Japanese Girls and Women

First published in 1891, 'Japanese Girls and Women' is a book by Alice Mabel Bacon, an American writer, women's educator, and foreign advisor to the Japanese government in the Meiji period Japan. After receiving an invitation to serve as a teacher at a school for girls in 1888, Bacon found herself going back again in 1900 to help establish the Joshi Eigaku Juku (Women's English Preparatory School). This gives very fascinating details about the life of Japanese women and girls at the beginning of the 20th century with regard to subjects such as childhood, education, marriage, being a wife and mother, old age, samurai women, peasant women, court life, life in the cities, and domestic service.