UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Humanitarian Empire: The Red Cross in Japan, 1877-1945 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Gregory John DePies Committee in Charge: Professor Takashi Fujitani, Chair Professor Todd Henry Professor Kwai Ng Professor Patrick Patterson Professor Nayan Shah 2013 Copyright Gregory John DePies, 2013 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Gregory John DePies is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2013 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page....................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents................................................................................................................iv List of Figures......................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................vi Vita.....................................................................................................................................vii Abstract of the Dissertation..............................................................................................viii Introduction: Humanitarian Imperialism.............................................................................1 Chapter 1 Reassuring Fratricide: Remembering the Satsuma War and the Historiography of the Origins of the Japanese Red Cross Society in the National Imaginary...................29 Chapter 2 Civilized and Humanitarian Wars: the Red Cross and Military Administration in International Law...........................................................................................................78 Chapter 3 Capital, Land, Labor: the Economics of Red Cross Humanitarianism...........124 Chapter 4 Battling the Demon of Disease: Red Cross Hygiene and Caring for the Modern Body.................................................................................................................................167 Chapter 5 Angels in White: The Imperial Japanese Red Cross Nursing Women at War.218 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................259 Appendix..........................................................................................................................265 Bibliography.....................................................................................................................267 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. Nihonsekijūjisha daijūichikai sōkai oyobi sōritsu nijūgonenki shukuten shikijō no e (Picture of the Japanese Red Cross Society Eleventh General Meeting and the 25th Anniversary Commemorative Celebration Hall). Photo by Yamamoto Seiyō, Nihon Sekijūji [Journal of the Japanese Red Cross] 116 November, 1902. Courtesy of the Japanese Red Cross Society...............................................................................................75 Figure 1.2. Dō shikijō kōgōheika gogyōkei gotsūkōmon no e (Picture of the gate for the passage of the empress to attend at the celebration hall). Photo by Yamamoto Seiyō, Nihon Sekijūji [Journal of the Japanese Red Cross] 116 November, 1902. Courtesy of the Japanese Red Cross Society...............................................................................................76 Figure 1.3: Arisugawa sōtokumiya hakuaisha sōritsu gokyoka [Arisugawa's Permission to Establish the Hakuaisha at the Governor's Mansion], artist unknown..............................77 Figure 2.1: Utagawa Kokunimasa's “Medical Treatment of Casualties at the Greater Japan Red Cross Field Hospital During the Russo-Japanese War.”................................122 Figure 2.2: The fronticepiece for the Nihon Sekijūji [Journal of the Japanese Red Cross] 148 (November 10, 1904)................................................................................................123 Figure 4.1. “Teaching Health to Juniors of Japan” in The World's Health, February, 1925 ….....................................................................................................................................213 Figure 4.2. “Wash your hands before meals and chew your food well.”.........................214 Figure 4.3. “Don't use a handkerchief or towel that has been used by others.”...............215 Figure 4.4. “Gladly do whatever is asked of you.”..........................................................216 Figure 4.5. “Be Clean,” American Social Health Association, 1922.…..........................217 Figure 5.1. Nursing women socializing with patients in Okada Teiko's Byōinsen jyūgunki (1942).................................................................................................................…..........257 Figure 5.2. “Number 21, Kyoto branch affiliate relief nursing-woman Nishikawa Shigeno” in Beautiful Tales of Relief Corps in the China Incident, Vol 3, by the Nihon Sekijujisha........................................................................................................................258 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work has only been made possible through the contributions of many generous supporters. Crucial financial assistance for carrying out the research in Japan was provided by the Japan Foundation. The University of California Institute for Conflict and Cooperation also provided financial assistance through a one year dissertation writing fellowship. Prof. Umemori Naoyuki kindly sponsored me as a foreign researcher at Waseda University. The staff members at the Japanese Red Cross Society Information Plaza, the Sano Tsunetami Memorial Museum, and the Red Cross College of Nursing in Toyota provided invaluable help in the research process. I would like to thank my dissertation committee for their generous support. Prof. Fujitani has been a tireless advocate for me during my time at UCSD and deserves the most recognition for his many hours spent over these eight years reading my seminar papers and drafts as well as his advice and encouragement to see this project through to its conclusion. Feedback provided by my fellow graduate students also helped the dissertation drafting process immensely. I especially thank Julie Maiorana, Ryan Moran, Jenny Huangfu and Juliana Choi for their suggestions. I would like to acknowledge two families who have shown great patience with my career choice and long life as a student. My wife Rika and her family provided a great deal of moral and logistical help especially, but not only, during my time conducting research in Japan. Lastly, my parents have been working for thirty nine years to see me to this point. I dedicate this dissertation to them. vi VITA 1996 Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Berkeley 2004-2005 Teaching Assistant, Department of History, San Diego State University 2005 Master of Arts, San Diego State University 2005-2013 Teaching Assistant, University of California, San Diego 2012-2013 Associate Instructor, University of California, San Diego 2013 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS Unpublished M.A. Thesis: "Childhood and the Construction of the Modern Subject in Meiji Japan: Mokoto Kondo's Volume on Childrearing, 1873-1875," 2005. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History, Modern Japan Professor Takashi Fujitani Minor Field: Sociology Professor Gershon Shafir Minor Field: History, Pre-Modern China Professor Sarah Schneewind vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Humanitarian Empire: The Red Cross in Japan, 1877-1945 by Gregory John DePies Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, San Diego, 2013 Professor Takashi Fujitani, Chair This dissertation presents a critical perspective on modern practices of humanitarianism by following histories of the imperial-era Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) from its inception in 1877 until the formal dissolution of the Japanese empire in 1945. In the decades after its founding the JRCS became the most prominent humanitarian institution in the Japanese empire and the largest national Red Cross society in the world, drawing its leaders from among the most powerful of the ruling elites as viii well as the imperial family. As an state-sanctioned voluntary organization for the relief of human suffering, the JRCS continuously promoted the philosophies and institutions of humanitarianism by applying them across a wide range of political, social, and economic spheres. I argue that the leadership of the JRCS in efforts to rescue the sufferers of war, natural disasters, and disease made it an exemplar of humanitarian imperialism, or the continuous expansion of political domination by state and non-state agencies which operated according to a logic of promoting the life, health and well being of ordinary people. JRCS humanitarian thought and activity formed a key element of the ideology and institutions of imperial rule through five key conceptual categories—nation, law, production, hygiene, and gender. Chapter one shows how humanitarianism became an important