University of Pittsburgh
Shashi: the Journal of Japanese Business and Company HistoryNot a member yet
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Nittsū’s Company History as a Guide to the Early Modern Origins of Japan’s Modern Communications
Get PDFoai:ojs.shashi.pitt.edu:article/3Historians of the future will no doubt focus on the transformative role of Internet-based communications as they have changed human interaction in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The introduction of modern postal services in Japan and elsewhere in the nineteenth century produced effects no less profound: citizens were connected to each other and their governments by reliable and relatively speedy delivery of letters, newspapers, and parcels. Japan’s postal system was a great success, but the communications practices of the Japanese prior to the establishment of the post played an important role in that success. Courier services—the so-called hikyakuya—of the early modern period survived and ultimately became today’s Nippon Tsūun (Nittsū), and global logistical corporation. This article surveys the development of early modern Japanese communications, demonstrating the indispensible role that Nittsū’s company history plays in understanding that development
The Great Kanto Earthquake as Seen in Shashi
Get PDFAbstract: Since the Meiji period, companies throughout Japan have published shashi, or company histories. Shashi contain not only the company’s history but also numerous descriptions of the contemporary social environment including the effects of disasters and war. Shashi show how various companies, and Japanese society as a whole, dealt with the difficulties they faced, how they chose their path to recovery, and how these actions were recorded to be shared with future generations. Following the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, we added the category “Disaster and Revival as Seen in Shashi” to the blog of the Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship. The category allows users to access information from the “Shashi Index Database Project,” which is currently under construction, and introduces shashi articles on “Disaster and Revival,” particularly the Great Kanto Earthquake. 和文抄録： 明治以降日本各地の会社が出版した「社史」の中には、会社の沿革や事業だけではなく、災害や戦災などを含む当時の社会情勢に関する記述が数多く見られる。その内容からはそれぞれの会社や日本の社会が降りかかる困難に対峙してどのように対処したか、復興の道筋をどのようにつけたか、そしてそれをどのように記録し次代に伝えようとしたか、といったことを読みとることができる。 2011年3月11日の東日本大震災に際し実業史研究情報センターでは、センター・ブログに「社史に見る災害と復興」というカテゴリーを新設した。そこでは現在構築中の「社史索引データベースプロジェクト」の蓄積データを検索し、「災害と復興」特に「関東大震災」に関する記事を含む社史について紹介している
Who Reads Shashi? The Case of the Hiroshima Regional Newspaper
Get PDFThe company history of a newspaper company raises new questions about the genre of company histories. Who reads them? What features should readers and researchers be aware of when using them as a source? This article examines the shashi of the Chûgoku Shinbun, the Hiroshima regional newspaper. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 were significant because of their perceived role in bringing World War II to an end and in signaling the start of the nuclear age. Most research to date has emphasized the role of national newspapers and the international media in informing the public about the extent of the damage and generating a framework within which to understand. I compare the representation of three key events in the Chûgoku Shinbun company history (shashi) to those in two national newspapers (Asahi and Yomiuri), as well as the ways that the Hiroshima company’s 100th and 120th year self-presentations reveal important concerns of the region and the nation, and motivations in going public with its shashi. These comparisons will reveal some of the merits and limits of using shashi in research. This article is part of a larger study on the work of the influence of regional press and publishers on literature in twentieth-century Japan.
