National Cherry Blossom Festival
The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C., commemorating the March 27, 1912, gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City to the city of Washington, D.C. Ozaki gave the trees to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and also celebrate the continued close relationship between the two nations.
[1] Large and colorful helium balloons, floats, marching bands from across the country, music and showmanship are parts of the Festival's parade and other events.
In 1885, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore returned from her first trip to Japan and approached the U.S. Army Superintendent of the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds with the idea of planting cherry trees along the reclaimed waterfront of the Potomac River.
Scidmore, who would go on to become the first female board member of the National Geographic Society, was rebuffed, though she would continue proposing the idea to every Superintendent for the next 24 years.
Among the guests was prominent botanist David Fairchild and his fiancée Marian, the daughter of inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
[5] In 1906, David Fairchild imported 1000 cherry trees from the Yokohama Nursery Company in Japan and planted them on his own property in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
I have taken the matter up and am promised the trees, but I thought perhaps it would be best to make an avenue of them, extending down to the turn in the road, as the other part is still too rough to do any planting.
On February 14, 1912, 3020 cherry trees of twelve cultivars were shipped on board the Awa Maru and arrived in D.C. via rail car from Seattle on March 26.
The Art of Peace[7] illustrated biography on Prince Iyesato Tokugawa presents much of this prior history and the behind-the-scenes political details surrounding this Japanese goodwill gesture which point strongly to Prince Tokugawa's pivotal role in the initial Japanese gifting and its evolution into the National Cherry Blossom Festival in 1935.
This article mentioned that scheduled to coincide with the visit of Prince Tokugawa to New York City, was the recent arrival of a delegation of sixty Japanese.
While in Washington, D.C., Prince Tokugawa met and dined with President William Howard Taft at the White House, who was honoring his visit.
Prince Tokugawa and five of his Japanese companions toured the city; this included a visit to the American Stock Exchange on Wall Street; they also marveled at the construction of the Holland Tunnel.
Prince Tokugawa was also invited to a small private dinner in honor of his visit to New York City, given by Kokichi Midzuno, Consul General of Japan.
[8] During his long career, Prince Tokugawa creatively promoted a friendship and alliance with six U.S. presidents and other world leaders during his extensive travels abroad.
This 1915 photo illustration (which is a section of a larger photograph) presents Baron Shibusawa Eiichi standing between two of his prominent Japanese colleagues.
Shibusawa had been sitting at the other end of the huge banquet table, near former President Theodore Roosevelt, but for the sake of shooting and capturing this group photo of sixty attendees, the photographer requested that Shibusawa come to the other side of the table to be closer to former President William Howard Taft (who is at the far right in the photo, seated next to the gentleman whose image reveals only one half of his face).
Takamine was a highly successful and respected chemist and businessman who helped found an international pharmaceutical company that continues to this day.
In this 1915 photo, standing at Shibusawa's left side is Count Chinda Sutemi, Japanese Ambassador to the United States.
In a ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two of these trees on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park.
[10] To further build on the growing goodwill between Japan and the U.S. based on the giving of the Cherry Blossom Trees in 1912, one of Prince Iyesato Tokugawa's close friends and political allies, Baron Eiichi Shibusawa, visited the U.S. in 1915.
The host of this banquet is Jōkichi Takamine, the successful Japanese-American community activist and businessman who first offered to purchase the cherry blossom trees and have this gift diplomatically come from the nation of Japan.
It was President Taft and his wife who officially received the gift of the cherry blossom trees from the representatives of Japan three years earlier.
The first "Cherry Blossom Festival" was held in late 1934 under joint sponsorship by numerous civic groups, and in 1935 it officially became a national annual event.
In 1938, plans to cut down trees to clear ground for the Jefferson Memorial prompted a group of women to chain themselves together at the site in protest.
Who better to receive this U.S. goodwill gift than Prince Tokugawa, who had played a pivotal role behind-the-scenes and had introduced the then Mayor of Tokyo Ozaki to the U.S. leaders in Washington, D.C., in 1910, as part of the giving of those cherry blossom trees.
More than 700,000 people visit Washington each year to admire the blossoming cherry trees that herald the beginning of spring in the nation's capital.
The three-week festival begins around the middle of March with a Family Day at the National Building Museum and an official opening ceremony in the Warner Theatre.
[18] The next morning (Sunday), the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run begins on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
[28][31] Interspersed among all the trees are the Weeping Cherry, which produces a variety of single and double blossoms of colors ranging from dark pink to white about a week before the Yoshino.
