Korean women in Seoul or Incheon circa 1908 / Robert Neff Collection

A postcard of a Korean woman in the late 19th century / Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection

Described as "a dowdy female newspaper correspondent," Anna Northend Benjamin traveled extensively throughout East Asia and Russia documenting her experiences and observations. She was blessed with an amazing gift of writing, though, depending upon the reader, her harsh opinions could be seen as a curse. Despite spending less than a fortnight in Korea during the summer of 1900, she wrote enough about the Hermit Kingdom to rankle Horace N. Allen, the conservative American minister to Korea.

Nothing escaped her eye — or her venomous pen. Her descriptions of the country were heavily tinged with sympathy, curiosity and sarcastic elitism. They were often bold and somewhat offensive — even by the standards of her time.

“We may say without hesitation that the lot of the Korean woman is the most pitiable, just as the position of her people is the most deplorable, in the Far East," she wrote. "In the lower classes she must work, work, work. In the upper classes she must be entombed.”

Benjamin wrote extensively about the daily tribulations of Korean women but, unlike many female Western observers, devoted little attention to their clothing. What she did write seems to have been gleaned from other sources and supported her narrative of women being oppressed by misogyny and tradition.

A servant in the palace, circa 1885, photographed by Pierre Louis Jouy / Annual Report........

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