In 1878, just 19 years after Japan opened it first ports to the world, and a mere ten years after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, an adventurous 47-year old woman from the UK set out to explore the interior of Japan. The country was virtually unknown to Westerners, and a woman traveling only with a guide seemed outrageous. Everybody advised her not to, but she went anyway and wrote this unique and vivid journal of what she saw and experienced.
MeijiShowa
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A family cleans the home in advance of the New Year celebrations. Cleaning is a major part of preparing for the New Year as Shinto beliefs place much importance on purity. This image is part of The New Year in Japan, a book published by Kobe-based photographer Kozaburo Tamamura in 1906. Original text:
A preliminary to the coming of the New Year is a general “spring cleaning,” as our friends term it. The interior and exterior of every domicile is cleaned and re-decorated. Warehouses and business houses all undergo a similar “clean out,” and we get ready for a new lease on life.1
See all New Year images on Old Photos of Japan.
1 Tamamura, Kozaburo (1906). The New Year in Japan. Tamamura Shashinkan.
Duits, K. (2009, January 1). Kobe, 1906 New Year Celebrations 1, Old Photos of Japan. Retrieved on 2021, Mar 08 from https://www.oldphotosjapan.com/photos/682/new-year-celebrations-1