Esther Biddle Rhoads

Esther Biddle Rhoads (November 26, 1896 – February 4, 1979) was an American educator and Quaker relief worker. She was a teacher at the Friends Girls School in Tokyo from 1917 to 1940, and returned to Japan after World War II to rebuild the school as its principal; she was also tutor of Prince Akihito from 1950 to 1960.

Early life and education Rhoads was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Edward Garrett Rhoads and Margaret Ely Paxson Rhoads. Her family were Quakers; her father was a physician. She attended Germantown Friends School, Drexel Institute, and in 1921 completed a bachelor's degree at Earlham College in Indiana. In 1927 she earned a master's degree in religious education from Teachers College, Columbia University. During the war, she worked in California with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and used her Japanese language and cultural understanding to support Japanese-Americans incarcerated in internment camps.

After the war, Rhoads returned to Japan, as commissioner of Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia (LARA). In 1949, became principal of the Friends Girls School in Tokyo. She also tutored Crown Prince Akihito, from 1950 to 1960. She left her Japan posts in 1960. A large collection of her papers is held in the Haverford College Libraries' Quaker & Special Collections.