eat, drink, and celebrate the start of the new fiscal and school year. |