Ruby Sia Explained

Ruby Sia
Birth Date:1884
Birth Place:Foochow, China
Death Date:1955
Death Place:Shanghai, China
Occupation:Educator, Methodist missionary
Known For:First Chinese graduate of Cornell College (1910)

Ruby F. Sia (1884 – 1955) was a Chinese educator. She was the first Chinese individual graduate of Cornell College in Iowa, United States, a member of the class of 1910.

Early life and education

Sia was born in Foochow (Fuzhou), the daughter of Sia Heng-To, a Methodist minister and educator.[1] Her uncle, Sia Sek Ong, was also a Methodist minister and educator.[2] [3] She first traveled to North America in 1900,[4] and graduated from Methodist Church-affiliated Cornell College in 1910, and was the school's first Chinese graduate. Cornell awarded her an honorary master's degree in 1918, and an honorary doctorate in 1936.[5] She took courses Baltimore Women's College in 1911 and 1912,[6] and at Teachers' College, Columbia University during her visit to the United States in 1920 and 1921.[7]

While in the United States, she was associate editor of The Chinese Students' Monthly.[8] and a contributor to the World's Chinese Students' Journal. Her cousin Mabel Sia was also educated in Iowa.[9]

Career

Sia traveled to China with American missionaries in 1904,[10] and spoke at church events during her college years.[11] On her return to China after college, Sia advocated for modernization in education, and especially for the education of girls,[12] while recognizing traditional gendered expectations. For example, she promoted chemistry, nutrition and physiology courses, for women to manage domestic responsibilities more scientifically.[13] She was a teacher and director of music[14] at Hwa Nan College,[15] a Methodist missionary women's college in Foochow.[16] [17] She was a founder of the Foochow Woman's Patriotic Society.[18]

Sia returned to the United States from 1920 to 1921 as a conference delegate and lecturer.[19] [20] She toured in the United States in 1936, when she attended an international Methodist conference,[21] gave lectures, and raised funds for her college. She made another lecture tour in the United States in 1940 and 1941.[22] [23]

Publications

Personal life

Sia died in 1955, in Shanghai, when she was about seventy years old.

Notes and References

  1. News: 1903-09-06 . Chinese Girl with American Ideas . 8 . Sioux City Journal . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  2. Book: Sia, Sek Ong. Sia Sek Ong and the Self-support Movement in Our Foochow Mission : the Story of His Life and Work . Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church . en.
  3. Book: Barish, Daniel . https://books.google.com/books?id=t6rNEAAAQBAJ&dq=Ruby%20Sia%20Cornell&pg=RA1-PA1908 . From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes: Historical Reflections on Sino-American Cultural Exchange . 2023-10-02 . Taylor & Francis . 978-1-000-96433-2 . Kyong-McClain . Jeff . 1908 . en . The World's Chinese Students' Journal and American Influenced Education Reforms on the Eve of Revolution in China, 1905-1911 . Lee . Joseph Tse-Hei.
  4. News: 1900-06-17 . Talks of Her Native China; Chinese Girl Just from Foochow Mystified by Troubles . 6 . Sioux City Journal . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  5. Maravetz, Steve. "Cornell's First Chinese Graduate" Cornell College News Center (June 26, 2017).
  6. News: 1912-03-15 . Christian Chinese Women . 8 . The Pawnee Chief . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  7. News: 1921-04-15 . Native Chinese Spoke Here . 1 . The Tarkio Avalanche . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  8. February 1910 . Masthead . The Chinese Students' Monthly . 5 . 4.
  9. News: 1902-11-08 . Chinese Students in America . 21 . The Minneapolis Journal . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  10. News: 1904-07-17 . Missionaries Go to China; Quite a Delegation from Northwest Iowa . 11 . Sioux City Journal . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  11. News: 1910-07-20 . Report of Convention . 6 . Adams County Free Press . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  12. Book: Rogers, Dorothy G. . Women Philosophers Volume I: Education and Activism in Nineteenth-Century America . 2020-02-06 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-1-350-07061-5 . 32 . en.
  13. Ye . Weili . 1994 . "Nü Liuxuesheng": The Story of American-Educated Chinese Women, 1880s-1920s . Modern China . 20 . 3 . 326 . 189202 . 0097-7004.
  14. January 1918 . Cornell College . Journal of the Association of College Alumnae . 11 . 5 . 324.
  15. Book: Wallace, L. Ethel . Hwa Nan College: The Woman's College of South China . 1956 . United Board for Christian Colleges in China . 132 . en.
  16. Web site: McCoy . Janet Rice . Woman's College, WFMS, Foochow - GCAH . 2023-10-31 . General Commission on Archives and History, United Methodist Church.
  17. Clark . Elsie G. . June 1917 . The W. F. M. S. Jubilee in Foochow . The China Christian Advocate . 4 . 5 . 6.
  18. Hartford . Mabel C. . March 1913 . The Woman's Patriotic Society . Woman's Missionary Friend . 45 . 3 . 98–99.
  19. News: 1920-05-02 . Delegate . 11 . The Des Moines Register . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  20. March 1920 . China's Representation at Des Moines . China Christian Advocate . 7 . 11 . 27.
  21. News: 1936-04-09 . Chinese Woman Addresses Meet; Miss Ruby Sia, Here from Native Land, Speaks at West Branch . 3 . The Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  22. News: 1940-11-08 . Dr. Ruby Sia to Speak at Church Group Meeting . 16 . The Montclair Times . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  23. News: 1941-01-11 . Five Churches to Have Pulpit Guests . 2 . Los Angeles Evening Citizen News . 2023-10-31 . Newspapers.com.
  24. Sia . Ruby . March–June 1907 . Education the Chief Factor in Chinese Enlightenment . The World's Chinese Students' Journal . 1 . 5–6 . 12–14.
  25. Sia, Ruby. "Chinese Women Educated Abroad" World's Chinese Students' Journal (November/December 1907): 27-32.
  26. Sia, Ruby. "China's Need of Industrial Education." Chinese Students' Monthly (March, 1910) 300 (1910).

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