An image of purchasers of imperial family memorabilia in urban areas of the Taisho and Showa eras

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Other Title
  • 大正・昭和初期の祝祭記念商品の都市購買者像
  • タイショウ ・ ショウワ ショキ ノ シュクサイ キネン ショウヒン ノ トシ コウバイシャゾウ

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Abstract

In monarchical states from the latter half of the 19th into the early 20th century, a huge amount of commodities were mass-produced and put on the market to commemorate any and all celebrations conducted by the world's royal families, as scenes of large crowds gathering to buy these souvenirs of all types and styles were witnessed more and more frequently throughout the world, Japan being no exception. In at least a part of the research to date on monarchical nationalism in Japan and abroad, in particular those studies which tend to interpret the phenomenon within a theoretical framework of “the invention of tradition”, the peddling of never ending lines of royal memorabilia is seen to function socially as circulating important media for continually maintaining and arousing within the national memory all the accomplishments of monarchs past and present.<br> To the contrary, if we adhere to the various research findings regarding the culture of modern urban consumption, forms of awareness and material want which were generated in the cities of the world by the mechanism of mass production and distribution at the turn of the century also clashed with ideas about tradition and continuity. That is to say, what the mechanisms of modern economy and technology aroused in urban populations was, rather than an appreciation of the past, the clearly anti-traditionalist attitude of putting a price on novelty and the present moment-antitraditional in the formation of a consumption cycle by which new products were constantly sought, then forgotten. In pursuing this latter point of view, the author of the present article examines the true picture of how and why souvenirs commemorating the celebratory events in the lives of the Japanese imperial family were bought and sold during the Taisho and Showa eras, with emphasis on their distribution within urban society. <br> The study reveals that 1) the urban populations of the two eras often deciphered and desired every line of souvenir released on the occasion of a royal celebration as being more “fashionable” (linked to the “novelty” of the event itself) than traditional, and 2) among the purveyors of these items in the cities there was the perception that the present line of items would be shortly consumed and disposed of. Taken together, these two points indicate that royal commemorative souvenirs became a media having the opposite effect on efforts to manipulate the public consciousness as “memorabilia” of monarchical accomplishments past and present. In other words, from the historical perspective of mass production and distribution, the research to date which has simplistically read into the release of these supposed “memorabilia” as just one more way in which industrial capitalism collaborated with and complemented monarchical nationalism is called into question by the actual conditions and perceptions under which they were being bought and sold in urban markets.

Journal

  • SHIGAKU ZASSHI

    SHIGAKU ZASSHI 126 (9), 41-63, 2017

    The Historical Society of Japan

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