Reforming Japan: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period

Review The author makes a valuable contribution to Japanese and feminist history...revising the traditional view that women were not involved in politics during this period. Highly recommended. All collections in modern Japanese history and the history of feminism in East Asia -- M.D. Ericson, University of Maryland University College ― ChoiceReforming Japan is a very fine book. Based on an impressive array of Japanese-language sources, Lublin’s work is a major English-language study about the initial quarter-century of the Japanese WCTU and the important role played by its leaders in the attempt to influence both public opinion and government into introducing social reforms that would benefit women and children in the new Japan. -- Hamish Ion, author of American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73This excellent work of scholarship addresses a sorely neglected aspect of Japanese and feminist history. Reforming Japan is very readable and its arguments are convincing. Lublin has thoroughly mined many Japanese-language primary sources and has constructed a highly sophisticated line of argument. She has succeeded in what the late Mikiso Hane used to call "resurrecting the forgotten women's voices." This book will be very well received by Japanese historians. It deserves to be on every scholar’s bookshelf. -- Louis G. Perez, author of Japan Comes of Age: Mutsu Munemitsu and the Revision of the Unequal Treaties Product Description In 1902 the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) petitioned the Japanese government to stop rewarding good deeds with the bestowal of sake cups. Alcohol production and consumption, its members argued, harmed individuals, endangered public welfare, and wasted vital resources. This campaign was part of a wide-ranging reform program to eliminate prostitution, eradicate drinking, spread Christianity, and improve the lives of women. As Elizabeth Dorn Lublin shows, members did not passively accept and propagate government policy but felt a duty to shape it by defining social problems and influencing opinion. Certain their beliefs and reforms were essential to Japan's advancement, members couched their calls for change in the rhetorical language of national progress. Ultimately, the WCTU’s activism belies received notions of women’s public involvement and political engagement in Meiji Japan. Review "Reforming Japan is a very fine book. Based on an impressive array of Japanese-language sources, Lublin's work is a major English-language study about the initial quarter-century of the Japanese WCTU and the important role played by its leaders in the attempt to influence both public opinion and government into introducing social reforms that would benefit women and children in the new Japan."―Hamish Ion, author of American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73"This excellent work of scholarship addresses a sorely neglected aspect of Japanese and feminist history. Reforming Japan is very readable and its arguments are convincing. Lublin has thoroughly mined many Japanese-language primary sources and has constructed a highly sophisticated line of argument. She has succeeded in what the late Mikiso Hane used to call resurrecting the forgotten women's voices. This book will be very well received by Japanese historians. It deserves to be on every scholar's bookshelf."―Louis G. Perez, author of Japan Comes of Age: Mutsu Munemitsu and the Revision of the Unequal Treaties Book Description This fascinating study of Christian moral and social reformers challenges received notions about women and politics in Meiji Japan. About the Author Elizabeth Dorn Lublin is an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University.