100 Years Ago: GE’s Trip to Japan

Written by Jesse Peers, archivist for the George Eastman Legacy collection at the Eastman Museum.

George Eastman was already having a busy year when out of the blue in mid-March, he received an invitation to the Empire of Japan. The Welcome Association of Japan, “an extraordinary assembly of Japan’s elite,” requested “Mr. and Mrs. George Eastman’s presence on a visit to Japan for sightseeing and meeting of old and new friends, for a mutual exchange of views, and for the promotion of friendly and intimate relations between our two nations.” Eastman joked to friends that with only a month’s notice, he didn’t have enough time to find a wife for the trip!

For a couple of weeks, Eastman contemplated declining the invitation as his throat had been giving him trouble for several months. Eastman’s good friend and personal physician, Dr. Edward Mulligan, thought Eastman might have caught a minor strain of the Spanish Influenza and Eastman was receiving regular x-ray treatments. But the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was too good to pass up so Eastman cast everything aside to go. Since he had no spouse to bring, Eastman decided to bring Dr. Mulligan along with him. After ordering new clothes, Eastman and Mulligan took a train to Seattle where they met the rest of the party. The American delegation was headed by New York banker Frank Vanderlip and also included J. Lionberger Davis, Julian Street, and Seymour & Agnes Cromwell.

The party sailed aboard the steamship Kashima Maru on April 10th and arrived in Tokyo fifteen days later. Eastman didn’t have a diary on this trip but we can tell from the itinerary what a dizzying pace the party traveled. Eastman and the delegation attended banquet after banquet in Tokyo and other cities via the country’s burgeoning railroad system. Eastman noted that his contact was with Japan’s governing class and he never got to see something of the common life, but Eastman appreciated the good humor in the streets along with the growth of the democratic spirit.

View all of the photographs Eastman took during his trip on our Collections Online.

No doubt their Japanese hosts wanted to relieve some of the tension caused by Japan’s military exploits in Manchuria, Siberia and Mongolia. Eastman used the trip to investigate the political and economic forces at work in the country and concluded that the military influence was waning and that Japan was only trying to procure raw materials and preserve markets. He expressed gratitude for the Japanese being on the frontline of opposing the spread of [Russian] anarchy. By the end of the trip Eastman sensed that the Japanese really wanted America’s moral approval of their development. They deeply cared how the rest of the world perceived them and were willing to adapt to be seen in a positive, progressive light. Eastman felt Japan should be given a chance and that the US ought to help her industrial development and manifest destiny, “that of the supremacy in the industrial markets of the Far East.”

Eastman and the party departed Japan on May 14th aboard the S. S. Korea and stopped by Honolulu, Hawaii on the return voyage. Eastman came back with many souvenirs — mostly beautiful postcards of the shrines, hotels and museums he visited. When he returned to Rochester, Eastman granted an interview with the Democrat & Chronicle, wherein he commented on the Asian immigration controversy in California. Eastman felt Japanese emigrants had no ulterior motive coming to American shores and that the situation was delicate and required tact. In correspondence, Eastman urged his friends to think better of Japan.

In February 1921, Eastman received a beautiful album in the mail from the Welcome Association of Japan containing pictures of the various dinners and banquets he attended. That November, a delegation from Japan came to the US for a similar visit and Eastman hosted a luncheon for them at his house. He kept in touch with several of the party members and contacts in Japan for the rest of his life. The trip to Japan in 1920 ended up being Eastman’s only trip to Asia.

Eastman had started collecting Japanese netsuke — exquisite ivory carvings — as far back as 1906 through his oldest friend Frank Babbott, an art collector in Brooklyn. Over the course of Eastman’s life, he amassed an impressive collection of netsukes that are on display at George Eastman Museum.