|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
Chapter 05. The Meiji-Era Venture |
|
The "Kobayashi Administrative Outline" was
published jointly in July, 1913 by "Nagoya Kobayashi Seidaidou" and
"Osaka Kobayashi Daiyakubou". In addition to corporate information,
it was brimming with many other materials including administrative
lists, excerpts of related legislation, methods of payment and product
marketing information.
 The
section on corporate information opens with photos of all staff. Western
clothing was still a rarity in town and this was an era when almost
all Japanese wore kimonos. Yet all of the staff at Kobayashi Seidaidou
and Kobayashi Daiyakubou wore western clothing. What strikes the viewer
in looking over these two pages is how young everyone looked, including
the proprietors. It gives the impression of merchants at the front
line of a budding new industry, and an expression of the attitude
of a progressive and modern thinker, Chubei Kobayashi.
Next, in the "List of Prescriptions", one notices that Kobayashi Seidaidou
includes 17 medicines which were already on offer by the company's
own manufacturing department. All of these medicines were manufactured
by Kobayashi Seidaidou in Nagoya. At the start of the Taisho era (1912-1926),
the center of business was certainly Nagoya, and manufacturing in
particular was solely implemented in Nagoya.
It can be said that the mercantile sprit of one man - Chubei Kobayashi
- gave rise to the so-called Meiji-era Ventures of Kobayashi Seidaidou
and Kobayashi Daiyakubou, organizations with a strong youth contingent. |
|
