抄録
This paper aims at clarifying the significance of the water works in the local industrial cities in Japan. In the Meiji period, the water works were constructed to solve hygiene problems and to prevent fire in big cities. These two early purposes changed in time. This study chooses Maebashi city and Kiryuu city as case study, because these cities were well-known in it textile industry. These cities grew up from the Taisho period to the early Showa period, and needed industrial infrastructure. This research emphasizes two important roles: the first is that the construction purpose in textile industrial cities was not to take measures the hygiene problems and the fire prevention but also to provide the industrial water for the production. It was different from water works in big cities of the Meiji period. The second is that the administrative officials and the engineers considered the water works as an essential mean of the modern industrial cities.
