抄録
The Sangyokumiai was the direct predecessor of the present agricultural cooperative society. It spreaded throughout the farming community in the 1930’s. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the role of Sangyokumiai workers in those days.
At the time, the Sangyokumiai played an important role as an agency of delivery and distribution, and therefore it held an important position both economically and socially. Previous studies of the Sangyokumiai have tended to focus on its management and leaders, and so this paper aims to examine its workers and to clarify their tasks and roles within the organization.
In order to examine Sangyokumiai workers, I use an actual private diary which was kept by an individual Sangyokumiai worker before World War Ⅱ. According to his description, his tasks as a Sangyokumiai worker were mainly the encouragement and soliciting of savings, the delivery of rice and barley, and the distribution of manure and sundries. In addition, he attended the regular meetings of the regional groups “Jokai”, where he very often lectured on the local economy. Finally, the paper points out that this individual Sangyokumiai workers was not exceptional but was typical of other workers within the organization.
