| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1985: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1984: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Three main objectives of the present study are as follows: 1) to rearrange as well as start an analysis of the voluminous internal documents of Showa Denko K. K. that I had collected in 1982; and 2) to supplement my data collection with those of Chisso Corporation and other manufacturers, and 3) to interview those familliar with the history of the electrochemical industry and the former employees.
As for the first objective, all the photocopied materials have been sorted out, and binding each set under main subject headings is almost finished. I am now in the process of making the card catalogs for detailed contents of the data collection. However, it should be noted that writing an analysis of such internal company documents will have to be delayed for a while in consideration for those who had made my access to them possible. Also, I need more detailed background information of the industry in general and the history of Showa Denko K. K. in particular. Therefore, I plan to continue th
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is part of my reserach in relation to the second part above.
As for the supplementary materials from other manufacturers, I have been able to collect the corporate history books, including the company newspaper published by the Oumi factory of Denki Kagaku Kogyo K. K. whose similar acetaldehyde process caused the Minamata disease, as well as many photographs since its establishment in pre-Wirkd War II.
Although the only available data on Chisso Corporation heretofore was its company history book published in 1937, a recent publication in a series, A Testimony of the History of Nihon Chisso written by its former employees, has been a welcome addition to my collection. Likewise, I am pleased with a recent acquisition of 30-Year History of the Pharmaceutical Divisin published in 1957, an equivalent to the company history book of Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.'s Nobeoka Factory, which had seceded itself from Chisso Corporation under the decartelization of the Zaibatsu after World War II.
Since it seemed indispensable to look into the historical background of the utility companies to analyze the prewar electrochemical industry, I made a special effort to collect the company history books of various electric utility companies in Kyushu pertaining to the prewar Chisso Corporation. Based on such materials I published the forth paper listed on the reverse page. The first three papers were based on the internal documents collected in Kumamoto and Niigata.
I hope to be able to explicate the overall factors that have led to the emergence of the Minamata disease along the further analyses of Showa Denko K. K.'s and other manufacturers' company documents. Less
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