The Creation of Nursing Professionals:

Why Did Japanese Management Engage in the Training of Nurses?

抄録

This article takes up the example of Gunze Silk Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (present-day Gunze, Ltd.), which handled everything from the training of nurses to the establishment of hospitals. Focusing on nurses assigned to factories, the article sheds light on the creation of nursing professionals and their working conditions in interwar Japan. Japan in 1909 became the largest exporter of raw silk in the world, with Gunze becoming the second largest company in the industry after Katakura. The nurses who worked at Gunze were, while being repeatedly transferred from location to location, able to remain continuously employed and acquire midwifery certifications for the future. However, by the 1930s, quitting jobs to get married had become commonplace, and nursing had become a temporary occupation until marriage. The Taishō period (1912–1926) was an era that saw nursing and those involved with it establish a new place for nursing in society, in keeping with the establishment of provisional occupational qualifications and the rapid increase in practitioners. However, during this period, it may also be said that among those companies that embarked on training nurses, a human resources management strategy was brought to fruition such that, even among female employees, young girls were educated as they were made to take up labor-intensive jobs.