THE MAKING OF MIDDLE-CLASS WORKING CULTURE: THE VICISSITUDES OF SALARYMAN LIFE AND IDENTITY IN EARLY 20TH-CENTURY JAPAN

Abstract

Although study of the post-war salaryman in Japan is not uncommon, his pre-war incarnation – particularly from the early 20th century – has remained sorely underexamined. In this thesis, therefore, I posit and attempt to answer the question “How did the salaryman of early 20th-century Japan emerge?” In analysing primary historical sources from various time periods from the 1900s to 1920s in Japan and relating to company/bank and government employees specifically, I present a non-linear picture of this salaryman’s life and identity. Such sources include what may be deemed “didactic” texts on employment, petitions and a memoir. I argue that the salaryman of early 20th-century Japan emerged through a constant experience of failure to achieve the full potential of what he was meant to be. The wider aims of this thesis are to rescue one narrative of the middle class in modern Japanese history, and to enable reflection in times of uncertainty.