1930年代の大丸における女子店員の抜擢

―専門学校卒女子店員を事例として―

抄録

In this study, we examine how female department store staff who graduated from women’s colleges in the 1930s were selected and became active in Daimaru.

First, we will examine the relationship between Daimaru’s reforms, led by Junkichi Satomi, and the selection of female department store staff. Satomi encouraged improvements in the professional status of female department store staff as part of his efforts to improve the treatment of department store staff at Daimaru. Simultaneously, female department store staff who had graduated from women’s colleges were selected for newly opened departments that promoted department store staff’s training, or handled new products, and were expected to make use of the knowledge they had acquired through their studies abroad.

Next, we will examine how the number of female department store staff from women’s colleges increased at Daimaru. From the late 1920s onwards, the hiring of female department store staff from women’s colleges was encouraged. Like other female department store staff, they were assigned to the sales floor in large numbers; however, some also began to take on the responsibility of clerkship training. The number of female department store staff who graduated from women’s colleges also increased, in part because of the recognition they received for these jobs.

Finally, we will address the backgrounds of the selected female department store staff and their efforts at the store. They were expected to demonstrate the abilities acquired before joining the store. While studying abroad, they acquired cutting-edge knowledge, and upon their return to Japan, they took on the role of teaching new sales techniques, new knowledge related to women’s and children’s clothing to other store associates. Fumi Senda, one of these women, took on the new responsibility of educating store associates on new sales techniques and grooming of clothes that she had learned abroad.