Yajima Kajiko

Yajima Kajiko (矢嶋 楫子, 1833 – June 16, 1925) was the founder of the Women's Reform Society and president of Japan's Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

Late in life, Yajima attended international meetings on peace and temperance, and met with American suffragists.

Elizabeth Dorn Lublin wrote "the ideology of danson johi (respect men and despise women) that informed this reception remained the dominant shaping force in Yajima's early years".

Since teaching was one of the few paying jobs available to women of her time, she became a teacher for the newly established public school system in Tokyo following her divorce.

In late 1886, Yajima helped create the Tokyo Woman's Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) along with twenty-eight other women and was appointed president along with Sasaki Toyoju as secretary.

Three years later she was able to be reelected and stepped back into her role until 1903 she was forced to leave position yet again, this time because she did not receive enough votes from union members.

[1] She edited the Japanese temperance newspaper, lectured, led protest marches, raised funds and represented Japan at international conferences.

[9][10] In 1906, she spoke at the world convention of the WCTU in Boston; on that trip she also visited New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco,[11] and went to the White House with other temperance activists to meet president Theodore Roosevelt.

[12] In 1920, with her countrywomen Tsuneko Yamada Gauntlett and Michiko Kawai, she traveled to London and Geneva for international conferences on temperance and suffrage, respectively.

She met with American suffragists,[14] and with President Warren G. Harding, to whom she delivered a 300-foot-long peace petition signed by Japanese women.