Inokuchi Akuri

Inokuchi Akuri was born in Akita Prefecture. Sponsored by the Japanese government,{{Cite news|date=1902-04-06|title=Athletics for Jap Girls; the Mission of Akuri Inokuchi, Who is Spending a Season in Japan|pages=12|work=The Kansas City Star|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60536782/athletics-for-jap-girls-the-mission-of/|access-date=2020-10-05|via=Newspapers.com}} she attended Smith College and Wellesley College,{{Cite web|title=Aguri Inokuchi (1902)|url=http://www.wellesley.edu/ealc/alum-corner/japan-alum/aguri-inokuchi-1902-|access-date=2020-10-05|website=Wellesley College|language=en}} and studied physical education with Senda Berenson{{Cite book|last=Willms|first=Nicole|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1cqp2|title=When Women Rule the Court: Gender, Race, and Japanese American Basketball|date=2017|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-8416-4|editor-last=Messner|editor-first=Michael|page=107|chapter='Women Who Took Sports Beyond Play': How Japanese American Women's Basketball Went to College|jstor=j.ctt1q1cqp2|editor-last2=Hartmann|editor-first2=Douglas}}{{Cite book|last1=Coates|first1=Jennifer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PNzBDwAAQBAJ&q=Japanese+Girls+Physical+Education+Berenson&pg=PT309|title=The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture|last2=Fraser|first2=Lucy|last3=Mark|first3=Pendleton|date=2019-11-15|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-351-71678-9|language=en}} at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, founded by Mary Tileston Hemenway.{{Cite news|date=1906-08-19|title=This Japanese Girl Was Taught in Boston|pages=46|work=The Boston Globe|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60536368/this-japanese-girl-was-taught-in-boston/|access-date=2020-10-05|via=Newspapers.com}} "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."{{Cite news|date=1901-11-10|title=Knowledge for Japan|pages=48|work=The Boston Globe|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60538552/knowledge-for-japan/|access-date=2020-10-05|via=Newspapers.com}}

File:Sport_clothes_designed_by_Inokuchi_Akuri_01.jpg

Inokuchi was a teacher in Tokyo before her time in the United States.{{Cite news|last=Mortimer|first=Alice W.|date=1902-11-22|title=The New Women of Japan|pages=8|work=The Bangor Daily News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60537372/the-new-women-of-japanalice-w-mortimer/|access-date=2020-10-05|via=Newspapers.com}} On her return to Japan in 1903, Inokuchi taught physical education at Girls' High School in Tokyo,{{Cite journal|last1=Kasuga|first1=Yoshimi|last2=Tomozoe|first2=Hidenori|date=2019|title=Historical Research on the Promotion of Women's Physical Education in Prewar Japan: With a Focus on the Taisho Era*|journal=International Journal of Sport and Health Science|volume=17|pages=32–44| doi=10.5432/ijshs.201812|issn=1348-1509|doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last=Ikeda|first=Keiko|date=2010-03-01|title=Ryōsai-kembo, Liberal Education and Maternal Feminism under Fascism: Women and Sport in Modern Japan|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09523360903556840|journal=The International Journal of the History of Sport|volume=27|issue=3|pages=537–552|doi=10.1080/09523360903556840|s2cid=144790795|issn=0952-3367|url-access=subscription}} and introduced a women's exercise costume of bloomers and middy blouses and calf-length skirts, for comfortable vigorous movement.[http://www.oldtokyo.com/undokai-sports-day-c-1930/ "Unodokai (Sports Day), c. 1930"], Old Tokyo.{{Cite book|last1=Guttmann|first1=Allen|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqsmj|title=Japanese Sports: A History|last2=Thompson|first2=Lee|date=2001|publisher=University of Hawai'i Press|isbn=978-0-8248-2414-3|pages=93|jstor=j.ctt6wqsmj}}{{Cite journal|last=Cambridge|first=Nicolas|date=2011|title=Cherry-Picking Sartorial Identities in Cherry-Blossom Land: Uniforms and Uniformity in Japan|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23020370|journal=Journal of Design History|volume=24|issue=2|pages=104–105|doi=10.1093/jdh/epr005|jstor=23020370|issn=0952-4649|url-access=subscription}} She published a report, Taiiku no riron oyobi jissai (Theory and Practice of Physical Education) in 1906. She is considered one of the pioneers of women's modern physical education in Japan.Kietlinski, Robin. [https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/japanese-women-and-sport-beyond-baseball-and-sumo/ch8-theoretical-concerns-surrounding-japanese-women-in-sport Japanese Women and Sport: Beyond Baseball and Sumo] (Bloomsbury Academic 2011): 132-133.

Inokuchi also taught in the imperial household for a time, and was head of a girls' school in Taipei.{{Cite journal|last=Chin|first=Hsiang Pin|date=2012-04-01|title=Foot binding and physical education: the development of female physical education in Taiwan schools during the early years of Japanese rule (1895–1915)|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2012.681861|journal=Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science|volume=1|issue=1|pages=37–47|doi=10.1080/21640629.2012.681861|issn=2164-0599|url-access=subscription}}

Inokuchi married in 1911, and was known as Fujita Akuri.{{Cite book|last=Wellesley College|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d7fOAAAAMAAJ&q=Fujita+Akuri&pg=PA31|title=Bulletin|date=1919|pages=31|language=en}} 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.

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Category:1871 births

Category:1931 deaths

Category:Japanese educators

Category:People from Akita Prefecture

Category:19th-century Japanese women educators

Category:19th-century Japanese educators