Women Workers at Tomioka: Learning Silk Reeling in Meiji Japan

In 1872 a large silk mill began work in Tomioka, in present-day Gunma Prefecture. It was built by the new Meiji government as a state-run model factory for mechanised silk reeling, the process of drawing raw silk thread from cocoons.

The technology was Western, but the people at the reels were women recruited from across Japan. According to the mill's official history, the plan was that they would learn the new method and then return home to teach it.

A model mill that needed trainees

Raw silk was Japan's largest export after the country opened to foreign trade, and rising demand led to a great deal of poor-quality silk. In 1870 the Meiji government decided to build its own model mill to improve quality and production.

The plan rested on three ideas: bring in Western reeling technology, use foreign instructors, and recruit women from all over Japan who would go home after training and lead mechanised reeling there. The Frenchman Paul Brunat, a silk inspector in Yokohama, was hired to lead it.

Construction began in 1871; the main buildings were finished and operation began in 1872. The reeling hall was about 140 metres long and held 300 reeling basins; the official site calls Tomioka the largest silk mill in the world at the time. About ten French people were employed at first.

In a 1934 book, Yamada Moritarō listed the mill's workers in 1872: of 462 people, 300 were reelers, or 64 percent. The figures are quoted by Enoki Kazue in a 2022 paper on women's labour at Tomioka.

Who came to Tomioka

According to Enoki, the government recruited women aged 15 to 30 as denshū kōjo, or "trainee women workers." In practice some were in their early teens, and some women of around 60 entered as supervisors.

At first, Enoki writes, many of the trainees were daughters of former samurai families, and came from as far apart as Kyushu and Hokkaido. In her reading, they were sent to learn a new technique and take it home, not to come to Tomioka as "workers."

In a 1982 paper, Yamamoto Shin'ichi writes that recruitment was very difficult because of a rumour that girls taken to the mill would have their blood sucked by the foreigners.

One trainee is known by name through her own writing. Yokota Ei, later Wada Ei, was born in 1857, the daughter of a samurai of the Matsushiro domain in present-day Nagano Prefecture. According to the Nagano Prefectural Museum of History, she went to Tomioka at her father's urging.

Her memoir's publisher says she left home in April 1873 with fifteen other girls from Matsushiro.

Pay, hours, and rest

A pay table from 1872, reproduced by Yamamoto from Tomioka Seishijō-shi, a history of the mill published by the Tomioka City Board of Education in 1977, sets out the women's pay. First-grade workers received 25 yen a year, second grade 18 yen, third grade 12 yen, and ungraded workers 9 yen.

These were yearly amounts paid in monthly instalments. Each woman also received 5 yen for summer and winter clothing, and a daily allowance for board.

Silk reeling in Japan was then mostly seasonal work, and most mills ran only a few months a year; Tomioka, by contrast, was planned from the start to run all year.

According to Enoki, with year-round operation the daily hours were comparatively short, every Sunday was a day off, and wages were paid monthly by grade. She stresses that this was quite different from the competitive "grade-wage" system that later spread through the silk industry.

When the mill was later expected to pay its way, she adds, working hours were lengthened.

Enoki writes that conditions at early Tomioka were quite different from the industry in general. She notes that in Suwa, in Nagano Prefecture, which became the centre of mechanised reeling, mills relied on fierce competition under the grade-wage system and long hours. Across the silk-reeling industry as a whole, she writes, the working day ran to 13 or 14 hours and sometimes 17 or 18.

Cold nights and summer illness

Much of what we know about daily life comes from Wada Ei's memoir, Tomioka Nikki (Tomioka Diary). Despite its title, it is a memoir. According to its publisher, she began writing it around 1907, when she was fifty, to comfort her sick mother, looking back on a year and some months at the mill.

The mill's official site calls it a valuable source for the mill as it was then.

In a report published by Tomioka City, the researcher Suzuki Jun quotes two of her memories. Of the winter of 1873 to 1874, she wrote that each dormitory room had earthenware charcoal braziers and that every woman was given two futons. It was still so cold, she recalled, that the women slept in pairs.

Of the summer of 1873, she wrote that many people fell ill as the heat grew. A Western doctor said they were falling ill because so many of them were kept shut up in their rooms, and told them to exercise in the open ground from evening until about half past eight. After that, she wrote, they went out to play there every evening.

Suzuki reads this as a sign that the dormitory environment and the women's habits, rather than heat in the workplace, were seen as the threat to health. Suzuki also notes that Wada does not mention heat or cold in the reeling hall.

Taking the skills home

Wada Ei went on to do what the mill's plan expected of its trainees. According to her publisher, she returned home in July 1874 and from August taught at the Saijō village mill in Nagano, later known as Rokkōsha.

In 1878 she was appointed reeling instructor at the new prefectural Nagano silk mill. The Nagano Prefectural Museum of History describes her as central to technical instruction at Rokkōsha and other mills in the prefecture.

Tomioka itself changed. According to the official history, the mill was run by Japanese staff alone after the foreign instructors left in 1876. Its finances were not always in surplus during the government years.

In 1893, once its original aims had been met, the mill was sold to the Mitsui family. It passed to Hara in 1902 and to Katakura in 1939, and it finally stopped operating in March 1987.

Enoki writes that basic working conditions continued after the sale; a record of an 1895 study tour led by the governor of Kyoto Prefecture mentions winter night classes for dormitory residents. After a new manager was appointed in 1896, however, reeling women's monthly wages by grade were replaced by piece rates based on the amount of silk reeled.

According to a record Enoki cites, on February 9, 1898, 743 commuting women workers went on strike against this reform, opposing savings on meals, fewer holidays, the end of day wages and other measures. The strike ended in the workers' defeat on February 15.

Remembering the women of Tomioka

After the mill closed, Katakura kept most of the buildings, according to the official history. The site became a national historic site in 2005, and in June 2014 the World Heritage Committee added "Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites" to the World Heritage List. In December 2014 the reeling hall and the east and west cocoon warehouses were made National Treasures.

The World Heritage property covers four sites in Gunma: the silk mill and three places linked with sericulture (silkworm rearing and silkworm-egg storage).

The women themselves have become a subject of new research. According to the official site, Tomioka City set up a committee in fiscal 2017 to study women workers' transfer of technology and their working environment, in response to a recommendation from ICOMOS, the advisory body to the World Heritage Committee. Its reports include the study by Suzuki quoted above.

Visiting Tomioka Silk Mill today

Tomioka Silk Mill is open to visitors. The official site says the route is mainly outside the buildings and recommends bringing rain gear.

Guides lead paid tours of about 40 minutes. A free smartphone audio-guide app is available in Japanese, English, Chinese, French, and Korean.

The West Cocoon Warehouse reopened in 2020 after conservation work spanning six years, with a gallery inside a new glass-walled structure. Check the official website for opening hours and fees.