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HISTORY 518S: Merchants, Coolies, Prostitutes: The Treaty Ports of Nineteenth Century East Asia: Japan

Japanese Newspapers

The Far East; an illustrated fortnightly newspaper 1870-78
Available electronically through Hathi Trust

Gaikoku shinbun ni miru Nihon 1852-1922
Has articles on Japan from English, French, German, Chinese and Russian newspapers and Japanese translations.

Japan Weekly Mail 1870-1915

Finding Primary Sources

A primary source is a first-hand account of an event. Primary sources may include newspaper articles, letters, diaries, images, interviews, laws, reports of government commissions, and many other types of documents.

Use Subject Headings for your topic and words like "-diaries", "-personal narratives" and "sources" (e.g.Japan--Foreign relations--United States--Sources).  Another useful heading is "Japan--Description and travel" although it will include scholarly analyses as well as primary sources.

Materials in Rubenstein

Duke University's Rare Books and Special Collections Library has several collections with material focusing on Japan including  reports from missionaries and early British diplomats to Japan, East India Company papers, and diaries and letters from merchants and seamen, as well as items in such collections as the stereographic card collection, the Hartman advertising collection and the postcard collection.  The finding aid for these collections can be searched at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/inv/.  In addition,of particular note are:

  1. Japan through western eyes [microform] : manuscript records of traders, travellers, missionaries and diplomats, 1853-1941.  The originals are held in Special Collections.  Includes a wide range of English language sources by writers, diplomats, tourists, businessmen, missionaries and others documenting the political, cultural and social history of Japan from 1853 to the present.   Part 1 covers 11 individual collections of papers, including the letters of Sir Harry Parkes, British Minister to Japan between 1865 and 1883. Click here for a detailed description of the contents.
  2. Picture File, 1600s-1979 and undated, bulk 1814-1950.
  3. Papers, 1873-1892; (bulk 1873-1877) [manuscript].  Letters written by Hackley while he worked for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, describing his journeys and activities from San Francisco to Yokohama, Japan, Shanghai, China, and other ports; and commenting on missionary efforts in Japan, and on family matters.
  4. Edward James Parrish papers, 1888-1926. Edward James Parrish was a tobacco manufacturer and resident of Durham, North Carolina, and Tokyo, Japan. Parrish was a representative of the American Tobacco Company and served as the first vice president of the Murai Brothers cigarette company in Japan.

Handy reference sources

Online primary sources

America, Asia and the Pacific
Papers of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925).  Morse went to Japan in 1877 to teach at the Imperial University of Tokyo.  He is known for his documentation of life in Japan before it was transformed by Western modernization.

MIT Visualizing Cultures
Created by John Dower at MIT, Visualizing Cultures uses Japan since the mid-19th century as a case study for gaining new perspectives on "cultures" in the broadest since - the "cultures," for example, of Westernization, modernization, changing modes of technology and mass communication, imperialism, nationalism, militarism, racism, commercialization and consumerism, etc.  

Image websites
Sort by format, subject or historical period.  Formats include architecture, calligraphy, ceramics, folk arts, maps, painting, photography, posters, prints, scrolls, sculpture.

Yokohama-e
Because Yokohama was some distance from Edo, Edo print publishers sent artists to Yokohama to sketch foreigners and hired writers to supply information (or rather misinformation).   Most observant artist was Utagawa Sadahide but they also include Yoshiiku, Yoshikazu and Yoshitora.