Haraguchi was born Tsuru Arai in Tomioka in 1886. Her father was a wealthy farmer and she had two sisters. She attended Takasaki Women's High School, graduating in 1902, two years earlier than her classmates of the same age. She enrolled at Japan Women's University in 1903 to study humanities in the Faculty of English Literature. At the time, women were not allowed to earn graduate degrees or beyond at Japanese universities, and higher educational institutions for women were not yet officially recognized. Thus, when her mentor, the psychologist Matsumoto Matataro, encouraged her to pursue further education, she left Japan for the United States after graduating in 1906.
Haraguchi entered the Teachers College of Columbia University in 1907 to complete a doctorate in psychology. She focused on experimental psychology and pedagogy, and was taught by Edward Thorndike, Robert S. Woodworth and James McKeen Cattell. Her doctoral thesis, titled "Mental Fatigue", was completed under Thorndike's supervision. For her research, she completed experiments on herself in which she multiplied four-digit numbers and translated sentences of John Dewey's writing. Haraguchi earned her doctorate on 5 June 1912, becoming the first Japanese woman to attain a PhD in any field. She was married that same day.
Later life in Japan
Haraguchi returned to Japan, where she expanded her doctoral thesis and translated it into Japanese. It was published under the title Studies on Mental Work and Fatigue in 1914. She lectured at Japan Women's University occasionally and was involved in the establishment of an experimental psychology laboratory at the university. She also wrote a memoir, Tanoshiki omohide, "Pleasant memoirs", in 1915, in which she drew from her experiences studying at Columbia University to advocate for women's education and value.
Haraguchi died of tuberculosis on September 26, 1915, at age 29. Her last work, a Japanese translation of Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius, was published posthumously in 1915. A record of her experiences at Columbia University and her observations of cultural differences between Japan and the U.S., Happy Memories, was also published in 1915. Two documentaries have been produced about Haraguchi's life and work: The Life of Tsuruko Haraguchi and Psychologist Tsuruko Haraguchi: Memories of Her Days at Columbia University in the Early 1900s.
