1906 Japanese Guide to Jobs in America in Jacket!

[Guide to Current Jobs in North America] Saikin katsudo hokubei jigyo annai

Kawamura, Tetsutaro

Notes: A scarce and interesting look at a Japanese laborer's view of the possibilities of working in America at the height of Japanese immigration to this country.

"Based on the author's 4-year personal experience in America, this book presents facts on labor conditions and wages by skilled versus unskilled, urban versus rural job categories and on the prospects for employment for Japanese workers."—A Buried Past, 120.

Kawamura (who shares a name with a well-known Japanese banker) provides one of the most detailed guides to working in the United States published in the Meiji era, just before the Gentlemen's Agreement severely restricted Japanese immigration to the United States. He provides anecdotal and detailed information on dozens of professions and industries in the United States accessible to Japanese immigrants, from work in mines and railroads to farming (with separate entries for dozens of crops) to service jobs in cities. He seems to have had first hand knowledge working for labor contractors as well.

Illustrated with eight pages of halftone photographs of (mostly white) people at work in various jobs and eight pages of ads for travel-to-America and get-rich books.

[2], [8 blue halftones], 6, 2, 14, 340, 8 (ads) pages.

OCLC: 672478010 (National Diet Library)

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good example of the exceptionally scarce dust jacket (which are rarely preserved on Meiji-era books). The jacket design is different from the design printed on the wrappers. The wrappers show North and South America overprinted with botanical motifs. The off-white paper jacket is printed in red and blue, with a shield-and-stars design similar to that used on some US coins, with added cartoonish emblems of an eagle and a buffalo.

Publication: Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1906 [Meiji 39].

Item No: #363207

Price: $3,000