2015 Volume 82 Issue 1 Pages 13-24
The purpose of this paper is to examine the change in salesclerks’ vocational literacy in response to a store’s transition to a department store. In particular, this study focuses on Matsuzakaya Department Store and its efforts toward salesclerk education during this transition.
First, I touch upon the process through which a department store salesclerk education system was established from the mid1910s through the mid-1920s. Mainly because one of Matsuzakaya’s key persons for transforming the kimono fabric store into a department store emphasized salesclerk education, they started systematizing the methods of their education around 1910. In the 1910s, they built Shataku, a type of employee dormitory unique to Matsuzakaya, in which Shataku supervisors specializing in education started playing a central role in salesclerk education within their facility. Consequently, a kind of education different from what one would get in the traditional model of education began.
Second, I look at Matsuzakaya’s salesclerk education reforms with an eye to the expansion of education for working youth. The period during which Matsuzakaya was transitioning into a department store was the same period during which Seinen-Kunrenjo, or educational institutions for working youth, were being established. Matsuzakaya was conducting two operations simultaneously: organizing salesclerk education required for department store work and responding to the institutionalization of working youth education. These simultaneous operations were evident in the number of teaching hours set by Matsuzakaya’s own Seinen-Kunrenjo, which went far beyond the norm of such hours defined by the Seinen-Kunrenjo regulations.
Third, I address curriculum transformation in facilities for salesclerk education in the 1920s. The traditional model of education at Matsuzakaya was to train salesclerks to tailor kimono and to calculate customers’ payment. In the mid-1920s, as the store’s main commodities shifted from kimono to miscellaneous goods, salesclerk education came to focus more on the knowledge and skills necessary for handling miscellaneous goods than on the specialized knowledge and skills for kimono. The establishment of the Seinen-Kunrenjo in 1926 served as a catalyst for expanding the curriculum of salesclerk education.
Finally, I examine the change required in salesclerks’ vocational literacy in response to the store’s transformation to a department store. The increase in the number of products at Matsuzakaya demanded that salesclerks acquire vocational literacy to study new products. As such, there was a growing emphasis on the general education curriculum as the foundation for understanding these products. For example, as department stores commonly dealt with miscellaneous goods influenced by Western culture, English was a required subject in order for salesclerks to understand those goods. In addition, subjects such as science and geography were part of the basic knowledge necessary for researching novel products on their own.
