My condolences to Martha’s family. I first met Martha when she was doing her research in the Maharashtra State Archives (MSA), Mumbai, on Surat and the ivory trade for her next book around 2012–2013. We would often step out to Kamat’s restaurant to grab some bites of Mumbai pav bhaji and South Indian delicacies. Those days in the archives, with Martha around, were among the best; they still linger as nostalgic reminiscences of a time when the otherwise solitary journey of research carried the warmth and flavor of our catching up.

I must add here that as long as I have worked in the MSA, I have seen only Martha consulting the rarely used laity records of the Surat Diaries. To my knowledge, no other historian has undertaken this laborious and cumbersome archival engagement to that extent. If we credit her as one of the earliest and among the pioneers in the history of commodities, it would not be an exaggeration, rather, it would be entirely befitting.

My time with Martha went much further than I had expected. I have met many scholars in the archives, but I have not remained in touch with many as much as I did with her. In fact, she never forgot me. One of the most special moments was her birthday celebration at a spa-her gift to me, and that too on her special day. When I insisted on buying her something, she chose a jacket she had already wanted to purchase from the Westside store.

It was also her gentle nudge that made me attend our common friend and colleague Omri’s conference on animals and animal trade at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Such was her magnanimity that she shared her hotel room with me, the one she had received as a keynote speaker. This generous gesture moved me; in many ways, it felt like her way of reciprocating what little I could do for her in Mumbai. So, from Mumbai to Montreal, it became another cherished time together.

Soon after, in December 2015, on my invitation she came down to Surat and presented on her Favorite subject-Surat and ivory. Of course, we once again enjoyed our time together. Thereafter, we continued exchanging emails, especially, regarding the book chapter for the edited volume by Prof. Alpers and myself, where her contribution is well cited. I do carry a small regret that I could not contribute my own chapter on ivory to her edited volume.

Martha was simply Martha. Once again it was her nudge that led me to become a panelist on a panel she proposed at the World History Congress and that, in turn, took me to Boston, USA. There too we exchanged gifts. The most memorable one I still have from her is a small gold-embossed mirror from Japan, her primary and most deeply researched area. She told me then how empirical research truly matters, and how it therefore endures. I think we belong to the same school of thought.

After that, we exchanged small messages and updates. During the Covid period, however, I lost regular touch with her. Yet her occasional emails would gently remind me that she had not forgotten, and she would kindly ask about my well-being. Then came 2023, when I unexpectedly met her again at Kizuna India’s conference in Delhi. That was when I learned she was battling cancer, but imagine the smile with which she said, “I am going to fight back.”

We caught up again soon after in Mumbai, where she treated me at Cream Centre in Phoenix Mall. Little did I know that this would be my last time with her. Now I realize how important those simple hellos in between were—the ones she never forgot to send.

David and Sam, I must tell you how fondly she would speak of both of you. She would often refer to you in our conversations, telling me what you meant to her, always with that warm, chuckling smile in her eyes.  

Chhaya

I met Martha at the University of Pittsburgh Library. I worked there, and since she was fluent in Japanese, we immediately hit it off. I assisted her with library resources and services, as well as with class management behind the scenes.

She was a creative instructor who incorporated unique experiences into her classes that would not typically be included in a history program. For example, she gave her students Japanese bento boxes so they could experience a part of Japanese culture. I helped by picking up the bento boxes from the store.

In academic libraries, Japanese rare books are treated as artifacts and handled with great care. Martha’s approach was different. She asked her students to find Japanese characters—such as the character for “elephant”—in rare books. By studying these characters with care and respect, her students were able to connect with the history of Japan in a meaningful way.

I am certain that many of Martha’s students developed a love for Japan through her classes. I miss her dearly and am grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know her.

In Memoriam

Martha Chaiklin

1960–2026

Historian of Japan and Material Culture

Martha Chaiklin embodied career diversity. As a curator, professor, editor, author, and election worker, Martha brought big energy, analytical brilliance, and a hearty laugh to all her undertakings. She wrote across national, regional, linguistic, and temporal boundaries before the global turn. She was a citizen of the world, living and working in the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. She was at the forefront of material culture studies with her innovative, varied research on objects from shoes to mermaids. But most central to her professional identity and prolific publications, Martha was a meticulous archival researcher with methods, memory, and an eye for detail that focused her writing on empirical insights and connections.

Martha trained as a scholar of early modern Japan with a focus on interactions with the Dutch East India Company in the Tokugawa era. Born and raised in Columbia, Maryland, she earned a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA from the University of Michigan before moving to Japan where she worked in advertising and earned a second master’s degree from Seijo University. She subsequently moved with two young children to undertake a PhD at Leiden University in the Netherlands. While there she worked with the journal Itinerario, initiating her lifelong dedication to book reviewing.

After her first book, Cultural Commerce and Dutch Commercial Culture: The Influence of European Material Culture on Japan, 1700–1850 (Leiden Univ., 2003), Martha and her sons returned to the United States, where she worked as the East Asian curator at the Milwaukee Public Museum and taught at several universities, including the University of Alabama and University of Pittsburgh. At MPM her expertise in material culture became even more tangible. She once noted that although she’d studied the significant differences between Japanese and European armor, she didn’t really know what that meant until she had to move hefty Samurai dō and the even more unwieldy metal plate and chain mail of a German knight. This curiosity for how things felt, how people used them, and why they mattered in specific human contexts animated Martha’s work.

Martha’s abiding interest in people and the things they made propelled her research; she went where the archives took her, fearless about going to new cities, countries, repositories, or topics. She often reported on recent correspondence with a librarian or archivist who’d helped her track down a detailed reference to local ivory carving. Her interests ranged from netsuke (miniature sculptures) to live peacocks, from merchants to prostitutes. “Trade is trade,” she commented wryly. She lit up equally talking about the technical specifications of early modern glass blowing compared to modern sheet glass or the cultural meaning of elephants in East Africa and Sri Lanka. She spent years tracking ivory hunters, caravans, merchants, artisans, and consumers for Ivory and the Aesthetics of Modernity in Meiji Japan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She ranged across the Indian Ocean world for information and inspiration to tell a story about supposedly insular Japan.

Martha also loved shoes. She was delighted to contribute a chapter on Japanese footwear to a volume blurbed by Manolo Blahnik, who said, “This volume helps transform the shoe from a mundane object of everyday use into something of great social and psychological power.” His observation captures Martha’s approach to history, crafting narrative and analytical power from objects and their past uses.

In addition to her monographs, Martha translated C.T. Assendelft de Coningh’s Dutch memoir, A Pioneer in Yokohama: A Dutchman’s Adventures in the New Treaty Port (Hackett, 2012); edited Shashi: The Journal of Japanese Business and Company History and the volume Mediated by Gifts: Politics and Society in Japan, 1350–1850 (Brill, 2016); and co-edited Asian Material Culture (Amsterdam Univ. Press, 2009) and Animal Trade Histories in the Indian Ocean World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She accomplished all of this as a single mother and most of it as an independent scholar. As her many collaborators and colleagues will attest, she did a lot of this work while multitasking, moving through the world with love and sardonic wit. She is survived by her sons Samuel and David Suzuki, her mother Sharon Chaiklin, and siblings Seth and Nina. They are not alone in feeling the loss of Martha’s passing.

Laura J. Mitchell

University of California, Irvine

Kerry Ward

Rice University

Martha was a rare soul - deeply intelligent, hilariously funny, and a steadfast ally. From our adventures in Delhi to her stories of her sons, every moment with her was amazing. She was meant to visit Delhi this month, so it is very sad that we have not been able to meet.

I feel so lucky to have known her. 

I only met Martha once, when she accompanied Sharon to the 2024 dance therapy conference in Chicago.  I have a vivid remembrance  of seeing them together and feeling so honored to be witnessing their respectful and loving interactions.  Martha was so attentive and caring toward Sharon-it warmed me to see how much they cared for each other.  

My condolences to all in the family from a colleague of Sharon's..

Warmest regards,Nana Koch

Martha Chaiklin was a skilled and imaginative historian of the complexities in human culture. Her work in Japan, Netherlands, and the U.S., and her studies of Africa and Asia expanded world history. I have fond memories of her as  a good friend and good colleague while we were at Pitt and in later years. I offer sincere condolences to Sam and David and to all who were close to Martha.  

Pat Manning