For cocoon reeling, cocoons must be warmed in water to soften the natural gum with which the fibre is covered. In modern silk mills, boilers are used to make steam, and the water in the basin, in which the cocoons are placed, is kept at the proper temperature by means of the steam. In old Japan, a basin for cocoon reeling was warmed over an open fire, but it was difficult to keep the water in the basin at a uniform temperature. Also the thermal efficiency of this system was not good. In the early-Meiji era, the French cocoon reeling system was imported to the national silk mill at Tomioka, nearby Nagano pre-fecture. Some managers of indigenous silk mills and some enterprisers soon realized the necessity of boilers. Because the imported boiler was very expensive, they requested native casters and coppersmiths to make thems. These native makers made them by means of casting iron or rivetting sheet copper, according to the native Japanese technique, because the performance demanded of those boilers was not so high. These boilers costs less than one fifth of the imported ones. It was difficult to make larger ones, so in the 1880's, large silk mills purchased Western-style (mainly Cornish) boilers from makers in Tokyo and Yokohama. On the other hand, in 1879, a native coppersmith (MARUYAMA Yasaburo)developed the new boiler, which was made of imported thin (1/8 inch) iron plate. It was more efficient than cast iron, and the cost was not very different. Many medium and smaller scale silk mills used them. In the 1890's, makers in this area began to produce better boilers, which were combinations of the cornish and Multitubular boilers, and could serve as the largest boilers demanded in the area. At the same time, due to increasing demand, some skilled craftsmen came from Tokyo and Yokohama, opened iron works and entered the boiler making industry. The silk mills in this area could now buy any size of boiler, which cost about one fifth of those bought by silk mills in other districts. The above mentioned development of the boiler making industry was an important condition for the growth of cocoon reeling in Nagano prefecture and its environs.

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After the opening of Japan to the west, the raw silk export industry experienced very rapid increases, as raw silk became Japan's most important export item. During the Meiji-era, the sales network for raw silk went through various changes. One of the most visible characteristic changes was the disappearance of speculative; merchants who bought raw silk directly from makers in productive regions remote from Yokohama. Makers had their own contracted commission-agents in Yokohama, and asked the agents to sell their raw silk to the exporters as profitably as possible. The agents in Yokohama tried to finance as many makers as possible for the purpose of increasing their commissions. Thus, raw silk makers and the agents had a cooperative relation in the production and the sale of raw silk. However it has heretofore been ignored that relations of this type were based on the utilization of the telegraph. This paper attempts to survey the information system in raw silk sales in modern Japan as a case study. Referring to the documents of two raw silk makers, Okayaseishi-kaisha and Junsui-kan, the author examines the telegrams related to their raw silk sales. These telegrams show us how raw silk makers received a variety of information on the raw silk market from their agents in Yokohama and were able to send their directions back to the agents promptly. This is the first case study in this area Meiji-era telecommunications, and should contribute much to demostrating the validity of this approarch to economic and business history.

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Considering the development of the silk manufacturing industry in Nagano prefecture during the Meiji era, we find two districts where different types of development were clearly seen. First, the southern part, where the workshop or factory using machines of western type was developed and second, the northen part, where the domestic system using the hand loom was popular. This article aims to make clear a point that the difference between these two types of development should be reconsidered from the financial view point. On the basis of research on the relations between the silk manufactureing industry and local banks operations, the author points out that: (1) Nagano was a prefe ture where banking operations was active, as shown by the fact that, by 1884, five national and thirty-one private banks were in operation. However, strange enough, it was in the northern part of the prefecture where technical knowhow was much retarded, that these banks were most concentrated. There were, in fact, more there than in any other district in Japan. (2) Many of the promotors, large stockholders and managers of local banks in northern Nagano were either city wholesale merchants, who bought up the raw silk and shipped it to Yokohama, or local commission merchants, who connected the wholesaler with the producer. (3) Money lending by local banks was not to the producer but to the wholesalers and commission merchants above mentioned.

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We arranged functions such as the water supply in each development stage of a silk reeling pan seen in our country, drainage, a shape, the size and performed the comparison with “the Suwa type silk reeling pan” based on the result. In the second period of the development stage of a silk reeling pan seen in our country, a modification was performed with the collective pipe physics and chemistry of materials (worker, water, heat source) with the construction of the large-scale factory production system. In addition, a modification was performed to support a dish simmered in cocoon called the Suwa-style silk reeling method, silk reeling technology, and it was confirmed that “a Suwa type silk reeling pan” was established.

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The object of this study is how the landlord acted in the former half of 1880's, the Matsukata deflation period and in Nagano Prefecture that was a region of the silk-reeling industries. The Yamada family that was in Ebe-mura Shimotakai-gun owned the arable land over 100 ha in 1878 and held its high social status, so its investment actions were decided by the economic primary factor (the returns of investment). Every year Ebe-mura and its environs were subject to frequent floods by the Chikuma, so their rice crops were unstable and there were no industries with a bright future, and the sum of money lent by the Yamadas was reduced according to the decrease of demand for it. Therefore in these regional and periodic environment the Yamadas invested the rest of money for the loan and the proceeds from the sale of the land, in stocks and bonds which were more profitable and more reliable. As everybody knows, Ueda Nineteenth National Bank (in Nagano Prefecture) contributed much to the development of the silk-reeling industries in Suwa area. Sometimes the Bank raised funds for financing from the other banks for the lack its own in the season of the silk production. At that time the Bank had to give bonds as the security to the other. On the other hand the Bank had been appointed as a Exchange Agency (Kawase-kata) of the Ministry of Finance, on condition to offering bonds as the security to the Authorities. The Bank was in need of much bonds for such two uses, but was short of them. The Bank could finance smoothly to the industries through borrowing bonds temporally from the Yamadas. For that reason, from the side of the Yamadas speaking this relation, we can say that the Yamadas made contribution indirectly to the development of the silk-reeling industries in Nagano Prefecture by means of lending bonds to the Bank.

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The Tomioka Silk Mill is the world𠄩s first heritage-registered factory in Tomioka. It is a heritage of industrial modernization which is the center of “Tomioka Silk Mill and Rerated Sites”. This study was designed to elucidate the list the literature on the mill from 1872 when the mill started its operation, to August 2017 and considered the subject change of the literature, and the note about the mill thread. The purpose is to describe the future directions of research on the mill by clarifying the trend such as whether it was announced at the mill. The target literature is mainly paper collections of academic societies such as landscaping and architecture, journals of academic journals, magazines and general books added to it. From the tendency of the literature related to the mill thread of the 145 year, the theme of the mill’s construction and operation, the maintenance and management in the mill after its closure, the registration movement of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the maintenance management after the registration of the World Heritage can be changed.

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　　Two different types of western silk reeling system played an important role in development of Japanese silk manufacturing industry in modern Japan. One of those is Italian type silk-crossing system and the other is French type silk-crossing system. In this study, we focused on the Italian type silk-crossing system and examined 68 academic documents and technical books for raw silk production which published from the Meiji era, the Taisho era to the Showa era to analyze changes of the technology. And we compared with the Italian type silk-reeling process and French type silk-reeling process to realize a fundamental difference between two systems. As a result, Italian type silk-reeling process in Japan is the same as French type silk-reeling process, it turned out that factors of the technological transitions were attributable to adaptation of Japanese silk mills to the introduced western style technology, quality of raw material cocoon and changes of the global market structure and needs. Furthermore, based on the description of “Kenneru-shiki Tomoyori-shiki Hikaku shiken” (Meiji 39) etc., we analyzed the relationship between ratio of crossing density, efficiency, and quality, which are parameters that indicate the process condition, and confirmed the feature differences between the two mechanisms. From these results, we found that the Italian type silk-reeling process was a mechanism that had the ability to change and adapt flexibly to changes in the market structure. Therefore, it was possible to consider that the French type silk-reeling process could not maintain the superiority in which both efficiency and quality were taken into consideration compared to the Italian type silk-reeling process, and that it led to the disappearance at the end of the Taisho era.

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The purpose of this article is to analyze features in the process of production and selling of silkworm-eggs in the case of Chiisagata district in Nagano Prefecture during 1890s-1910s. Chiisagata district was the largest center of silkworm-egg production at that time, and the peak of the production was in 1900s. But, the absolute amount and the proportion of the production occupied in the whole country decreased after 1900s. Their main outlets, which had been distributed in Kanto and Chubu district, became gradually limited in Nagano Prefecture. As for the process of the production, cocoon production for egg production developed in putting-out system extensively. All of large-scale producers were putters-out, and there was no big farm where the whole process from mulberry cultivation to silkworm-egg production was carried on. In World War I, when sericulture rapidly developed, the class differentiation of producers proceeded more rapidly with the development of some large-scale producers. This was caused mainly by the advanced technique for F_1 hybrid production. The competition with new dealers in other prefectures and the policy of silkworm races in each prefecture were other factors of the decline of silkworm-egg production in this district. Silkworm-egg peddlers, however, sold through personal connection with sericultural peasants in their outlets, and the buying and selling the right of egg-selling continued between peddlers as a commercial usage for a long time. As a case study, we present the management by M. Kaneko who was a middle-scale producer. He changed his outlets by selling the right of egg-selling in Gunma Prefecture and buying that in Nagano Prefecture in 1890s, and then his management developed. But, since he could not produce F_1 hybrid, he became a mere peddler of silkworm-eggs in 1920s, and finally closed his business of silkworm-eggs in 1930. He was one of typical producers and peddlers in Chiisagata district. As a perspective on the whole country, we suggest that it was difficult for the producers, who managed the whole process of the egg-production including silkworm-rearing, to develop their managements largely because the risk of bad harvest increased with enlargement of their scale, and many producers enlarged their scales by buying cocoons for egg production in the form of putting-out system.

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As cities developed early in Japan, the poor existed in the cities as for back as the feudal period. They were bound by many feudal bonds, therefore their mobility was small. As the original accumulation of capital began, the number and the mobility of the poor rapidly increased. In the cities, particularly the larger ones such as Osaka and Tokyo, the emergence of slums took place. This may be considered as occuring in the early twenties of the Meiji period (18681913). The emergence of the slum was primarily the results of class differentation, and with it, the local lower strata appeared.
Feudal ranks were abolished by the Meiji Restoration. Being thrown into in capitalistic society which was different from their former circumstances, warriors (Bushi) who previously had been assured of their living by hereditary pension, were unable to find employment, and the value of the public bonds they received as the compensation for the abolition of their hereditary pension decreased due to economic changes. Consequently, they were hard-off. The peasants constituted the majority of population. During this period of original accumulation especially during the period of the deflation between 18821886, the poor peasant stratum increased remarkably, and there occured rapid differentiation of strata. Also, many handicraftsmen and manufacturers who had been under the old bonds-e.g. the apprentice system, were hard hit during this period, as these bonds were weakened and their wages decreased.
Many people in these strata hard hit by this class differentiation flowed from rural area into the cities, and many of those living in cities were ruined. These Mal-adjustments led to the formation of slums in Tokyo and Osaka. But the character of these slums is different from that formed by an industrial proletariat after an industrial revolution. It is a form which is found in the transitional period of original accumulation of capital.

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