Abstract

"The Rise and Fall of Two Muromachi Merchants in the Kyoto Kimono Textile Industry between 1900 and 1944"

Keiko Okamoto, Hosei University (okamoto9keiko@gmail.com)

The kimono textile wholesale business has been handled by Muromachi merchants in Kyoto for more than four hundred years. Chiso, Chiji, and Chikichi from the Nishimura family were a few of the long-lived Muromachi merchants that started their businesses in the mid-16th century as hōe-shō (silk textile supplier for Buddhist priests’ silk vestments) and stayed in business into the 21st century. Their long-standing family business was represented by a family crest that was dyed on shop curtains.
As a result of environmental changes brought about by the Meiji Restoration, the Nishimura family started dealing with silk textiles for common people. Chiso and Chiji specialized in manufacturing and wholesaling yūzen textiles (silk) and Chikichi handled white (silk) fabrics for yūzen dyeing. This paper follows Chiji and Chikichi in the first half of the 20th century until they were forced to close their businesses in 1944 due to the Second Business Integration Act under the government wartime program.
In the early 20th century, mass-manufacturing methods of silk yūzen dyeing, which were developed in the previous century, began providing an increasing number of yūzen dyed merchandise for newly emerging middle-class consumers. As the production methods improved, more yūzen dyers became available and more merchants started dealing with yūzen textiles and white fabrics accordingly. During this period, new merchants energetically expanded their businesses even though they experienced the 1920 recession, the 1923 Kanto Great Earthquake, and the 1930 depression ensued from the Great Depression in the U.S. In this competitive situation, the Chiji and Chikichi businesses were run by their managers, not by the owners, which was not uncommon for a traditional business. In this paper, the rise and fall of their businesses are reviewed from the tax amounts they paid and stories privately written by their business successors.