Inokuchi Akuri (井口阿くり) (January 12, 1871 – March 26, 1931) was a Japanese physical educator.
Inokuchi Akuri | |
|---|---|
 Inokuchi Akuri, from a photograph taken before 1912. | |
| Born | January 12, 1871 Akita |
| Died | March 26, 1931 |
| Other names | Inoguchi Aguri, Fujita Akuri, Akuri Inokuchi |
| Occupation | Physical educator |
Early life
editInokuchi Akuri was born in Akita Prefecture. Sponsored by the Japanese government,[1] she attended Smith College and Wellesley College,[2] and studied physical education with Senda Berenson[3][4] at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, founded by Mary Tileston Hemenway.[5] "There is a great desire to make women strong in Japan," she explained to a Boston newspaper in 1901, "and so my government sent me over here to study how to increase our women's strength."[6]
Career
edit
Inokuchi was a teacher in Tokyo before her time in the United States.[7] On her return to Japan in 1903, Inokuchi taught physical education at Girls' High School in Tokyo,[8][9] and introduced a women's exercise costume of bloomers and middy blouses and calf-length skirts, for comfortable vigorous movement.[10][11][12] She published a report, Taiiku no riron oyobi jissai (Theory and Practice of Physical Education) in 1906.[4] She is considered one of the pioneers of women's modern physical education in Japan.[13]
Inokuchi also taught in the imperial household for a time, and was head of a girls' school in Taipei.[14]
Personal life
editInokuchi married in 1911, and was known as Fujita Akuri.[15] The couple spent a brief time living in San Francisco, and in the 1920s she traveled to London as a tutor. She died in 1931, aged 60 years.
References
edit- ^ "Athletics for Jap Girls; the Mission of Akuri Inokuchi, Who is Spending a Season in Japan". The Kansas City Star. 1902-04-06. p. 12. Retrieved 2020-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Aguri Inokuchi (1902)". Wellesley College. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
- ^ Willms, Nicole (2017). "'Women Who Took Sports Beyond Play': How Japanese American Women's Basketball Went to College". In Messner, Michael; Hartmann, Douglas (eds.). When Women Rule the Court: Gender, Race, and Japanese American Basketball. Rutgers University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-8135-8416-4. JSTOR j.ctt1q1cqp2.
- ^ a b Coates, Jennifer; Fraser, Lucy; Mark, Pendleton (2019-11-15). The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-71678-9.
- ^ "This Japanese Girl Was Taught in Boston". The Boston Globe. 1906-08-19. p. 46. Retrieved 2020-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Knowledge for Japan". The Boston Globe. 1901-11-10. p. 48. Retrieved 2020-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Mortimer, Alice W. (1902-11-22). "The New Women of Japan". The Bangor Daily News. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Kasuga, Yoshimi; Tomozoe, Hidenori (2019). "Historical Research on the Promotion of Women's Physical Education in Prewar Japan: With a Focus on the Taisho Era*". International Journal of Sport and Health Science. 17: 32–44. doi:10.5432/ijshs.201812. ISSN 1348-1509.
- ^ Ikeda, Keiko (2010-03-01). "Ryōsai-kembo, Liberal Education and Maternal Feminism under Fascism: Women and Sport in Modern Japan". The International Journal of the History of Sport. 27 (3): 537–552. doi:10.1080/09523360903556840. ISSN 0952-3367. S2CID 144790795.
- ^ "Unodokai (Sports Day), c. 1930", Old Tokyo.
- ^ Guttmann, Allen; Thompson, Lee (2001). Japanese Sports: A History. University of Hawai'i Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-8248-2414-3. JSTOR j.ctt6wqsmj.
- ^ Cambridge, Nicolas (2011). "Cherry-Picking Sartorial Identities in Cherry-Blossom Land: Uniforms and Uniformity in Japan". Journal of Design History. 24 (2): 104–105. doi:10.1093/jdh/epr005. ISSN 0952-4649. JSTOR 23020370.
- ^ Kietlinski, Robin. Japanese Women and Sport: Beyond Baseball and Sumo (Bloomsbury Academic 2011): 132-133.
- ^ Chin, Hsiang Pin (2012-04-01). "Foot binding and physical education: the development of female physical education in Taiwan schools during the early years of Japanese rule (1895–1915)". Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science. 1 (1): 37–47. doi:10.1080/21640629.2012.681861. ISSN 2164-0599.
- ^ Wellesley College (1919). Bulletin. p. 31.
