Featured Something interesting for Asian ceramic people

Here's a stereo card I found and rescued of Japanese girls decorating export ware. Some of them seem to be very young. The caption explains it was taken in Kyoto, which would make the items most likely Satsuma ware, although I'm pretty sure there is some cloisonné there too - Kyoto was also known for cloisonné production.

 

child labor.......
not a lot of women rights in 1901..

 

Yep, but they seem very young even for 1904, some look perhaps no older than 7 or 8

 

small hands wield delicate brushes..... imo

 

They all look clean, well groomed, well dressed and well nourished.

Nothing like the turn of the century children in the coal mines, textile mills and sharecroppers here in the USA.

 

They do, but given there was likely advance notice of the photographs being taken they may be somewhat of staging.

 

Well, I guess we might never know for sure, but if it was not staged and only a normal day, kudos to the Japanese!

 

The opening up of Japan to others besides the Dutch meant a huge demand for Japanese goods, which led to mass production and industrialisation. Just like in Western countries, industrialisation casued a greater demand for child labour. Japanese legislation regarding child labour was only introduced in th early 20th century.
The one thing that protected Japanese children to some degree is that Japan already had strict education laws in the 19th century. So these children would have gone to school. But they are girls, so their chances of a good future were hugely diminished by gender discrimination, which was (and is) even worse in Japan than in the Western world.