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Accepted Paper:
Stepping Out: Shoe exports in Late Meiji/Early Taisho Japan
Martha Chaiklin
Shoe exports had wide-ranging impacts that connected directly to industrialization, modernization and lifestyle. Thi paper will explore how developing shoes for export affected life in Japan using trade and general newspapers, company histories and government statistics.
Paper long abstract:
It is unlikely that any Japanese person made Western shoes before 1870. Yet, as early as 1879, Americans were worried that the low labor costs in Japan would allow them to export shoes at prices that would undercut American workmen. Although this fear was premature, within two decades, Japanese shoe production had developed to the extent that Australia refused to enter the revision of the 1859 commercial treaties negotiated between Great Britain and Japan in 1896 out of fear that, “the rapid progress made in the industrial arts” would result in a flood of boots and shoes from Japanese factories pouring into Australia.
That modernizing Japan funded much of its development through exports is not a new revelation, but the role of secondary yet still significant industries has been little explored. The support of the shoe industry by exports had wide-ranging impacts that connected directly to industrialization, modernization and lifestyle. The paper will explore the process of developing shoes for export, and how this process affected life in Japan using trade and general newspapers, company histories and government statistics.