Eliza's Cherry Trees: Japan's Gift to America

The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. is held annually in remembrance of the first cherry tree planting on March 27, 1912. Now an international symbol of peace and friendship, the trees first came to the nation’s capital from Tokyo, Japan, at the insistence of Eliza Scidmore.

Able to live a life different from most women in the late 1800s, Scidmore was dedicated to her ideas. She had the opportunity to travel with family and friends and wrote the first guidebook about Al...