Machine silk reeling

Japanese: 器械製糸 - きかいせいし

…Reeling silk has twice the labor productivity of hand-reeling silk, and although some primitive manufactures equipped with reeling machines were established, they did not have much potential for growth and were mainly carried out as a side job for farmers. In the late 1870s, mechanical silk-reeling factories, which freed female workers from the task of turning reels by rotating a long shaft to which many reels were attached, began to be established one after another in the three prefectures of Nagano, Yamanashi, and Gifu. In Gunma and Fukushima prefectures, which had long been centers of reeling silk, improved reeling silk appeared, which concentrated the processes of returning the raw silk from the small reels to the large reels, inspecting, sorting, and packing the silk. This concentration of finishing processes was sometimes carried out by a coalition of small reeling businesses, and sometimes by raw silk merchants. …

From the Industrial Revolution

…
[Silk industry]
The silk-reeling industry, which attracted the largest number of factory workers among all industries, began factory production in the late 1870s, attracted by the demand for raw silk from Europe and America, and developed rapidly from the 1890s onwards, while increasing its dependence on exports to the United States, surpassing European and Chinese silk in the American market between 1905 and 1909, and establishing itself as Japan's largest export industry, supporting its trade balance. During this period, the early government-run model factories, Tomioka Silk Mill and the Ono-gumi mechanical silk-reeling company, fell into a slump, and two new types of systems developed in various regions: factory-based mechanical silk-reeling using reeling machines imitating Western-style machines and steam or water power, and wholesale-based or cooperative-based reeling that improved on conventional reeling machines and factoryized only the hoisting and packing processes. However, it was mechanical silk-reeling, especially mechanical silk-reeling that produced ordinary weft thread, centered in the Suwa region of Nagano Prefecture, that led the development of raw silk exports from the 1890s onwards. In the second half of the 1900s, the improvement of ordinary silk by large silk mills such as Katakura Silk Mill and the production of high-quality silk by Gunze Silk Mill and other silk mills that had previously been on the periphery of ordinary silk production, combined to advance into the warp silk market and dominate the American market.

*Some of the terminology used to refer to "mechanical silk reeling" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…座繰は手挽に比べて約2倍の労働生産性があり，座繰器を備えた端初的なマニュファクチュア(工場制手工業)も生まれたがあまり発展性はなく，主として農家の副業として行われた。多数の糸枠を取り付けた長い軸を回転させることにより女工を糸枠の回転作業から解放し繰糸に専念させる器械製糸場が，1870年代後半に長野，山梨，岐阜3県を中心に続々と設立されはじめると，古くからの座繰製糸の中心地たる群馬県や福島県では，小枠にとった生糸を大枠に揚げ返す工程や検査，分類のうえ荷造りする工程を集中する改良座繰が現れた。こうした仕上工程の集中は，座繰小経営が連合して行う場合と生糸商人によってなされる場合とがあった。…

【産業革命】より

…
［製糸業］
　工業のなかで最多数の工場労働者を吸引した製糸業は，欧米の生糸需要に誘引されて1870年代後半から工場生産を開始し，90年代以降は対アメリカ輸出依存度を高めつつ急速に発達し，1905‐09年にはアメリカ市場においてヨーロッパ糸および中国糸を凌駕して，日本の貿易収支を支える最大の輸出産業としての地位を確立した。この間，初期の官営模範工場の富岡製糸場や小野組の器械製糸会社が不振に陥ったのに代わって，洋式器械を模造した繰糸器と蒸気力または水力を用いた工場制の器械製糸と，在来の座繰器を改良し，揚返しまたは荷造り工程だけを工場化した問屋制または組合組織の座繰製糸という，二つの形態が各地に発展したが，1890年代以降の生糸輸出の発展を主導したのは器械製糸，とくに長野県諏訪地方を中心とする緯糸用普通糸を作る器械製糸であった。1900年代後半には，片倉製糸など諏訪糸大製糸による普通糸の優良化と，それまで普通糸生産の周辺にあった郡是製糸などの優等糸生産とが相まって経糸市場へも進出し，アメリカ市場を制覇していった。…

※「器械製糸」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について | 情報

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