Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to survey the nationwide develoment of the Japanese cotton weaving industry from 1914 to 1937. This industry in modern Japan was composed of big factories run by a relatively small number of cotton spinning firms, on the one hand, and of numerous small- and medium-scale weavers, on the other. This paper focuses on the latter. Those weavers were usually concentrated in an identifiable area. In section 2, 27 representative areas are selected; then in section 3, their output, markets, composition of products, size of workshop, and level of technology are analysed based on statistical data, and the areas are grouped into four types. The type 1 areas adopted power looms and factory system before World War I, and increased their output thereafter by large-scale production of a few kinds of products for the foreign markets with relatively large-scale factories. The type 2 areas introduced power looms and factory system in the 1910s, and then increased their output by limited production of a wide variety of products with relatively small-scale workshops. The type 3 areas managed to adoped power looms and factory system, but they did not increase output. The type 4 areas, failing to have introduced power looms, decreased output substantially. Very small-scale weavers of this type just maintained the production of traditional products for the domestic markets by handicraft work. Finally in section 4, the factors with which 27 areas are classified into those four types are reviewed.
