Philip Jaisohn

Philip Jaisohn was a pioneer of independence, democracy and public awakening for the Korean people. He was born in 1864 in Boseong County, Korea, as Seo Jae-pil. He studied the Confucian classics and Chinese writing as a child, and passed the civil service exam at age 18. He became a junior officer in the Korean army and was sent to Japan to study at the Keio Gijuku and the Toyama Army Academy. He was influenced by the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of Japan. He returned to Korea and participated in the Kapsin Coup of 1884, a radical attempt to overthrow the old regime and reform the country. The coup failed and he had to flee to Japan and then to the United States. He became the first Korean to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1890 and the first Korean to receive an American medical degree in 1892. He married Muriel Armstrong, a niece of President James Buchanan, in 1894. He returned to Korea in 1896 and initiated a series of reforms that aimed to promote democracy and national independence. He founded the first Korean newspaper written in vernacular script, Han'gul, called The Independent. He also established the Independence Club, a political organization that advocated for civil rights and self-government. He was offered high positions in the Korean government, but he refused and continued his reform movements. He faced opposition from the conservative factions and the Japanese influence in Korea. He left Korea in 1898 and came back to Philadelphia, where he worked as a medical researcher and a journalist. He also supported the Korean independence movement from abroad and helped the Korean immigrants in the U.S. He founded the Jaisohn Memorial Foundation in 1975 to provide health and human services to the Asian American community. He died in 1951 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. His remains were reinterred at the Seoul National Cemetery in 1994. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in Korean history and a champion of freedom and democracy.