Set of 6 Japanese Scale Rules Signed Fujishima
date: label: date made
content: before 1876
name: label: maker
content: Fujishima
notes: label: Description
content: Measuring devices can serve as political symbols. After the Meiji restoration of 1868, Japanese leaders embraced institutions of Western nations, including compulsory elementary education and laboratory training in science and engineering. Japanese instrument makers such as the firm of Kokoudo Fujishima also endeavored to modernize by adopting Western forms of instruments and Western units of measurement. Many Fujishima products thus were divided according to the British inch and the French meter.
label: Description
content: The Japanese Empire Department of Education, established in 1870 in part to ensure the Westernization of Japan's primary, middle, and secondary schools, included Fujishima rules in its display at the 1876 World's Fair, the Centennial Exhibition of Philadelphia. However, the government had not made a clean break with Japanese technology and culture as it existed before the United States opened trade with Japan in the 1850s. Instead, the Department of Education's exhibit also contained instruments marked with traditional Japanese units of measurement, such as the <i>sun</i> and <i>shaku</i>. For instance, see MA.261291, MA.261292, MA.261293, and MA.261299. Objects such as MA.261284 and MA.261294 combined Eastern and Western units of measurement.
label: Description
content: This set of six bamboo scales consists of four rulers that are just over 12" (about 31 cm) long, one that is 7-3/4" (19.7 cm), and one that is 2-3/16" (15.6 cm). They are stored in a rectangular paulownia wood case that has a red and white sticker on the right end marked: No. 45 (/) M.
label: Description
content: The first rule is marked in Japanese: Made by Fujishima. It is also marked: 20. It has scales for 1-3/16" to the foot and 5/16" to the foot along both edges. The back is marked: FOOT. It is also marked: 1/20. It is also stamped in red: 1.
label: Description
content: The second rule is marked in Japanese: Made by Fujishima. It is also marked: 30000. The scales along both edges are identical, 30 cm long, divided to hundreds, and numbered by three hundreds from 0 to 9,000. The back of the rule is stamped in red: METRE. It is also marked: 1 (/) 30000. It is also marked: 4.
label: Description
content: The third rule is marked in Japanese: Made by Fujishima. It is also marked: 3000. The scales along both edges are identical, 30 cm long, divided to single units, and numbered by twenties from 0 to 900. The back of the rule is stamped in red: METRE. It is also marked: 1 (/) 3000. It is also marked: 4.
label: Description
content: The fourth rule has a scale labeled "250" along one edge. It is divided to fourths and numbered in both directions by ones from 0 to 75. The other edge is divided by halves and numbered by twos from 0 to 150. This scale is labeled: 500. The scales are 30 cm long. The back of the rule is stamped in red: METRE. It is also marked: 1 (/) 250. It is also marked: 1 (/) 500. It is also marked: 8. Handwritten Japanese characters on the back have been translated: Metric Rokuemon.
label: Description
content: The fifth rule has a slot down the middle. Both scales are numbered in Japanese. One scale is 6" (15.3 cm) long and is divided into five <i>sun</i>, a traditional Japanese unit of length that is 1/10 of a <i>shaku</i>, a "foot" measure. The first unit is subdivided into 50 parts, and the other four units are subdivided into 20 parts. The center of each unit is marked with a dot. The other scale is 4-3/8" (10.9 cm) long and is marked at irregular intervals. The back is not marked.
label: Description
content: The scales on the sixth and shortest rule are 2" (5.1 cm) long, divided to single units, and numbered by threes from 0 to 15. The rule is stamped in red on the back: 1 (/) 30000. It is also marked: 6.
label: Description
content: After the fair the U.S. Commissioner of Education, John Eaton, arranged for the transfer of the Japanese Empire Department of Education's entire exhibit to the Bureau of Education (then part of the Department of the Interior) for a planned museum. The museum closed in 1906 due to high maintenance costs, and much of the collection was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1910.
label: Description
content: References: Japan. Department of Education, <i>An Outline History of Japanese Education: Prepared for the Philadelphia International Exhibition, 1876</i> (New York: D. Appleton, 1876), 121–122, 191–202; U.S. Centennial Commission, <i>International Exhibition, 1876. Reports and Awards</i>, ed. Francis A. Walker (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880), viii:143, 335; U.S. Bureau of Education, <i>Annual Report of the Commissioner</i> (1876), ccxi–ccxii; Yukio Nagahira, "Transfer of Scientific Instrument Making Technology from Europe to Japan in Meiji Era," First International Conference on Business and Technology Transfer, Kyoto, Japan, October 20, 2002, http://www.jsme.or.jp/tsd/ICBTT/conference02/YukioNAGAHIRA.html.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Japan
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Rule, Measuring
label: Subject
content: Drafting, Engineering
label: Subject
content: Expositions and Fairs
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Metric System
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content: Science & Mathematics
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content: Scale Rules
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Transfer from Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.261287
label: catalog number
content: 261287
label: accession number
content: 51116
objectType: label: Object Name
content: scale rules, set of
label: Object Name
content: rules, set of
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: bamboo (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4.2 cm x 33 cm x 4.6 cm; 1 21/32 in x 13 in x 1 13/16 in