''A wonderful connecting of two women writers'' stories more than a century apart.'' Julia Kuehn, The University of Hong Kong The first-ever biography of the pioneering female journalist who fought to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DCEvery age has strong, independent women who defy the gender conventions of their era to follow their hearts and minds. Eliza Scidmore was one such maverick. Born on the American frontier just before the Civil War, she rose from modest beginnings to become a journalist who roamed far and wide writing about distant places for readers back home. By her mid-20s she had visited more places than most people would see in a lifetime. By the end of the nineteenth century, her travels were so legendary she was introduced at a meeting in London as -Miss Scidmore, of everywhere.- In what has become her best-known legacy, Scidmore carried home from Japan a big idea that helped shape the face of modern Washington: she urged the city''s park officials to plan
