It is the year’s end and I’d like to thank you for your support of the Old Photos of Japan newsletter about daily life in old Japan. We are on an amazing journey.
Since starting last year I have sent out 65 newsletters, about one every 11 days. They covered the 1923 earthquake, girls working as indentured nursemaids, bathing, open hearths, and many other fascinating topics.
To bring old Japan to life I have tried to balance three main ingredients:
Rare vintage images — mostly bought and scanned by myself
In-depth research — transparently shared in footnotes
Authentic quotes — with insights from people who lived the topic
This is done through tons of research in primary documents, published sources, and old maps—I am a regular at Tokyo’s National Diet Library.
Your personal museum for the visual heritage of daily life in old Japan — brought to the comfort of your home.
Next to Old Photos of Japan I also run the image archive MeijiShowa. This is partly to help fund this costly undertaking a little, but mainly to make my images seen and shared. Far too many collections are hidden away.
To make MeijiShowa better for researching Japan I want to redesign it. It now feels a bit too much like a stock photo site. Thousands of my images also still need to be scanned, researched, captioned and added.
However, finding, acquiring, scanning, restoring, researching and conserving vintage images, and making the imagery and research available online is time-consuming work that requires much money and effort. Not to mention equipment, storage space, and IT-infrastructure.
I do not charge for access, sell user data, or run ads so need your help.
If you enjoy or value my work please support Old Photos of Japan. With your help this great heritage of Japan can live a new life.
And by the way, December 24 happens to be my birthday! 😉
If you are already supporting, my sincerest thanks. No need to do more!
Best Wishes for the Holidays!
In the spirit of the season I also have a small holiday present for you. Early this year, the Dutch embassy in Tokyo published the first complete history of Dutch diplomatic locations in Japan. I wrote this booklet after two years of very intensive research.
It seems like an obscure topic, but it introduces fascinating aspects of Japan and shows a part of history we rarely hear about.
Download the pdf file here:
I recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader (free). Set the Page Display in the View menu to Two-page view. It will look like the samples below.
Single-page view is fine too, but it lessens the impact of the beautiful design and large images covering two pages.
🎂Happy birthday! 🥳 🎉
Thank you for the lovely book! I look forward to reading it. Happy Holidays!