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Consolidating the Collar Line: The Professionalization of Engineering and Social Stratification in Modern Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 November 2020
Abstract
Historians have extensively explored conflicts and reconciliation between labor and management, but have hardly considered how class hierarchy took shape and persisted. This article explores the birth of class hierarchy through the lens of the Tokyo Worker School. While education bureaucrats created this school as a training ground for skilled workers, the school's educators helped their students join white-collar positions and avoid the stigma against manual labor. By tracing this process, I explain how the aspirations of educators and students alike consolidated class hierarchy and explore why the collar line persisted despite the ascent of hitherto under-valued professions, such as engineering.
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- Lines of Labor, Lines of Production
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- Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2020
References
Notes
1. “Shiba Kōen ni shikichi baishū undō de shiba kumin kara daihantai,” Kokumin Shinbun, January 24, 1925, 7.
2. Kuramae Shūkōkai Hyakunenshi Hensan iinkai, ed. Kuramae Shūkōkai Hyakunenshi (Tokyo: Tōkōdai kōgakubu fuzoku kōgyō kōtō gakkō senkōka, 2002), 32–4Google Scholar; “Shiba kukai ni gendan,” Asahi shinbun, January 29, 1925, am edition, 6.
3. In his interview to newspaper Kokumin Shinbun regarding his stance to the issue, Tazawa Yoshiharu, a former Harmonization Society standing director and an incumbent Deputy Mayor (joyaku) of Tokyo City who had been known for his efforts to move the school to the park, said “I have no memory making efforts to buy the land for the school.” “Doryoku shita oboe ga nai,” Kokumin Shinbun, January 24, 1925, 7.
4. Nobuhiro, Miyoshi, Nihon Kōgyō Kyōiku Seiritsushi no Kenkyū (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 2012)Google Scholar; Nobuhiro, Miyoshi, Nihon Kōgyō Kyōiku Hattatsushi no Kenkyū (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 2005)Google Scholar; Nobuhiro, Miyoshi, Tejima Seiichi to Nihon Kōgyō Kyōiku Hattatsushi (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1999)Google Scholar. This is also the case in the history writing of engineering education in the other parts of the world. For instance, George S. Emmerson, in his global history of engineering education, did not explore class hierarchies although he was aware that “status” was at the center of “motives for upgrading the training of engineers,” and “remaining a working engineer in any medium-to-large American or British company is to limit one's salary and status aspirations.” see Emmerson, George S., Engineering Education: A Social History (New York: Crane, Russak & Company, Inc., 1973), 268–9Google Scholar.
5. Jones, Gareth Stedman, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Wahrman, Dror, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780-1840 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Maza, Sarah, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)Google Scholar. As for a classic work in which class was defined by the historian, see Thompson, Edward Parmer, The Making of the English Working Class (London: V. Gollancz, 1963)Google Scholar. For the details of historiographical debates on this issue, see Eley, Geoff and Nield, Keith, The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social? (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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7. For instance, Jordan Sand's exhaustive research on the classless diffusion of “bourgeois culture” enlightens us on how a middle-class is a rhetoric, not lived reality, but he uses the term “working class” as an essential category. Jordan Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 63, 181.
8. Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan Heavy Industry, 1853–1955 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center,1985); Garon, State and Labor in Modern Japan; Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991); Andrew Gordon, The Wages of Affluence: Labor and Management in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998); William Tsutsui, Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
9. Daniel A. Clark, Creating the College Man: American Mass Magazines and Middle-Class Manhood (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010). The first college guide in the United States, Which College? was published in 1928, while the Japanese counterparts appeared in the 1880s. But, business leaders began to recruit their future business executives from elite universities, such as Harvard, in the 1890s. For the details of this process, Christina Groeger, “A ‘Good Mixer’: University Placement in Corporate America, 1890–1940,” History of Education Quarterly 58 (2018): 33–64. For the detailed explanations on the physical separation of the blue- and white-collar workforce in American workplaces, see Stuart Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760–1900 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Jerome P. Bjelopera, City of Clerks: Office and Sales Workers in Philadelphia, 1870–1920 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005); Brian P. Luskey, On the Make: Clerks and the Quest for Capital in Nineteenth Century America (New York: New York University Press, 2010).
10. In 1877, this school changed its name to the Ministry of Public Works College (Kōbu daigakkō). “Kōgakuryō gakka narabini shokisoku (Meiji shichinen Nigatsu Kaisei),” in Kyū kōbu daigakkō shiryō hensankai, ed. Kyūkōbudaigakkō Shiryō (Tokyo: Toranomonkai, 1931), 195.
11. Kyū kōbu daigakkō shiryō hensan iinkan, ed. Kyū kōbu daigakkō shiryō (Tokyo: Toranomonkai, 1931), 195–7.
12. “Chokurei dai sanjū hachi go Gijutsukan kantō hōkyū rei,” Kanpō 846 (April 30, 1886): 312. At this stage, the job description of the assistant technician was not necessarily the white-collar workers receiving the fixed amount of monthly salaries. Some assistant technicians received daily wages of 60 sen.
13. 1,713 out of the total 5,054 procured jobs within the state bureaucracy. Morikawa Hidemasa, Gijutsusha: Nihon Kindaika no Ninaite (Tokyo: Nihon Keiza Shinbunsha, 1975), 14.
14. “Seisakugakukyōjō kisoku,” recited in Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, TōKyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi (Tokyo: Tōkyō kōgyō daigaku, 1985), 17.
15. They considered “having this modest, pragmatic institution” not adequate for institutions of professional education. Ibid., 15.
16. Factory Foremen (shokkōchō) were the leaders of manual workers (shokkō), not white-collar managers (shokuin). As I will explore later in this article, factory foremen (shokkōchō) belong to the category of blue-collar workers in Japanese corporations, such as Yahata Steel Works.
17. This term, Taisei Daijin under the modern Ritsuryō system established in 1869 is different from the prime minister, which was called sōri daijin, or shushō, under the cabinet system which replaced the Ritsuryō polity in 1885.
18. The full text is in Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, TōKyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, 1985), 31–3.
19. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 31–3, 50–1.
20. Ibid, 47.
21. The original copy of the regulations is missing, but was partially recited in Tōkyō Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō, Tōkyō Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō Nijūgonenshi (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō, 1906), 5.
22. In the 1881 regulations, the length of the main program was two and a half years. But in May 1882, the length of the program was extended to three full years. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, 1940), 95.
23. Recited from Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku Rokujunenshi, 124.
24. Ibid., 222, 254. In 1885, the purpose of this school was redefined as “training bachelors in engineering (kōgakushi), but the share of the hands-on training did not change.
25. Tōkyō teikoku daigaku, Tōkyō Teikoku Daigaku Gojūnenshi, vol. jō, 1222–37. The share of hands-on training in the curriculum dramatically decreased between 1873 and 1890. Tōkyō daigaku hyakunenshi hensan iinkai, ed. Tōkyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi: Tsūshi, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1984), 675–7.
26. Ibid., 1218–20.
27. Kobayashi Masao, “Jisshūchi yori: Mantetsu Sakakō kōjō ni te,” Teiyūkaishi 2 (1921): 28.
28. Tōkyō Shokkō gakkō seito boshu kōkoku (Kanpō Meiji 16, August 9) recited from Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 107.
29. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 110. Tokyo University became Tokyo Imperial University in 1886.
30. Anna Guagnini, “Technology,” in Walter Rüegg, ed. Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 1800–1945 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 593–635.
31. Miyoshi Nobuhiro, Meiji no enjinia kyōiku: Nihon to igirisu no chigai (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1983), 27–32.
32. Guagnini, “Technology,” 622.
33. Morikawa provided the case of Sengoku Makoto, a Ministry of Public Works College graduate who expressed his willingness to contribute to the rise of engineering and the wealth of Japan. Recited from Morikawa, Gijutsusha, 38.
34. Guagnini, “Technology,” 607.
35. David L. Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 57.
36. Sonoda Hidehiro et al., ed. Shizoku no rekishi shakaigakuteki kenkyū: Bushi no Kindai (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 1995). Actually, many of these samurai craftsmen were employed by Japan's first factory, Yokosuka Steel Works. Nishinarita Yutaka, Keiei to Rōdō no Meiji Ishin: Yokosuka Seitetsusho Zōsensho wo Chūshin ni (Tokyo: Yoshikawakōbunkan, 2004), 75–80.
37. Tejima Seiichi, “Kaiko 50 nen,” Kōgyō Seikatsu 2 (1916): 23.
38. Kajii Takeshi, Waga Hansei (Tokyo: Toppan Insatsu, 1968), 34.
39. Mizuno Hiromi, Science for the Empire: Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanformd University Press, 2008), 60.
40. Morikawa, Gijutsusha, 126, 129. 2.8 percent of them received foreign degrees. Ibid., 137.
41. Gregory Clancey, Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868–1930 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), 191–211. Clancey provided a case of carpenter who resisted this subordination but to no avail in the 1890s.
42. Shōji Yukihiko, Gishu no Jidai (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōronsha, 2014), 373.
43. Nishinarita Yutaka, Keiei to Rōdō no meiji ishin: Yokosuka seitetsusho, zōsensho wo chūshin ni (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2004), 122.
44. Shōji, Gishu no Jidai, 376–7.
45. Nagashima Osamu, Kan'ei Yahata Seitetsujo ron: Kokka shihon no keieishi (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai hyōronsha, 2012), 410–7.
46. Yahata Seitetsu Kabushiki Gaisha, ed. Yahata Seitetsujo Gojūnenshi (Yahata: Yahataseitetsuyahata Seitetsusho, 1950), 249.
47. In his famous Japan's Lower Class Society published in 1899, journalist Yokoyama Gennnosuke listed a variety of manual laborers, including artisans and workers in steel industries, as members of the “lower class,” or hinmin. Yokoyama Gennosuke, Nihon no Kasō Shakai (Tokyo, 1899, reprinted by Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1949), 15.
48. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 95.
49. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 101.
50. Tejima Seiichi, “Kaiko 50 nen,” Kōgyō Seikatsu 2 (1916): 18, 32.
51. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi,1006; Monbushō, ed. Nihon Teikoku Monbushō nenpō Dai jūnenpō Meiji Jūkyūnen (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1914), 39.
52. Ozaki Ryūzō's note in Kuramae Kōgyōkaishi (324) (1931). Recited from Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 114.
53. Recited from Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 88.
54. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 85.
55. Tōkyō daigaku hyakunenshi hensan iinkai, ed. Tōkyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi: Tsūshi, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1984), 1008. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 89.
56. Monbushō, Kyōiku no kōka ni kansuru chōsa (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1904), 57–9; Alumni of the Tokyo Worker School were hired by the state bureaucracy as administrators, by state-managed factories as technicians, by schools as teachers, and by corporations as technicians and managers of factories. Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō, Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō narabi ni Fuzoku Shokkō Totei Gakkō Ichiran Jū Meiji Nijūgo Nen Shi Meiji Nijūroku nen (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō, 1892), 61–75.
57. Takamatsu Toyokichi, “Tejima kun to jibun,” Kōgyō Seikatsu 2 (1916): 136.
58. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 59–77.
59. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Hyakunenshi, vol. Tsūshi, 113.
60. Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō, Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō Ichran, Meiji 29 nen (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō, 1897), 1.
61. Tōkyō shokkō gakkō, Tōkyō shokkō gakkō ichiran, Meiji 21 nen (Tokyo: Tōkyō shokkō gakkō, 1888), 14–9.
62. Tōkyō kōgyō gakkō, Tōkyō kōgyō gakkō ichiran, Meiji 31 nen (Tokyo: Tōkyō kōgyō gakkō, 1890), 14–5.
63. Tōkyō kōtō kōgyō gakkō, Tōkyō kōtō kōgyō gakkō ichiran, Taishō 4 nen (Tokyo: Tōkyō kōtō kōgyō gakkō, 1915), 24–5. Hands-on training in other departments' curricula did not count as much as thirty-three percent.
64. Tōkyō Shōgyō Gakkō, Tōkyō Shōgyō Gakkō Kisoku (Tokyo: Tōkyō Shōgyō Gakkō, 1886), 61.
65. Tejima Seiichi, “Totei gakkō shisetsu ni kansuru ikensho,” Kyōiku Jiron 243 (1892): 18–20.
66. “Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō fuzoku Shokkō Totei Gakkō Kisoku,” Kanpō 2145 (August 22, 1890): 264–5.
67. Ibid, 4–7.
68. “Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō fuzoku Shokkō Totei Gakkō Sotsugyō Shōsho Juyoshiki,” Kanpō 3023 (July 27, 1893): 285. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 500. Tejima, in his commencement ceremony of this school in 1893, expressed his strong criticism to popular antipathy against manual labor and explained the meaning of this certificate. Sōritsu Hyakushūnen Kinenshi Hensaniinkai, ed. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Kōgakubu Fuzoku Kōgyō Kōtōgakkō Sōritsu Hyashūnen Kinenshi (Tokyo: Kōgyō Daigaku Kōgakubu Fuzoku Kōgyō Kōtōgakkō, 1985), 12.
69. “Tōkyō Kōgyō Gakkō fuzoku Shokkō Totei Gakkō Kisoku,” Kanpō 2145 (August 22, 1890): 264–7.
70. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 438.
71. Ibid. 37.
72. Kōgyō chōsa kyōkai, ed. Saishin zusetsu Nihon kōgyō sōran (Tōkyō: Kōgyō Tosho Kabushiki Kaisha, 1937), 43. Recited from Shōji, Gishu no Jidai, 344.
73. Ibid., 349–350.
74. Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Rokujūnenshi, 518.
75. Monbushō, Kyōiku no kōka ni kansuru chōsa, 57–9. According to this source, Tōdai engineers took 178 head technician positions out of the total 333 positions, while graduates of the higher school of engineering in Tokyo and Osaka claimed 26 in 1902. Engineers from Kyoto Imperial University took 12 head technician positions. In contrast, among the 147 graduates of the higher schools of engineering in Tokyo and Osaka, 121 were at the rank of assistant technician (gishu, sometimes called pejoratively gite). I am using the number of the higher school of engineering here, since the Tokyo Kōkō and the Osaka Higher School of Engineering just changed their names in 1901, one year before this survey was conducted. According to a 1937 survey, most graduates of higher schools of engineering started their careers as the assistant technician and commonly spent twenty years to get promoted to the rank of the head technician. Kōgyō chōsa kyōkai. Saishin zusetsu Nihon kōgyō sōran, 43.
76. Nagashima, Kan'ei Yahata Seitetsushoron, 348–9.
77. The number of entrants increased to 75 in 1895, and to 141 in 1899. Monbushō, Nihon Teikoku Monbushō Nenpō Dai 23 nenpō Meiji 28 nen, (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1895), 50; Monbushō, Nihon Teikoku Monbushō Nenpō Dai 24 nenpō Meiji 29 nen, (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1896), 65.
78. Monbushō, Nihon Teikoku Monbushō Nenpō Dai 26 nenpō Meiji 31 nen, vol. jō (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1898), 83. The number of applicants this year counted 357, among whom 95 managed to enter the school.
79. “Tōkyō Shokkō Gakkō Kisoku,” Kanpō 1555 (September 3, 1888): 19; Tōkyō Shokkō Gakkō, Tōkyō Shokkō Gakkō Ichiran Ju Meiji 21 nen shi Meiji 22 nen (Tokyo: Tokyo Shokko Gakkō, 1889), 80.
80. Tokyo Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō, Tōkyō Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō Ichiran, Ji Meiji 32 Shi Meiji 34 (Tokyo: Tōkyō Kōtō Kōgyō Gakkō, 1912), 2, 40.
81. Monbushō, Nihon Teikoku Monbushō Nenpō Dai 33 nenpō ji Meiji 39 nen shi Meiji 40 nen, (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1908), 46. This number is a combination of the numbers in the categories of tertiary vocational schools (senmon gakkō and jitsugyō senmon gakkō). Ibid., 169, 155–80.
82. Monbushō, Nihon Teikoku Monbushō Nenpō Dai 43 nenpō Taishō 4 nen shigatsu – Taishō 5 nen sangatsu), vol. jō (Tokyo: Monbushō, 1917), 58–9, 236.
83. Kurata Chikara, “Watashi no Rirekisho,” Watashi no Rirekisho vol.38, edited by Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1969), 103.
84. Ibid, 588–90.
85. Ibid., 521.
86. Sōritsu hyakushūnen kinenshi hensan iinkai, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Kōgakubu Fuzoku Kōgyō Kōtōgakkō Sōritsu Hyakushūnen Kinenshi, 16.
87. Se'ike Tadashi, Sangyō Kyōikuron (Tokyo: Teikoku Kyōikukai shuppankai, 1943), Recited from Shōji, Gishu no Jidai, 305.
88. Nagasaki Kōshō Eishisei, “Minarai shokkō no Tadoreru Michi,” Juken to Gakusei 12 (1929): 178.
89. Guagnini, “Technology,” 621.
90. Christophe Lecuyer, “The Making of a Science Based Technological University: Karl Compton, James Killian, and the Reform of MIT, 1930–1957,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 23 (1992): 157. Still, MIT educators in 1949 still had a complex that the school was “conceived as basically a vocational school,” not a prestigious university. Warren K. Lewis, et al. Report of the Committee on Educational Survey (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1949), 113.
91. Inose Zenzō (Class of 1916, Carpentry), “Tejima Sensei wo Omofu,” Sōritsu Hyakushūnen kinenshi hensaniinkai, Tōkyō Kōgyō Daigaku Kōgakubu Fuzoku Kōgyō Kōtō Gakkō Hyakunenshi, 177.
92. shomubu, Yahata Seitetsusho, ed. Yahata Seitetsusho kōjō rōdō tōkei, Dai nana kai (1936) Shokkō no bu, vol. jō (Yahata: Nihon Seitetsu Yahata Seitetsusho, 1938), 36–7Google Scholar.
93. Ibid. Female workers were classified as a separate wage category.
94. “Kōtō kōgyō no gakuhi,” Juken to Gakusei 4 (10) (1921): 63. “Kōshō Kōkō honnendo sotsugyōsei ureyuki,” Juken to gakusei 3 (1920): 28.
95. In 1930, the average monthly salary excluding bonuses of white-collar technicians from university was 77.75 yen, while its vocational school counterpart was 64.85 yen. Chūō Shokugyō shōkai jimukyoku, Chishiki Kaikyū Shūshoku Kansuru Shiryō (Tokyo: Chūō Shokugyō shōkai jimukyoku, 1935), 65.
96. Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan Heavy Industry, 1853–1955.
97. Yahata Seitetsusho shomubu. Yahata Seitetsusho kōjō rōdō tōkei, Dai nana kai (1936) Shokkō no bu, vol. jō, 36–7.
98. Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan Heavy Industry, 1853–1955, 74.
99. Morikawa, Gijutsusha, 21–8.
100. Minoru, Sawai, Kindai ōsaka no kōgyō kyōiku (Osaka: Osaka Daigaku Shuppankai, 2012), 219–44Google Scholar.