ABSTRACT
In the decades following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the fabric of Japanese society changed. Political systems, economics, industry, transportation, dress, social and cultural values; in short, nearly every aspect of life in Japan was affected. Key to these changes was the new Meiji government’s attitude toward the adoption of Western technologies and the values which these objects and ideas from the ‘civilized’ countries of Europe would transmit to Japan. The degree of interconnectivity between the adoption of Western technologies, the Japanese enlightenment movement,1 and the government’s need for political validation makes it nearly impossible to study any one topic without at least recognizing this relationship. Traditionally, the study of technology transfer to the iron and silk industries has been looked at either in isolation or as case studies of developmental economics.2
