JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES

Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats, 1853-1941
Part 1: Sources from the William R Perkins Library, Duke University

Publisher's Note

In 1993 Adam Matthew Publications carried out a survey amongst a dozen of the leading historians of Japan based in Britain and America. Given the growing number of courses being offered in Japanese history and increased enrolments in this area, we wanted to know which sources would be most helpful to teaching and research in this area.

We received a great many suggestions, many of which will be appearing in the pages of our catalogues in future years, but the most common appeal was for an accessible collection of primary source documents which would introduce students to the political, cultural and social history of Japan in the modern period.

In 1993 the Special Collections Library at Duke University produced a brief selected bibliography of their holdings of sources covering East Asia (Kirsten Fischer - East Asia: A Selected Bibliography of Sources in the Special Collections Library of Duke University, 1993). After further consultation with scholars it became apparent that the numerous collections held at Duke University relating to Japan met the criteria and offered the ideal starting point for a new project.

Japan Through Western Eyes makes available for the first time the original manuscript diaries, journals and letters of western businessmen, tourists, teachers, missionaries, government officials, industrialists and diplomats active in Japan from its opening up in 1853 to the onset of the Second World War.

This first part, from Duke University, is both accessible and wide ranging, bringing together 11 individual collections of papers ranging from a one volume diary of an Ohio woman living in Tokyo and Yokohama in 1928 with her husband, to over 1500 letters and more than a dozen volumes describing the observations of a Methodist missionary based in Kobe from 1888 to 1897 and 1903 to 1923.

All of these manuscript sources are in English and even those in handwriting pose no great paleographic problems. Collections of photographs add another dimension to the first hand accounts of Japanese business, culture and society.

The sources bear testimony to the transformation of Japanese society in the period following Commodore Perry's "opening up" of Japan. They witness the development of Japan into a major industrial power, the growth of militarism and the proliferation of political and religious ideologies during this period.

The manuscripts are a rich source for social history and offer insights into the interaction between Western and Japanese culture and attempts by both sides to accommodate and understand different viewpoints.

The following British and American persons are covered:

Letters of Sir Edwin Arnold, British poet and journalist, for the period 1869-1903, including exchanges with Takaaki Kato, Japanese Ambassador in London, concerning Buddhism, Anglo-Japanese and Russian-Japanese relations. Arnold was the author of The Light of Asia (1879), leader writer for the Daily Telegraph from 1861 and Editor from 1873.

Papers of Robert S Chilton Jr, Chief of the Consular Bureau in Washington DC, mainly for the period 1897-1901, including correspondence with American companies wanting to establish trade with China and Japan. There are also letters from Hubbard T Smith and other consuls regarding trade with East Asia.
The diary of Rachael Ferver, wife of an American businessman in Japan, for 1928, recording her life in Tokyo and Yokohama as part of the foreign community. She also writes about contact with Japanese professionals.

The diaries of Augustus & Jeanette Healy, tourists, for 1920-1922, describing what they did and saw in Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong during their 2½ year honeymoon.

The photograph album of Kiroku Shashin Honzonkai, containing black and white photos of emperors, government officials, ordinary citizens, monuments, street scenes, military parades, buildings and landscapes for the Meiji (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926) and Showa (1926-1989) periods.

The Correspondence and Papers of John Caldwell Calhoun Newton, pioneer missionary of the Methodist Church South to Japan, for the period 1870-1931. He first went to Japan in 1888 as a faculty member of the Kwansei Gakuin Union Mission College and Seminary in Kobe, Japan. He lived in Japan until 1897, and then again between 1903-1923. During the last ten years of his stay in Japan, Newton was President of the Mission College. His correspondence is extremely rich and is covered in its entirety here. It includes letters to family and friends and to other mission leaders in America. These describe the difficulties and frustrations of his work. We also include a number of his notebooks in which he discusses issues such as US-Japan relations, missionary work in China and Japan, Japanese culture and pedagogy.

Letters of Sir Harry Parkes, diplomat and British Minister to Japan between 1865 and 1883. A letter of 25 May 1853 concerns the rebellion at Nanking and the situation in Canton. A letter dated 14 October 1860 discusses the British invasion of Peking and Parkes's recent imprisonment. Three letters from 1872 involve the arrangement of a tour of British manufacturing cities by the Japanese Iwakura embassy. There is also a Bradford banquet menu signed by Iwakura.

Papers of Edward James Parrish, a representative for the British-American Tobacco company in Japan between 1900-1906. Correspondence and a notebook describing Tobacco Trade with China and Japan, 1894-1900.

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