Homer Hulbert

Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mary Hulbert. His mother, Mary Elizabeth Woodward Hulbert, was a granddaughter of Mary Wheelock, daughter of Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College. After graduating from St. Johnsbury Academy and Dartmouth College, Hulbert attended Union Theological Seminary in 1884.{{Cite web |title=사단법인 헐버트박사 기념사업회 |url=http://en.hulbert.or.kr/esub2.php |access-date=2025-04-22 |website=hulbert.or.kr |language=ko}}

He originally visited Korea in 1886 with two other instructors, Delzell A. Bunker and George W. Gilmore, to teach English at the Royal English School.{{Cite web|url=http://www.dynamic-korea.com/print.php?tbl=Opinion&uid=200500010249|title=The American who loved Korea more than a Korean|website=www.dynamic-korea.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314035844/http://www.dynamic-korea.com/print.php?tbl=Opinion&uid=200500010249 |archive-date=14 March 2012 |url-status=usurped}}{{Cite book |last=Kim |first=Robert S. |title=Project Eagle: The American Christians of North Korea in World War II |date=May 1, 2017 |publisher=POTOMAC BOOKS |isbn=978-1-61234-869-8 |edition= |location= |pages=11 |language=English}} There, he taught the children of Korean royalty and nobility. In 1901 he founded the magazine The Korea Review.{{Citation |last=한 |first=규무 |title=코리아 리뷰 (Korea Review) |work=한국민족문화대백과사전 [Encyclopedia of Korean Culture] |url=https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0076746 |access-date=2025-01-28 |publisher=Academy of Korean Studies |language=ko}}

Emperor Gwangmu (formerly "King Gojong") then placed him in charge of creating a Western-style middle school. He wrote a history book on Korea that became a standard source used in the US for around half a century.

Before 1905, his attitude towards Japanese involvement in Korea was positive, as he saw the Japanese as agents of reform, in contrast to Russia, which he saw as reactionary. He changed his position in September 1905, when he criticized Japanese plans to turn the Korean Empire into a protectorate.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} Hulbert's 1906 book, The Passing of Korea, criticized Japanese rule. He was not so much theoretically opposed to colonialism as he was concerned that modernization under the secular Japanese was inferior to a Christian-inspired modernization.[https://web.archive.org/web/20141107045333/http://www.koreanhistories.org/files/Volume_2_2/KH2_2_Schmid_Two_Americans.pdf] Andre Schmid, "Two Americans in Seoul, Evaluating an Oriental Empire, 1905-1910"

He resigned his position as a teacher in a public middle school, and in October 1905, he went to the United States as an emissary of Emperor Gojong to protest Japan's actions.{{Cite book|title=The China Mirage – The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia|last=Bradley|first=James|publisher=Hachette Book Group|year=2016|isbn=978-0-316-33617-8|location=New York|pages=10, 78–84}} After returning to the Korean Empire in 1906, he was sent as part of a secret delegation from Gojong to the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague in June 1907. The Korean delegation failed to gain a hearing with other world powers, and the Japanese used Gonjong's actions as a pretext to force him to abdicate. He was expelled by the Japanese resident-general for Korea on May 8, 1907.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}

File:YanghwajinHulbert.JPG]]

In 1948, Syngman Rhee, one of his middle school students, became the first President of Korea and invited Hulbert back to Korea in 1949. While on that trip, Hulbert developed pneumonia, and died on August 5, 1949.{{Cite web |title=사단법인 헐버트박사 기념사업회 |url=http://en.hulbert.or.kr/esub2.php |access-date=2025-04-22 |website=hulbert.or.kr |language=ko}}

Hulbert's tombstone reads, "I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey." He is now interred at Yanghwajin Foreigners' Cemetery in Seoul.{{Cite web |title=The journalist and missionary who defied Japan-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily |url=http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2891703}}

The South Korean government posthumously awarded Hulbert the Order of Merit for National Foundation. He is referred to in the Republic of Korea as a 독립유공자 (contributor to independence). A statue of Hulbert was established in his honor, the only such statue dedicated to an American civilian in Seoul.

Hulbert contributed to the advancement of hangul with his research and study into the orthography and the grammar of Hangul with Ju Si-gyeong.{{cite news|title=한글을 사랑한 첫 외국인, 헐버트/The first foreigner who loved hangul|url=http://www.ytn.co.kr/_pn/0484_201510050701380459|accessdate=October 5, 2015}} He also made the first hangul (Korean) textbook Samin p'ilchi 사민필지 ("Essential Knowledge for Scholars and Commoners").{{cite news|last1=Kim|first1=jiyoon|title=호머 헐버트, 한글 사랑한 벽안의 교사/Homer Hulbert the great blue eyes teacher|url=http://www.newscj.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=56232|accessdate=October 5, 2010}}

Homer Hulbert said that Korea and Japan have the same two racial types, but Japan is mostly Malay and Korea is mostly Manchu-Korean. Hulbert said that Korea is physically mostly of the northern type but also said that the nation, being physically mostly of the northern type, did not disprove Hulbert's claim that the Malay element developed Korea's first civilization although it was not necessarily originating Korea's first civilization, and the Malay element imposed its language in its main features in the entire peninsula.Hulbert, Homer B. (1902). The Korea Review. Seoul: Methodist Publishing House. Page 445 & 457. Retrieved June 4, 2017, from [https://books.google.com/books?id=pJE0AAAAIAAJ&pg=445 link.] Hulbert said that in Korea there was a genetic admixture with Chinese blood that stopped more than 1000 years ago.Kim, Ji-myung. (2014). Champion of the Rose of Sharon. The Korea Times. Retrieved May 31, 2017, from [https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2017/04/355_155198.html link.]

He became closely acquainted with King Gojong and served three times as secret envoy of the Korean Emperor.{{Cite web |title=사단법인 헐버트박사 기념사업회 |url=http://en.hulbert.or.kr/esub2.php |access-date=2025-04-22 |website=hulbert.or.kr |language=ko}}

• 1892 The Korean Repository (He was the editor of this monthly magazine)
• 1889 Knowledge Necessary for All
• 1903 Sign of the Jumna
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTQ9AAAAYAAJ 1903 Search for a Siberian Klondike]
• 1905 The History of Korea
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=-3UuAAAAYAAJ 1905 Comparative Grammar of Korean and Dravidian]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=RpdDAAAAYAAJ 1906 The Passing of Korea]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=cSYpAAAAYAAJ 1907 The Japanese in Korea: Extracts from the Korea Review]
• 1925 Omjee – The Wizard
• 1926 The Face in the Mist

• {{ill|Royal English School|ko|육영공원}}

Homer Hulbert Biography. Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch

[http://raskb.com/blog/2013/02/13/homer-hulbert-biography Homer Hulbert Biography | Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150220055544/http://raskb.com/blog/2013/02/13/homer-hulbert-biography |date=February 20, 2015 }}

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• [http://en.hulbert.or.kr/esub1.php The Hulbert Memorial Society]
• {{Gutenberg author | id=41059}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Homer Bezaleel Hulbert}}
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZJEpS2SUU&list=TLPQMjkxMTIwMjHn7YLIZo1L1g&index=12 [Arirang TV] History Trivia(Ep.13) Homer Hulbert(호머 헐버트)]

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Category:1863 births

Category:1949 deaths

Category:American Protestant missionaries

Category:Protestant missionaries in Korea

Category:Foreign supporters of Korean independence

Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit for National Foundation

Category:People from New Haven, Vermont

Category:American expatriates in Korea

Category:American missionary linguists

Category:American Koreanists

Category:Linguists of Korean

Category:Burials at Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery