1901 Immigraton Guide

[A Student's Guide to America] Gakusei tobei annai

Katayama, Sen

Notes: The third printing (same year as the first) of this very scarce guide to emigration to the United States.

"A brief guide to America primarily for students and laborers. The author describes his own 13-year experience in America as a student and laborer from 1884 to 1896. Also reprints short notes from students studying in America. The appendix consists of basic English."—A Buried Past, 117. The appendix presents words in Japanese kanji, with the phonetic pronunciation in English using katakana characters. (NB: This is the same book as Tobei annai, the title listed in A Buried Past. See Tokyo Life, New York Dreams, chapter 6, footnote 56.)

This guide was published by the socialist Labor Press and was a publication of Katayama’s immigration company, the Association for the America-Bound (Tobei Kyokai). Among the courses of study Katayama recommends is medine, since “the anatomy of Americans, Japanese and Indians are all the same” (pp. 47–48). See Cosmopolitan Medicine Nationalized by Wei-ti Chen (Ph.D thesis), chapter 1.

Katayama (1859–1933) was born in Japan, emigrated to the United States in the 1880s, and converted to socialism while a divinity student at Yale in 1894. He was a founding member of both the U.S. and Japanese Communist parties. He also organized Japanese labor unions, the Japanese socialist party, and attempted to start a rice farming colony in Texas in the early 20th century. He advocated that the Japanese working class emigrate to the United States for greater economic opportunity.

This guide was published by the socialist Labor Press and was a publication of Katayama's immigration company, the Association for the America-Bound (Tobei Kyokai). See Tsurutani Hisashi's America-Bound for an overview of Katayama's immigration publications.

2, 2, 68, 11, [5, colophon and ads] pages.

OCLC: Probably 834795066 (Waseda) and 672477056 (National Diet Library)

Edition + Condition: A near fine copy in the original wrappers.

Publication: Tokyo: Rodo Shinbunsha, 1901 (Meiji 34).

Item No: #361100

Price: $1,250