Item No: #361950 [The State of Milk in American Cities] Hokubei sashi ni okeru shinyu no jokyo. Katsuji Fukuhara.
[The State of Milk in American Cities] Hokubei sashi ni okeru shinyu no jokyo

Report of a Japanese Dairy Owner in Seattle

[The State of Milk in American Cities] Hokubei sashi ni okeru shinyu no jokyo

Notes: A speech and report presented to the Tokyo Milk and Livestock Association in 1923 by Fukuhara Katsuji, the Director of the Japanese Dairy Association of Seattle, Washington, and Director of the Japanese-American City Dairy Union. The report offers a Japanese immigrant view on the US dairy industry which has been rarely examined elsewhere. In the opening section, Fukuhara offers autobiographical details, descriptions of issues facing Japanese dairy farmers in the US (their small stature is held against them, he says), and he discusses the efforts of dairy farmers to secure better prices for their products.

The other sections include a Q&A for skeptical Japanese consumers who did not buy much milk at the time, a Japanese translation of the Seattle Milk Shippers' Association bylaws, milk production tips, and a history of US government efforts to promote milk consumption to combat malnutrition and improve the school performance of children. The book is illustrated with examples of advertising campaigns from the National Dairy Council and describes similar local efforts in Seattle and Washington state.

Fukuhara operated various agricultural enterprises in and around Seattle and Auburn, Washington. Most of the Fukuhara family returned to Japan in the 1930s. World War Two found his sons fighting on both sides of the US-Japan war. Their story is told in Midnight in Broad Daylight by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (Harper, 2016). While the report offered here offers insight into Fukuhara's American experience, it is not cited in that book, possibly because it is rare, with just a single library holding recorded, in Japan.

108 pages.

OCLC: 674141530 (National Diet Library)

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A good to copy in wrappers. Private library label on front cover and inkstamp on first blank. Spine chipped.

Publication: Tokyo: Tokyo Gyunyu Chikusan Kumiai [Tokyo Milk and Livestock Association], 1924 [Taisho 13].

Item No: #361950

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