Ruby Sia
A young Chinese woman, standing, wearing a dark tunic
Ruby Sia, from a 1907 publication
Born1884
Foochow, China
Died1955
Shanghai, China
Occupation(s)Educator, Methodist missionary
Known forFirst Chinese graduate of Cornell College (1910)

Ruby F. Sia (1884 – 1955) was a Chinese educator. She was the first Chinese 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.[3] Her cousin Mabel Sia was also educated in Iowa.[9]

Career

Ruby Sia as a teenaged girl in Fuzhou (from The Woman's Missionary Friend, 1898)

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.[7][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.[5] She made another lecture tour in the United States in 1940 and 1941.[22][23]

Publications

  • "Education the Chief Factor in Chinese Enlightenment" (1907)[24]
  • "Chinese Women Educated Abroad" (1907)[25]
  • "China's Need of Industrial Education" (1910)[26]

Personal life

Sia died in 1955, in Shanghai, when she was about seventy years old.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Chinese Girl with American Ideas". Sioux City Journal. 1903-09-06. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. 1 2 Barish, Daniel (2023-10-02). "The World's Chinese Students' Journal and American Influenced Education Reforms on the Eve of Revolution in China, 1905-1911". In Kyong-McClain, Jeff; Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei (eds.). From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes: Historical Reflections on Sino-American Cultural Exchange. Taylor & Francis. p. 1908. ISBN 978-1-000-96433-2.
  4. ↑ "Talks of Her Native China; Chinese Girl Just from Foochow Mystified by Troubles". Sioux City Journal. 1900-06-17. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 3 Maravetz, Steve. "Cornell's First Chinese Graduate" Cornell College News Center (June 26, 2017).
  6. ↑ "Christian Chinese Women". The Pawnee Chief. 1912-03-15. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 "Native Chinese Spoke Here". The Tarkio Avalanche. 1921-04-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "Masthead". The Chinese Students' Monthly. 5 (4). February 1910.
  9. ↑ "Chinese Students in America". The Minneapolis Journal. 1902-11-08. p. 21. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Missionaries Go to China; Quite a Delegation from Northwest Iowa". Sioux City Journal. 1904-07-17. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Report of Convention". Adams County Free Press. 1910-07-20. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Rogers, Dorothy G. (2020-02-06). Women Philosophers Volume I: Education and Activism in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-350-07061-5.
  13. ↑ Ye, Weili (1994). ""Nü Liuxuesheng": The Story of American-Educated Chinese Women, 1880s-1920s". Modern China. 20 (3): 326. ISSN 0097-7004. JSTOR 189202.
  14. ↑ "Cornell College". Journal of the Association of College Alumnae. 11 (5): 324. January 1918.
  15. ↑ Wallace, L. Ethel (1956). Hwa Nan College: The Woman's College of South China. United Board for Christian Colleges in China. p. 132.
  16. ↑ McCoy, Janet Rice. "Woman's College, WFMS, Foochow - GCAH". General Commission on Archives and History, United Methodist Church. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
  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. ↑ "Delegate". The Des Moines Register. 1920-05-02. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ "China's Representation at Des Moines". China Christian Advocate. 7 (11): 27. March 1920.
  21. ↑ "Chinese Woman Addresses Meet; Miss Ruby Sia, Here from Native Land, Speaks at West Branch". The Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune. 1936-04-09. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "Dr. Ruby Sia to Speak at Church Group Meeting". The Montclair Times. 1940-11-08. p. 16. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ "Five Churches to Have Pulpit Guests". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. 1941-01-11. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-10-31 – via 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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