INTRODUCTION

WOMEN TEACHERS TRAINED in the science and skills of silk production made a significant contribution to the development of the Japanese silk-reeling industry in the Meiji period. During the preceding Edo period (1603–1867), the production of raw silk developed as an additional way for farmers to earn income. Sericulture and silk production – except for the cultivation of mulberry trees to feed the silkworms – were the work of women. A single woman would carry out the work of reeling silk: boiling the cocoons in a small pot of hot water over a fire and then twisting the fibres from the cocoons and reeling them onto a reel (Fig. 1).

In the 1860s, the demand for Japanese raw silk rose as a substitute for European raw silk, which had been devastated by the epidemic of pébrine, a microsporidian parasitic disease of the silkworm. Driven by export demand, the Japanese silk industry rapidly expanded its production. However, the rapid increase in the number of silk producers – induced by high yarn prices – and the increase in low-quality yarn led to a decline in the reputation of Japanese yarn. The Meiji government, concerned about the loss of profits from the export of raw silk, built European-style silk mills in Japan with government funds and encouraged the establishment of silk mills modelled after them.

It is said that the original silk-reeling instructors were women who learned the Western reeling method at government-run model mills such as the Tomioka Silk Mill, and then taught them to women workers in mills all over Japan. The Tomioka Silk Mill was opened in 1872 by a Frenchman, Paul Brunat, who had been hired as a technical director by the government to buy a complete set of equipment in France, and to employ maintenance staff and technical instructors. In response to the govern-ment's call, women came to work at the Tomioka Silk Filature, learning from French instructors and the Japanese women who had been trained by them. They learned how to sort the cocoons they had purchased in large quantities, how to draw the fibres from cocoons boiled in water and twist them together to make raw silk, and how to reel it onto a spool at the speed of a steampowered machine.