Martha Jane Cunningham
Born3 June 1856
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Died22 April 1916 (age 59)
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Occupation(s)Missionary, educator, school principal

Martha Jane Cunningham (3 June 1856 – 22 April 1916) was a Canadian missionary educator in Japan. She was first principal of Shizuoka Eiwa Girls' School in Shizuoka, which was founded in 1887.

Early life and education

Cunningham was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of William Cunningham and Matilda Ellen Burns Cunningham. Her father was a clothier.[1] Both of her parents were born in Ireland.

Martha Jane Cunningham with five students in Sault Ste. Marie in the 1910s, from a 1917 publication

Career

Cunningham was a teacher with the Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada.[2] She went to Japan in 1887.[1] She worked with a Japanese Methodist minister and a local official, and became the first principal of the first girls' school in Shizuoka that year.[3][4] She traveled in Japan, often with other Western women teachers.[5] While in Canada on furloughs, she taught and spoke to Canadian audiences about Japan and her work,[6][7][8] with illustrations.[9] She left Japan after her third term of service, during the 1906–1907 academic year.[10]

Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakuin University, which traces its origins to the girls' school founded by Cunningham and others, as it appeared in 2009

Beginning in 1913, Cunningham was a mission teacher in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, working mainly with European immigrant women and children.[10] She was a member of the Daughters of the Empire and of the Red Cross Society.[11]

Personal life and legacy

Cunningham died in 1916, at the age of 59, in Sault Ste. Marie.[11] In Shizuoka, the alumnae of Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakko, the Methodist Church, and local officials held a memorial service in June 1916, and the school placed a portrait of Cunningham in the students' library, along with books donated in tribute.[12] At the centennial of the school in 1987, a memorial marker was placed for Cunningham on the school's grounds. The school is still operating as of 2023, as is the women's college it launched in 1966, now a university.[13]

References

  1. 1 2 "Going to Japan! The First Through Passenger from Halifax; Miss Cunningham Leaves To-Day for the Kingdom of the Rising Sun via Canadian Pacific Railway and Steamer". The Halifax Herald. 1887-08-09. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ "Miss Jane Cunningham and pupils, Japan". United Church of Canada Archives. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  3. ↑ Dugal, Alexandria. "Martha Jane Cunningham: A Women's Missionary Society Pioneer" International Bulletin of Mission Research 42(1)(January 2018): 76-84.
  4. ↑ Gagan, Rosemary R. (1992). A sensitive independence : Canadian Methodist women missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881-1925. Internet Archive. Montreal [Que.] : McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 78, 88–90, 99. ISBN 978-0-7735-6330-8 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ↑ Shannon, Anne Park (2012). Finding Japan: Early Canadian Encounters with Asia. Heritage House Publishing Co. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-927051-55-9.
  6. ↑ "Miss Cunningham Gives Address on Japan". The Evening Mail. 1909-01-26. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "Summer School for S. S. Workers; The Gathering Will Take Place at Berwick Beginning Next Week". The Evening Mail. 1907-07-30. p. 7. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "Woman's Missionary Convention". The Montreal Star. 1907-09-28. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Miss Cunningham's Illustrated Address". The Sault Star. 1914-03-05. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 Platt, Harriet Louise (1917). The story of the years : a history of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, Canada, from 1881 to 1906. Emmanuel - University of Toronto. Toronto. pp. 92–94, 117–119 – via Internet Archive.
  11. 1 2 "Untitled death notice". The Sault Star. April 24, 1916. p. 2. Retrieved August 31, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Memorial Service in Japan for Late Miss Cunningham". The Sault Star. 1916-10-06. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Shizuoka Eiwa Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School, English pamphlet.
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