Unit 5 DBQ
Prompt: Using the following documents, analyze similarities and differences in the
mechanization of the cotton industry in Japan and India in the period from the 1880s to the
1930s.
Document 1
Source: Data gathered by British colonial authorities
Document 2
Source: Data from the Japanese Imperial Cabinet Bureau of
Statistics
Document 3
Source: Two women recalling their girlhoods working in Japanese textile factories, circa 1900.
From morning, while it was still dark, we worked in the lamplit factory till ten at night. After
work, we hardly had the strength to stand on our feet. When we worked later into the night, they
occasionally gave us a yam. We then had to do our washing, fix our hair, and so on. By then it
would be eleven o’clock. There was no heat even in the winter; we had to sleep huddled together
to stay warm. We were not paid the first year. In the second year my parents got 35 yen,* and the
following year 50 yen.
Soon after I went to work in the factory, my younger sister Aki came to work there too. I think
she worked for about two years, and then took to her bed because of illness. At that time there
were about thirty sick people at the factory. Those who clearly had lung troubles were sent home
right away. Everyone feared tuberculosis and no one would come near such patients. Aki was
also sent home, and died soon after. She was in her thirteenth year. Aki had come to the factory
determined to become a 100-yen worker and make our mother happy. I can never forget her sad
eyes as she left the factory sickly and pale.
*Japanese currency
Document 4
Source: Buddhist priest from a rural area of Japan from which many farm girls were sent to
work in the mills, circa 1900.
The money that a factory girl earned was often more than a farmer’s income for the entire year.
For these rural families, the girls were an invaluable source of income. The poor peasants during
this period had to turn over 60 percent of their crops to the landlord. Thus the poor peasants had
only bits of rice mixed with weeds for food. The peasants’ only salvation was the girls who went
to work in the factories.
Document 5
Source: Tsurumi Shunsuke, Japanese industrialist, circa 1900.
Where do the cheap workers come from? They all come from farming communities. People from
families that are working their own land, or are engaged in tenant farming but have surplus
workers, come to the cities and the industrial centers to become factory workers. Income from
the farms provides for the family needs and subsistence of the parents and siblings. The person
who takes employment in the factory is an unattached component of the family. All he or she has
to do is earn enough to maintain his or her own living. That is why the workers’ wages are low.
This shows how important a force agriculture continues to be for the development of our nation’s
commerce and industry.
Document 6
Source: Radhakamal Mukerjee, Indian economist, The Foundation of
Indian Economics, 1916.
For the last few decades there has been a rapid decline of the handwoven cloth industry
throughout the country on account of the competition of machine manufactures. Though many
still wear clothing made from cloth woven on handlooms, large numbers of handloom weavers
have been abandoning their looms. The local textile industry owes its very existence, promotion,
and growth to the enterprising spirit of native bankers and investors, who invest large capital as
shareholders, investors, and financiers.
Document 7
Source: Data from “Industrialization and the Status of Women in Japan,” dissertation, 1973.
Document 8
Source: Photo from an official company history, Nichibo cotton mill, Japan, 1920s.
Document 9
Source: Report of the British Royal Commission of Labour in India, Calcutta, 1935.
Most of the workers in the cotton mills are recruited from among the small peasants and
agricultural laborers of the villages, along with unemployed hand weavers. They live in small
rented huts. The average worker remains in the same factory for less than two years. Wages are
low, and there has been no significant change in wages over the last decades.
Document 10
Source: Arno S. Pearse, British official of the International Federation of Master Cotton
Spinners’ and Manufacturers’ Associations. Photo from a report on Indian textile mills, 1935.
