e Japanese government’s participation in international expositions afforded an opportunity to promote their country’s products and industry as well as to acquire new technology and materials from the West. e delegation sent to the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873 included artisans, merchants and experts in sericulture, who received government sponsorship to spend six months in Europe to visit factories and workshops.57 ey returned to Japan with samples of European fabrics, chemical dyes, the Jacquard loom, Kaye’s flying shuttle and graph paper. Japan domesticated foreign technologies and materials, harnessing the power of the West to fuel its textile industry. rather than adopting or copying Western tools and concepts wholesale, as is commonly assumed, Japanese weavers and dyers exercised an adaptive, innovative approach to modernizing the kimono industry.58
Japanese wares were exhibited in many international expositions including London (1862 and 1910), Paris (1867 and 1900), Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876), Chicago (1893) and St Louis (1904) (illus. 51).59 rough encounters with the world beyond its borders, Japan became acutely aware of how presen- tation affected perception. e Japanese government strategically viewed expositions as a venue to display the nation’s cultural capital and assess the
51 Kimono fabric exhibited at Paris International Exhibition of 1867 and purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum (red bamboo and plum blossom design),
c. 1860–67, stencilled
paste-resist dyeing on silk crepe.
reception of its wares in a global context. e production of Japanese textiles in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century became a part of this cultural negotiation, reflecting Japan’s attempt to absorb Western materials and technology while maintaining its own cultural integrity and identity.
e government, industry cartels and individuals often worked in tandem to continually improve the quality and output of Japanese textiles in an
increasingly competitive world market. e dissemination of new materials, tools and technology continued processes begun in the eighteenth century, during the period often referred to as proto-industrialization. For example, the ‘tall loom’ (takabata) was a well-guarded secret of the nishijin weavers in Kyoto. In the eighteenth century, select Kyoto weavers transferred their exper- tise to the nascent textile industry that was taking root in small towns, such as Kiryū, located in eastern Japan.60 e ‘tall loom’ soon replaced the ‘backstrap loom’ (izaribata) in many of these regional areas. regions with sustainable crops and by-employment attracted workers. Kiryū’s population tripled between 1757 and 1855, and an 1835 document credits the growth to the weaving industry: ‘Weavers who came to make a living hired women operatives to spin and weave, and people came crowding into the town from other provinces, renting houses there and even in surrounding hamlets.’ In 1836, ‘every peasant family was said . . . to practice sericulture, to weave silk cloth, or to work at paper making in the intervals of farming’. neighbouring villages, such as Ashikaga, competed for skilled workers, luring them away with the promise of higher wages.61
Keen interregional competition and localized knowledge contributed to subsequent inventions. A Japanese wheelwright from Kiryū, Iwase Kichibei, is credited with the application of water power to large wheels used in the silk- throwing process.62 e concentration of industrial effort in localized areas led to incremental innovations and improved products. A perceived need to ensure high-quality output led to the establishment in 1878 of the trade organization Kiryū Company (Kiryū Kaisha).63 omas Smith convincingly argues that
the modern textile industry grew mainly in districts of traditional manufacture; much of the growth occurred in villages and former ‘country places’; entrepreneurs, plant managers, buyers, shippers, and labor contractors came from the same districts; and the labor came overwhelmingly from farm families.64
e infrastructure established in the Edo period provided fertile ground for the stimulus activated by foreign materials and technology.
Members of Japanese delegations sent to the United States and Europe conducted research abroad and returned with knowledge of new materials, tools and technologies. In 1872, the Kyoto city mayor Makimura Masanao dispatched the weavers Inoue Ihei (1821–1881) and Yoshida Chūshichi (?–1874), together with Sakura tsuneshichi (1835–1899), to Lyon to study French weaving tech- nology.65 Sakura and Inoue returned with the Jacquard loom and a model of Kaye’s flying shuttle that Japanese carpenters, most likely including Araki Kohei (1843–?), modified and replicated for use by the nishijin weavers.66 Yoshida
died unexpectedly in 1874 when the boat that carried him, and many of the works returning to Japan from the 1873 Vienna Exhibition, sank off the coast of the Izu Peninsula.67 When the weaver date Yasuke iv (1813–1876) travelled to Vienna for the 1873 International Exposition, he took with him samples of woven silks in the hope of stimulating interest and garnering orders. Besides prizes awarded for his own work, he brought back at least two European sample books that included swatches of velvets, chiné and other woven silks, some of which incorporated Art nouveau designs.68 date would later be named an ‘Imperial household Artisan’ (teishitsu gigeiin).69
e Kyoto city government, home of the nishijin weaving industry, recognized the need to compete with foreign merchants vying for the highest quality silk products. e Japanese government also hired foreign experts to teach in Japanese universities, research centres and factories. In 1876, Kyoto’s mayor Makimura invited the British designer Christopher dresser, then visiting Japan, to help promote Anglo-Japanese trade and advise on industrial developments.
e government – initially at the feudal domain level and later at the national level – also established spinning mills, utilizing a combination of foreign expertise and Japanese specialists who had trained abroad, coupled with imported machinery adapted to suit Japan’s particular needs. In 1866, Satsuma domain officials contracted with the Platt Brothers of oldham in England and a British engineer to set up a cotton mill in Kagoshima employ- ing Western-style spinning mules.70 When officials of the Maebashi domain made the decision to invest in the establishment of a silk-reeling mill based on Western models in 1870, they sought the advice of hayami Kenzō (1839–1913), a man of samurai lineage who understood the Yokohama silk trade. hayami brought in a Swiss technician named Casper Mueller to aid in the initial set-up of Italian equipment in the Maebashi domain.71 e first private cotton spinning factory, the osaka Spinning Mill, opened in 1883, made the decision to switch from the spinning mules commonly employed in British factories to the more recently developed ring-spinning technique and made adaptations to imported machines to suit Japanese conditions. Specifically, the government official Shibusawa Eiichi hired a Japanese engineer already in England, Yamabe takeo, to gain first-hand experience of the spin- ning machines prior to importing them from Platt Brothers.72 Private firms, such as the osaka Spinning Mill, provided the initiative to adapt imported technology for domestic use.
one of the most famous model factories of the Meiji era was the tomioka Silk reeling Works, overseen by Itō hirobumi and Shibusawa Eiichi in 1872. e tomioka factory relied on French machinery and expertise. Ironically, although the government-established tomioka mill hired the French expert
52 Utagawa Yoshitora, imported silk spinning machine at tsukiji in tokyo, c. 1876, triptych of polychrome woodblock prints, ink and colour on paper.
Paul Brunat to advise on the operations of the mill, the sponsors disregarded Brunat’s recommendation to utilize locally produced machines made of domes- tic materials. Instead, they opted for a factory design that made use of the latest Western technology and techniques, however ineffectual, in order to showcase the government’s efforts to modernize.73 In 1890, the mill was privatized.
e first large-scale private silk factory, established in tsukiji, tokyo, in late 1871, was backed by the ono family, one of the leading Kyoto-based merchant families (illus. 52).74 ono called upon the Swiss technician Mueller, who had been involved in setting up the silk-reeling factory in Maebashi, to create it. As Morris-Suzuki notes,
although tsukiji was foreign in inspiration, its technology was drastically modified to suit Japanese conditions. e machinery was wooden, built in Japan, and driven, not by steam or water power, but by the labour of human beings who spent their working days tied to the endlessly turning rows of drive-wheels.75
Eventually the equipment from the tsukiji operation was transferred to other ono-established silk filatures in nagano prefecture, favoured for its proximity to local cocoon supplies. By 1920, nagano prefecture had gained a reputation as a ‘silk kingdom’ and silk dominated the region’s economy.76 By the late twentieth century, only one silk spinning factory survived in nagano, and only one household was still engaged in sericulture.77
toyoda Looms is the classic example of Japanese ingenuity and adaptation. Its founder, toyoda Sakichi (1867–1930), hailed from the cotton-weaving centre of nagoya and was a carpenter by trade. Studiously observing different models of looms exhibited in government-sponsored industry exhibitions, toyoda developed and patented an automated loom in 1916. he recognized that an enormous market existed for standardized, reliable quality products, and he tinkered with 30 prototypes tested over a period of several years in an effort to produce the loom. With the financial backing of the Mitsui conglomerate, toyoda ultimately extended his cotton- spinning venture to China.78
By the 1920s, a large percentage of textiles was produced in privately owned factories, but factory-based textile production did not necessarily displace home- or regionally based productions. home-based production continued to provide for a family’s personal needs and also afforded supple- mentary income as by-employment for rural families that supplied silk or cotton products for local and distant markets. e increased demand for export silk in the early twentieth century may have prompted local communi- ties to emphasize sericulture and silk reeling over less lucrative markets, such as lacquerware or ceramic production. regional producers capitalized on labour-intensive, putting-out methods, and adapted their production to and were sustained by local and distant market demands. Some small-scale textile producers in rural areas thus managed to survive into the post-1945 era.