1921 (Taisho 10) Sunday, May 8: Merriman Colbert Harris, a missionary, died in the Harris house of Aoyama Gakuin University at the age of 75. Harris was born in Ohio in 1846. He served in the Union army during the Civil War. After the war, he graduated from Allegheny College and married Flora Lydia Best. In 1873, he came to Japan as a missionary of the American Methodist Episcopal Church (1873) with his wife. In 1874, he went to Hakodate, where he taught Christianity and also served as consul to the United States (1874). He lived in Japan for more than 50 years and had a great influence on Sapporo...

1921 (Taisho 10) Thursday, April 28 Poet and children’s lyricist Kitahara Hakushu gets married for the third time. I divorced my ex-wife Ayako Eguchi last May. His third wife, Kikuko (Maiden Name: Sato), was a brilliant woman who had graduated from Oita Girls’ High School and became the last wife of Hakushu who had been said to be “big baby”. When Hakushu and Kikuko first met, Hakushu was 35 and Kikuko was 31. For 21 and a half years, Kikuko brought peace to the family and devoted herself to supporting her husband who lost his eyesight in 1937 (Showa 12). Kikuko’s newlywed life was hard, and she spent days entertaining...

1921 (Taisho 10) On Wednesday, April 27, anecdotist Hakuzan KANDA the second died at the age of 77. He was born in 1843 (Tenpo 14) and his real name was Kinjiro TAMAGAWA. He became a disciple of Hakuzan KANDA the first at the age of 15 and succeeded to Hakuzan at the age of 1870 (Meiji 3) and 28. He was good at Suikoden. 1904 (Meiji 37): He transferred the professional name to Kanda Matsuyama (Hakuzan KANDA the Third) before he died, and changed his name to the first Shori KANDA. These professional names have been handed down to the present day. The third Kanda Shori, who succeeded to the...

1921 (Taisho 10) Monday, April 25: Toyama Prefectural Railway opened. Initially, the operation kilometers between Minami-Toyama Station and Kamidaki Station were 6.6 km, and in August the distance was extended to Iwakuraji Station, which was 12.4 km. In the Taisho period, there were railroads operated by prefectures not only in Toyama but all over Japan. In 1943 (Showa 18), this section was merged into the Kamidaki Line of the Toyama Chiho Railway. Tsukioka Station, located in this section, was the climax of the 2011 movie (Heisei 23) ‘Railways – For Adults Who Cannot Communicate Love’, directed by Masatoshi Kurakata and starring Tomokazu Miura.

On Sunday, April 17, 1921, count’s daughter Kamako YOSHIKAWA, who lived in seclusion due to a scandal at Chiba Shinju, died of peritonitis at the age of 31. Kamako was the fourth daughter of Count Akimasa YOSHIKAWA. Hiroharu YOSHIKAWA, who married Kamako and became the husband of Yoshikawa’s daughter, was the second son of Arasuke SONE under the former family name of Hiroharu SONE. He was an onzoshi (Current Hitotsubashi University) who entered Mitsui from Tokyo Higher Commercial School. Kanji was not well behaved and often visited his mistress’ home, and his actual marriage with Kamako soon collapsed. Kanji invited Rikusuke KURAMOCHI, who had been a driver of Mitsui &...

On Tuesday, April 12, 1921, the ridgepole-raising ceremony of the “Daiden”, the main hall of Shiba-Zojo-ji Temple, was held. The main hall of Zojoji temple, which burned down in 1909, was rebuilt over a period of 10 years. The event was attended by members of the Tokugawa family, Tokyo Mayor Shinpei Goto, Baron Yoshiro Sakatani and more than 5,000 ordinary visitors despite the unfortunate rain. Top priests of Zojo-ji Temple, Kanmu HORIO, who was the temple’s top leader “Daisojo” (94), attended the ridgepole-raising ceremony accompanied by nurses and died 13 days later. The grand palace was completed in 1923. Reconstruction costs amounted to 2 million yen. The main hall of...

Tuesday, April 12, 1921: The first civic cooperative, the Co-op, was formed in Kobe. Toyohiko KAGAWA, a labor movement leader, led the foundation of “Kobe Purchasing Association”. We sell daily necessities such as rice and soy sauce. It started with 10 members, but by the end of the year it had 1,246 members. I went around the house of a union member on a black bicycle to ask questions. Even today, Co-op Kobe is one of the largest consumer cooperatives in the world and the largest in Japan with 1.68 million members. The citizens of Kobe are known for their use of the word “co-op san” in Japanese. Since its...

Thursday, April 7, 1921: A lecture, “To get a good child,” by Shigeo YAMAUCHI (45), a biologist and a professor of Tokyo Higher Normal School, was published in the Tokyo Nichinichi Newspaper. The number of births decreases with the evolution of civilization. The gene of the excellent distant ancestor is transmitted to the human, and the acquired element or rearing environment is more important than the appearance and ability of the direct parent. The opinion of Shigeo YAMAUCHI is different from ethnic eugenics, eugenics thought, genetic eugenics (“divine country” philosophy) which prevail in the Showa period, and importance is attached to acquired rearing environment regardless of birth. “The reality of...

A fire broke out in Asakusa on Wednesday, April 6, 1921. The house of actor Tomiemon NAKAMURA in Tamachi 1-chome was the origin of the fire. The housekeeper went out to prepare breakfast and caught fire. Tokyo City Fuji Jinjo Elementary School (The present Fuji Elementary School, Taito Ward), a new school building completed four years ago, burned down. All the temples in Kisakata-cho went up in flames. The fire was extinguished in six hours. The number of victims rose to 6,500.

On Sunday, April 3, 1921, Naoki Sugita, M.D. contributed to the Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun regarding the issue of prostitution. He demanded a ban on human trafficking and other human rights violations. He also calls for the graceful and elegant qualities of women and the cultivation of their artistic and personal qualities, as was once the case in the heyday of the Yoshiwara brothel. In the Taisho era, people’s awareness of human rights increased, and women’s political movements became more active. In the Taisho era, the awareness of human rights among the people increased and women’s political movements became more active, including the abolition of Naniwa brothel in Osaka, opposition to...