Hot-Spring Bathhouses in Tokyo from the 1870s to the 1890s: Development and Significance as Places

Abstract

This paper examines official documents, newspaper articles, guidebooks, and other materials to understand the formative process and distribution of hot-spring bathhouses in Tokyo from the 1870s to the 1890s. It also considers the significance of hot-spring bathhouses as places in a contemporary social context. In Tokyo, bathhouses claiming to be hot springs appeared in the first half of the 1870s and became popular as a symbol of “enlightenment” (kaika) from the mid-1870s onward. These were artificial hot springs that included medicinal baths, baths with springwater piped in from a hot-spring source, and baths with added hot-spring mineral deposits. Improvements were also made in bathing facilities that had been troubling in terms of public morals and hygiene. In 1877, there were 44 bathhouses in Tokyo spread across built-up areas and their neighborhoods. In 1885, 178 bathhouses were concentrated in built-up areas, with some also reaching into the outer city limits. In 1897, as the bathhouses were cleared out, those located in the outer limits of built-up areas became more prominent. Those hot-spring bathhouses emerged as places of convenient recreation where people could recuperate away from the busy city center.