‘To Adopt the Principles of Freedom’: Christianity, Women’s Education, and Progress in U.S. Press Coverage of the Iwakura Mission

Abstract

In U.S. press reports, the visit of Meiji Japan’s Iwakura Mission in 1872 presented both an opportunity for Americans to facilitate progress in Japan and evidence of social reform already underway there. As an opportunity, the mission served as a potential medium for American efforts to improve the Meiji government’s treatment of Japanese Christians. Many American political and religious leaders hoped to convince the mission ambassadors that freedom of religion was an essential component of civilization and a prerequisite for engaging with the treaty powers on equal terms. As evidence of social reform, the five Japanese girls who came with the mission to study in the United States embodied Japan’s new commitment to expanding educational opportunities for women. Focusing on the themes of religion and gender in U.S. newspaper coverage, this article shows how Americans projected onto the Iwakura Mission their own images of the United States as an inspiration and model for reform in Japan. Treating the mission as both an opportunity and evidence, the U.S. press depicted it in a self-congratulatory fashion to embellish Americans’ national identity as a people committed to progress.