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Unlock This CourseThe Taisho years (1912-26) were a time when ordinary Japanese people had more schooling, more to read and more things to spend money on than ever before. The Meiji government had made primary school compulsory, and in 1907 it was extended from four years to six. By the 1910s almost every child went to primary school, so almost everyone could read. That created a huge market for printed material.
Newspapers grew fast. In 1924 two Osaka papers, the Asahi and the Mainichi, each claimed more than a million readers. Magazines were aimed at every group. Shufu no Tomo ("Housewife's Friend", 1917) gave advice on cooking, sewing and family budgets. Kingu ("King", 1925) was written for everyone and sold more than a million copies an issue within a few years. In 1926 publishers began selling cheap "one-yen books", sets of novels at a price that ordinary families could afford.
More young people also stayed in education. In 1918 a new law recognised private universities such as Waseda and Keio, and the number of students rose. Many students read about liberal and socialist ideas from Europe and began to question how Japan was governed. Young people in the cities were often called "Taisho youth".
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By the mid-1920s some young women in Tokyo and Osaka had short "bobbed" hair, wore Western dresses and went walking and shopping in the Ginza, Tokyo's smartest shopping street. Newspapers and magazines both admired and attacked them. Critics said they were selfish and gave up Japanese traditions.
Many more women now worked outside the home as typists, telephone operators, shop assistants, bus conductors, nurses and teachers, and in offices. Most were young and single, and they usually earned less than men. Women had also worked in the silk and cotton mills since Meiji times.
It is important not to exaggerate. Only a small number of women were true "modern girls". Most women still married young and looked after the home, and women could not vote or join political parties. The change was real, but it was mostly visible in the big cities.
The cities were growing fast. At the first national census in 1920 Tokyo had more than two million people. A new middle class of salarymen and their families lived in the suburbs and travelled to work by train. The cities offered new ways to spend money and time:
Most of Japan was still countryside. Many villagers were farmers, and a large share of them were tenants who paid rent to a landlord, often about half of their crop, so life stayed hard. Few villagers could afford department stores or cinema trips, and city fashions reached them slowly, mainly through magazines and the stories of young people who had been to the city or served in the army.
The government also tried to keep village life steady. Since the years after the Russo-Japanese War the Home Ministry had run a "local improvement" campaign that urged villagers to be thrifty, work hard and respect the local shrine. By the 1910s there were young men's associations in villages across Japan, which offered sport, night classes and drill. The result was a gap: the city was fast-moving, Western-influenced and full of new ideas, while many villages stayed traditional, poorer and more careful.
Change: By the 1920s Japan had a mass culture of newspapers, magazines, cinema and radio, women in new jobs, and young city people who followed Western fashion.
This is the theme of social transformation in a modern world: new schooling, jobs and leisure changed city life far more than village life.
Continuity: Most people still lived in the countryside, women still had far fewer rights than men, and the government still tried to protect traditional values. Meiji change was led from above by the government and its advisers, whereas Taisho culture was driven by ordinary people spending their own money.
Explain TWO causes of the growth of a mass popular culture in Japan in the 1910s and 1920s. [8 marks]
Remember: one cause on its own cannot score more than half marks. Give two, with precise facts, and show how each led to the outcome.
One cause was mass schooling. Primary education had been compulsory since the Meiji years and was extended to six years in 1907, so by the 1910s almost every child could read. This produced millions of readers for cheap printed material. Newspapers such as the Osaka Asahi and Osaka Mainichi passed a million readers in 1924, and magazines such as Kingu (1925) sold more than a million copies an issue. Mass literacy therefore made a mass culture possible.
A second cause was the growth of the cities and of a new city middle class. Tokyo passed two million people by 1920, and salarymen and working women had wages to spend and free time. Businesses answered with department stores such as Mitsukoshi, cafes in the Ginza and cinemas, and from 1925 radio brought entertainment into homes. The city audience was large enough to make each of these profitable, so popular culture spread quickly.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names a cause, gives precise facts and links it directly to the growth of mass culture.
Start each paragraph with "One cause was ..." and end it with a sentence that links back to the question, such as "This made mass culture possible because ...".