Abstract
National expeditions aimed at the discovery of uncharted lands, new sea passages, and the elusive North Pole dominate the early history of Arctic exploration. It was in reaction against these costly expeditions that Karl Weyprecht (1838–81) initiated what became the first International Polar Year (IPY). Based on his experiences in the far north, he declared that the primary purpose of exploration should not be geographic conquest, but rather the pursuit of scientific knowledge gained through international cooperation. Despite the strength and resilience of Weyprecht’s original vision, national ambitions have challenged the core spirit of international cooperation in the polar years from the very beginning. This tension between nationalism and internationalism is particularly evident in the IPY contribution of Japan. Perhaps more than any other nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Japanese were obsessed with achieving both national development and international, namely Euro-American, acceptance. The polar years played a significant role in the pursuit of both goals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See James Rodger Fleming and Cara Seitchek, “Advancing Polar Research and Communicating Its Wonders: Quests, Questions, and Capabilities of Weather and Climate Studies in International Polar Years,” in I. Krupnik, M. A. Lang, and S. E. Miller, eds., Smithsonian at the Poles: Contributions to International Polar Year Science (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2009), 1–12. There is slight variation in the official number of expeditions, but most sources cite 11 nations operating 14 stations.
Fukuzawa’s 1872 work Kummō kyūri zukai (Illustration of Natural Science) is particularly concerned with this theme. Yajima Suketoshi, “The European Influence on Physical Sciences in Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 19, no. 3/4 (1964): 350
Carmen Blacker, The Japanese Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 10.
Kishō-chō, Kisho hyakunen shi, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Nihon kishō gakkai, 1975): vol.1, 95.
The minister to France was Ida Yuzuru (1838–1889). Chijiki kansokujo, ed., Chijiki kansoku hyakunen shi (Ibaraki: Chijiki kansokujo, 1983), 2.
The Akasaka facility, called Jikishikenjo, was built on land that is today used for U.S. embassy housing. Fukushima Naoshi, “Kokusai chikyuu kansoku no rekishi to hyakunen kinen jigyou,” in Nagata Takeshi and Fukushima Naoshi, eds., Chikyuu kansoku hyaku-nen (Tokyo: Tokyo University, 1983), 5; Chijiki kansoku hyakunen shi, 2.
There are 2,050 documented cases of foreign employees hired by the Japanese government, but some estimates place the number at more than 5,000. Figures are imprecise because of missing records. There were also many thousands of privately hired foreign teachers and experts. Of significance to later polar years, an oyatoi named Henry Batson Joyner had already proposed the construction of Japan’s first meteorological observatory in 1873. Ardath W. Burks, “The West’s Inreach: The Oyatoi Gaikokujin,” in Ardath W. Burks, ed., The Modernizers: Overseas Students, Foreign Employees, and Meiji Japan (Boulder: Westview Books, 1985), 194. In addition to 15 full professors of science, there were also four Japanese assistant professors.
Kenkichiro Koizumi, “The Emergence of Japan’s First Physicists: 1868–1900,” in Russel McCormmach, ed., Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 6 (Princeton: University Press: 1975), 103. For Naumann, see Edmund Naumann, “The Physical Geography of Japan, with Remarks on the People,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography 9, no. 2 (February 1887): 102.
For Naumann, see Edmund Naumann, “The Physical Geography of Japan, with Remarks on the People,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography 9, no. 2 (February 1887): 102.
Heinrich Edmund Naumann was in Japan for a total of 10 years: 1875–85. It is believed that his assistant-turned-rival, Harada Toyokichi (1860–94), persuaded the government to terminate his contract. Tanimoto Tsutomu, “Nauman no Nihon guntō kōzō ron,” Shizen 3 (March 1983): 82–83;
H.J. Jones, Live Machines: Hired Foreigners and Meiji Japan (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980), 86.
For the official account of the expedition, see Nankyoku Tanken Kōenkai, Nankyokki (Tokyo: Nankyoku Tanken Kōenkai, 1913).
J. A. Fleming, “The Proposed Second International Polar Year,” Geographical Review 22, no. 1 (January 1932): 131; Kishō hyakunen shi (1975): vol.1, 193.
For Tanakadate’s early work, see Cargill G. Knott and Tanakadate Aikitsu, “A Magnetic Survey of All Japan,” The Journal of the College of Science, Imperial University, Japan 2, no. 2 Tokyo (1888): 163–262.
For Nobel Prize nomination, see James R. Bartholomew, “Japanese Nobel Candidates in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” Osiris 2nd series, 13 (1998): 240.
Also see Kenkichiro, 72–82. For role in IPY, see Okada Takematsu, Sokkō sadan (Tokyo: Iwatari, 1937), 306
Ono Suminosuke, “Dai nikai kyokuchi kansoku honpō kansoku no gaiyō hōkoku,” Nihon gakujutsu kyōkai hōkoku 9, no.4 (October 1934): 148.
Nagano Hiroshi and Sanō Yasuharu, Hasegawa Mankichi to chikyū denjiki gaku (Tokyo: Kaisei, 2002), 31–37; Tōhoku Daigaku gojū-nen shi vol.1 (Sendai: University Press, 1960), 697; Ono, “Dai nikai kyokuchi kansoku,” 148.
Okada Takematsu (1874–1956), chief of the Central Meteorological Observatory, presented these findings at the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in Lisbon. The April storm was not the largest of the years’ magnetic storms. That honor would go to a May 1, 1933, storm. Chijiki kansoku hyakunen shi, 12. Ono, “Dai nikai kyokuchi kansoku,” 151. Laursen used the example of Japan in a speech before The International Council of Scientific Unions that was then used in the introduction to the Bibliography for the Second International Polar Year (Copenhagen, 1951). It finally appears in V. Laursen, “The Second International Polar Year,” in Annals of the International Geophysical Year 1 (London: Pergamon Press, 1959), 232.
This was before the birth of mountaineering in Japan, and Nonaka climbed to the summit without the use of crampons or other such aids. When his father learned of the plan to winter at the summit, he is reported to have said that “I raised him to rise above his peers, but the summit of Fuji is a bit too high.” Nonaka Itaru, Fuji Annai (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2006; Shunshōdō, 1901), 244.
Harold Spencer Jones, “The Inception and Development of the International Geophysical Year,” in Annals of the International Geophysical Year 1 (1959), 383–385; Japanese Contribution to the International Geophysical Year 1957/1958, 2 vols. (Tokyo: National Committee of the International Geophysical Year, Science Council of Japan, 1958–1960), 89–93. The Japanese national committee is referred to as the “IGY Tokubetsu Iinkai.”
The CSAGI met in Brussels in 1952 and in Rome in 1953. Nagata was not selected as the leader of the 140° east meridian group until the 1955 Brussels meeting. In 1956, Japan became a World Data Center for regional observations in several areas, including geomagnetism and nuclear radiation. Harold Spencer Jones, “The Inception and Development of the International Geophysical Year,” in Annals of the International Geophysical Year 1 (1959), 384–385, 393, 404, 411–412.
The United States’ own plans for equatorial observations put a quick end to Japanese ambitions. M. Nicolet, “The International Geophysical Year Meetings,” in Annals of the International Geophysical Year 2A (London: Pergamon Press, 1959), 35
Shibata Tetsuji, “Nankyoku koto hajime: kakenda otoko no tondemo nai hassō,” in Ono Nobuo and Shibata Tetsuji, eds., Nippon nankyoku kansokutai: ningen dorama 50 nen, (Tokyo: Maruzen, 2006), 10
Monbushō, Nankyoku roku nen shi: nankyoku chiiki kansoku jigyō hōkoku sho (Tokyo: Ōkurashō, 1964), 2.
The Japanese did not attend the first Antarctic conference and instead cabled their interest in sending an expedition to the Knox Coast. The Americans and Soviets opposed the request, citing their own intent to establish a station. Yet, despite denying the Japanese access, neither nation followed through with a base of their own. At the second conference, in addition to Prince Harald Coast, the Japanese stated their willingness to go to Cape Adare. Once again, however, several bases were already planned in the vicinity of the cape. The conference thus resolved that the Japanese should go to the Prince Harald Coast as it lay center to the largest gap (more than 1,000 miles) between geophysical year stations. M. Nicolet, “The International Geophysical Year Meetings,” in Annals of the International Geophysical Year 2B (London: Pergamon Press, 1959), 397, 424–425, 430; Monbushō, Nankyoku roku nen shi, 261; Taniguchi Zenya, personal correspondence (August 5, 2007).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Roger D. Launius, James Rodger Fleming, and David H. DeVorkin
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stevenson, W.R. (2010). The Polar Years and Japan. In: Launius, R.D., Fleming, J.R., DeVorkin, D.H. (eds) Globalizing Polar Science. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230114654_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230114654_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-10533-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11465-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)