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Ruby Sia

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Chinese educator
Ruby Sia
A young Chinese woman, standing, wearing a dark tunicRuby 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 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. Her uncle, Sia Sek Ong, was also a Methodist minister and educator. She first traveled to North America in 1900, 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. She took courses Baltimore Women's College in 1911 and 1912, and at Teachers' College, Columbia University during her visit to the United States in 1920 and 1921.

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

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, and spoke at church events during her college years. On her return to China after college, Sia advocated for modernization in education, and especially for the education of girls, while recognizing traditional gendered expectations. For example, she promoted chemistry, nutrition and physiology courses, for women to manage domestic responsibilities more scientifically. She was a teacher and director of music at Hwa Nan College, a Methodist missionary women's college in Foochow. She was a founder of the Foochow Woman's Patriotic Society.

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

Publications

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

Personal life

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

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. ^ 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. ^ 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. ^ "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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