Ahn Changho

National Association annual convention in 1915

Ahn Chang-ho (1937.11.10)

Ahn was born Ahn Ch'i-sam, on the 6th day of the 10th lunar month 1878 in Kangso County, Pyeongan province, in present-day South Pyongan, North Korea. His birth date is equivalent to 10 November 1878 on the Gregorian calendar but he chose to use the date 9 November 1878 on his vita. Ahn is the family name, chi is the generation marker, and sam refers to the fact that he was the third son of Ahn Kyon-jin (father), and Hwang (Mother). Dosan is of the family of the Sunheung Ahn (순흥안씨; 順興安氏) lineage.

It is believed that he changed his name to Chang-ho when he began public speaking as a teenager. His father also changed his name from Ahn Kyo Jin to Ahn Heung-guk.

In 1894, Ahn moved to Seoul where he attended Save the World School (Gusae Hakdang) in 1895, a Presbyterian missionary-sponsored school in Seoul run by Horace G. Underwood and Rev. F.S. Miller. Dosan eventually converted to Christianity. While Dosan was a student at Gusae he worked for Dr. Oliver R. Avison at Jejungwon, the first medical institution in Korea which became Severance Hospital and is now part of Yonsei University Medical Center.

On November 8, 2013 Dosan was posthumously given an Honorary Diploma by Yonsei University in recognition of his attendance at Gusae Hakdang as a student and for his work there as a teaching assistant; and, for his work at Jejungwon while at Gusae and at Severance Hospital in the early 1900s.

In October 1902, Ahn came to San Francisco with his wife Helen (Hye Ryeon Lee/이혜련) to pursue a better education. They were the first married couple to come from Korea to the Mainland. Their passports from Emperor Gojong were numbers 51 and 52. Ahn Changho started working as unofficial ambassador for Korea (Joseon). While living in San Francisco, California, he witnessed two Korean Ginseng merchants fighting in the streets over sales turf. Ahn was apparently upset by this display of incivility among his countrymen overseas, so he began to invest time into reforming the earliest local Korean community members, rising to become one of the first leaders of the Korean-American community.[1]

He founded the Friendship Society (Chinmoke Hoe/친목회) in 1903, the first group that was organized exclusively for Koreans in the United States. April 5, 1905, he changed the Chinmokehoe name to the Mutual Assistance Society (MAS)(Kongrip Hyophoe/공립협회) with its headquarters at 938 Pacific St. in San Francisco. This was the first Korean political organization in the United States. The first Korean newspaper Kongnip Sinbo started on November 20, 1905 there. In reaction to the Durham White Stevens assassination on March 23, 1908 the MAS would eventually merge with the United Korean Society (Hapsong Hyophoe/합성협회) in Hawaii to become the Korean National Association (Daehan Inguk Hoe) (대한인국민회; 大韓人國民會) in 1909, the official agent of Koreans in the United States until the end of World War II.[2]

In 1926 departing from San Pedro, California by ship, Dosan traveled back to China, never returning to the United States. During Dosan's anti-Japanese activism in Korea, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese Imperialist government at least five times. He was first arrested in 1909 in connection with Ahn Chung Gun's assassination of Itō Hirobumi, the Japanese Resident General of Korea. Dosan was tortured and punished many times during the years of his activism. In 1932 he was arrested in Shanghai, China in connection with Yun Bong-gil's bombing at Hongkew Park (April 29, 1932). He was a naturalized Chinese citizen at this time and illegally extradited back to Korea, where he was convicted of violating Japan's "Preservation of Peace Laws" and sentenced to five years in Taejon prison.

In 1937, Japanese authorities arrested Ahn, but due to complications from severe internal illness, he was released on bail and transferred to the Keijō Imperial University Hospital where he died on March 10, 1938.