Howard Kahm

This article situates South Korea’s economic success in the latter part of the 20 th Century within the framework of the emergence of universal primary education. In particular, it examines the history of primary school enrollment in Korea from the onset of Japanese colonial rule in 1910 until the emergence of universal primary school education in the early 1960s. A high enrollment rate was unusual for countries that had an annual income similar to South Korea, which was about one hundred u.s. d

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, nearly a million Japanese people initiated a massive repatriation movement back to Japan from former imperial Japanese territories in Manchuria and Korea. Utilizing a micro-historical approach to examine Japanese repatriation in southern Korea, this article argues that repatriation unfolded through a three-phase process that demonstrated the historical agency of the Koreans and Japanese in the midst of US occupation controls. As the Japanese began to

After Liberation in 1945, the concept of democracy was introduced to southern Korea through discursively contested representations formulated by the American occupation authorities and Koreans on the political left and right. One of the main fields of contestation was in education as the Americans and Koreans advanced their own interpretations of democratic education that addressed the relationship between the individual and the state. The American perspective on democratic education was grounde

Abstract Department stores were the most luxurious retail institutions in colonial Korea in terms of their architecture, interior design, and product offerings. While Korean department stores closely resembled their Western and Japanese counterparts in form and function, the Korean department stores were unique for their position in developing retail practices and policies within a colonial context. Specifically, department stores hired young female workers to provide emotional labor to both cus

Abstract Henry Collbran and Harry Bostwick were the most successful American businessmen in Korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While they are well known for constructing the Seoul-Inch’ŏn railroad, the Seoul waterworks, and the streetcar system, their backgrounds and how they carried out their activities have not been deeply examined. Foreign businesspeople like Collbran and Bostwick possessed the technology and capital that Korea needed for modernization, but they had t

Abstract As in other premodern societies, the economy and society of Koryŏ Korea (918–1392) were greatly affected by climatological phenomena, particularly rain and drought. However, climate played a critical role in the early formation of Koryŏ, especially in reinforcing a sociocultural belief system that supported monarchical authority. The kings utilized a “menu” of rituals designed to appease Heaven and create favorable climate conditions, which legitimated the temporal and spiritual power o

This paper examines the connection between sovereignty and central banking through a case study of the Bank of Chosŏn in colonial Korea during the 1910s and 1920s. Using historical and statistical analysis, this study shows the particular characteristics and limitations of the Bank of Chosŏn and its operations, both within the specific colonial context and under the political and economic conditions imposed by Japanese imperialism, such as a fixed exchange rate and the subordination of the Korea

After Choson Korea was forced to open its ports in 1876 by Japan, Korea was incorporated into a regional East Asian economy based on the unequal treaty system and predicated on a structure of core and periphery relationships between the industrialized and industrializing nations. As the first modern bank in Japan, Daiichi Bank was the first Japanese bank to establish operations in the Korean open ports. Daiichi was heavily dependent on its business in Korea for survival, but it ultimately thrive