The Hiroshima Maidens were a group of 25 Japanese women who were disfigured by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and subsequently went on a highly publicized journey to obtain reconstructive surgery in the United States. Originating from a support group organized by Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto, the Maidens attracted widespread media attention in Japan, with some undergoing surgeries in Tokyo and Osaka. After these surgeries failed, Tanimoto worked with the editor of The Saturday Review of Literature, Norman Cousins, to bring the Maidens to the United States for surgery. They traveled there in 1955.