Rainy Season

We don't have rain these last few days and we can enjoy sunny days.

It's getting hot and it was Geshi, the summer solstice the other day.

We can enjoy the changing seasons. How have you been lately?

 

Hydrangeas have bloomed in Sekitan Kinen Park next to Tagawa City Coal Mining Historical Museum in the rainy season, and they are overblown now.

 

Some cosmoses have already started to bloom.

 

You can enjoy the four seasons in the Park.

 

Notices will be posted on our website and blog, so stay tuned!

We are looking forward to your visit.

Special Exhibition Will End Soon

Hi, there!

Tagawa City Coal Mining Historical Museum is open as usual.

We would like to inform you of our special exhibition which will end on July 26 in today's weblog.

 

Special exhibition related to what happened in Tagawa in 1964 is being held in our museum. As you know, first Olympic Games in Tokyo was held in 1964. Mitsui Tagawa Coal Mine was closed in the same year while people in Japan were in a festival mood in the Olympic Games. You can look back on those days with our exhibitions.

At that time, Sakubei Yamamoto started to create coal mining paintings with water color. First, he painted children in coal pits and then works inside the coal pits. We exhibit his works which were painted around 1964 till July 26. You can look at how children played in Chikuho area in old days.
Note: We exhibit 30 replicas and 2 originals of his pictures.

 

You can look at his 585 pictures which were registered in UNESCO with English translation below website.

http://www.y-sakubei.com/english/index.html

 

Please wear masks and keep social distance when you visit our museum.

Detailed Contents of Sakubei Paintings (1)

We are going to introduce the detailed contents of Sakubei paintings in the Sakubei Yamamoto Collection, UNESCO Memory of the World, from this time as we told you before.

Among the Sakubei Yamamoto’s 589 pictorial records of coal mines, which were registered as Memory of the World in 2011, our museum holds 306 black and white ink and 279 water color paintings.

Sakubei started his full-dress creative activity when he was around 66. His early pictorial records of coal mines produced around 1958 to 1963 are solely drawn in ink in sketch books approximately 21 by 30 cm. 

He produced pictorial records of coal mines in water colors later around 1964 to 1967 by request of late Toshio Nagasue who was a former director at the Tagawa City and supplied Sakubei with drawing materials. These water colr paintings are drawn on drawing paper approximately 38 by 54 cm (partly approximately 25 by 35 cm).

Sakubei reportedly produced more than 1,000 pictorial records in water colors until he died in 1984 at age 92. They were given to many bodies and individuals including us and are treasured.

Most of his pictorial records other than those held by our museum are water colors produced after 1970.

His pictorial records of coal mines in water colors are almost reproductions of those in ink and their subjects are nearly the same as those of the ink paintings except for a small part.

The characteristics of the pictorial records as Memory of the World are: (1) the black and white ink paintings as prototypes of the water color paintings are held in block; (2) the water color paintings are early works among those known to the society as well as include almost all subjects.

By classification, the subjects of registered 585 items of pictorial records are as shown in the list below.



Sakubei’s works are referred from the viewpoints of records of Chikuho Coalfield and art. We will introduce you them, hereafter, according to both of the above aspects. 

日本語訳はコチラから

Significance of "Sakubei Yamamoto Collection"

Hi, there!

We wrote about the universal value of the pictorial records of coal mines in the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” as “visual and specific records by a former pit worker who experienced mining underground” in our last blog titled ‘Valuableness of Sakubei Yamamoto Collection.’ We would like to investigate their appeal further this time.

The “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” is introduced in the website of UNESCO Memory of the World as follows:

 

---

”The collection of annotated paintings and diaries of Sakubei Yamamoto is a personal testimony to the developments during the late Meiji era and into the later twentieth century, when the industrial revolution was still being acted out in the coal mining industry of Chikuho.

The collection combines naive art with text, informed by diaries written during the events being depicted, painted by a man who lived through the events and worked literally at the coal-face.

It is highly unusual in a Japanese context as a private record created by a working man, whereas the dominant records of the period are official government and business papers.

The Sakubei paintings have a rawness and immediacy that is totally missing from the official record, and the collection is a totally authentic personal view of a period of great historical significance to the world”

The great significance of the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” lies in the fact that it is recorded by a person who lived through the main part of the history of Japanese coal mining as a pit worker in the Chikuho Coal Field which played the most important role in the progress of ‘Japanese industrial revolution’ and modernization. The worldwide importance of the above progress is represented by “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining,” which were registered onto the UNESCO World Heritage List in July, 2015.

This collection was also highly prized because it accords with the criterion in the General Guidelines that goes: ‘It charts the evolution of thought, discovery and achievement of human society.’
Additionally, the collection is regarded as “memory shared by a group of people” who were nameless and supported modernization by engaging in coal mining as well as personal memory.

We can find, in the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection,” the same significance as what we find in “Diaries of Anne Frank (Netherlands),” which were also inscribed onto the Memory of the World Register as not only personal diaries of a young girl but also “collective memory” shared by those who were persecuted.

We are going to introduce the detailed contents of Sakubei paintings in the collection next time.

日本語訳はコチラ

Valuableness of Sakubei Yamamoto Collection

Hi, there!

As we promised you in the previous blog of ours, we will introduce the ‘value’ and ‘appeal’ of the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” to you from this time downward.

The “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” is composed of a total of 697 materials including 589 pictorial records of coal mines, diaries, memorandum books, other manuscripts, and memorials. The bare bones of its appeal lie in the “pictorial records of coal mines” in ink and/or watercolors.

The subject matter of these pictorial records is focused on the details of mining by hand and pit workers’ life at small and middle-scale coal pits mainly from around 1900 to 1920, which Sakubei Yamamoto (1892-1984) experienced himself from age 7 or 8 to his youth.

His pictorial records of mechanized pits in the Showa era (1926-1989) are small in number, and Sakubei says, “The reason is that it is more suitable to use cameras in recording coal mining in the era.”

Indeed, we can hardly find photographs especially taken underground among records of Japanese coal mines in the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras.

Even in Britain where the industrial revolution started earliest in the world, there are few pictorial and photographic records of early underground mining work left except a few drawings by professionals or some photographs of the outsides of coal mines and miners on the surface.

One reason is that it is necessary to use flash lights in photographing dark underground and that the magnesium flash light in the old days and later flash bulbs could cause gas or coal dust explosions. Even in the days when the battery-powered strobe light became available, cameras brought underground were frequently clogged up with coal dust without operative dustproof camera cases.

The above reasons made the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” as “visual and specific records by a former pit worker who experienced mining underground” extremely exceptional and valuable worldwide.

The collection is composed of very important materials from which we can learn how pit workers at that time worked and mined coal, which became the ‘fuel’ or motive power for the industrial revolution and modernization of Japan.

We will tell you more details about the characteristics and appeal of the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” next time!

日本語訳はコチラ

Sakubei Yamamoto Collection-Memory of the Word

Hi, there!

The ‘main building’ of our museum is now closed and under construction for repair, and some replicas of the pictorial records of coal mines included in the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection,” Memory of the World are exhibited in a room of the pertaining ‘reconstructions of  miners’ row houses.’



The “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” is composed of 697 materials including ‘pictorial records of coal mines,’ ‘diaries,’ as well as  ‘memorandum books and other manuscripts’ which were left by Sakubei Yamamoto who worked as a pit worker and depicted, according to his memory, coal mines in the Chikuho Coalfield in the period from around 1890 until wartime between 1930 and 1945.

Among the above materials, a total of 627 items including ‘585 pictorial records of coal mines,’ ‘6 diaries,’ as well as ’36 materials composed of memorandum books and other manuscripts’ are held by our museum, and 70 other materials are held by Fukuoka Prefectural University.

Why were these works left by a nameless pit worker registered as “Memory of the World?”

The ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining,’ which were inscribed onto the World Heritage List on July 5, 2015, includes 23 heritage sites in 8 areas.

At first, Tagawa City also applied for inscribing two types of things, ‘Ita Shaft Head Frame of the Old Mitsui Tagawa Mining Station’ and the ‘No.1 and No. 2 Chimneys (Two Chimneys) of the same station’ onto the recommendation of the above sites for World Heritage as buildings representing the Chikuho Coalfield.

Unfortunately, they were excluded from the recommendation, because they lack affiliated facilities which originally accompanied to them, such as the ‘winding machine station’ for the ‘shaft head frame’ and the ‘boiler house’ for the ‘two chimneys,’ hence it is impossible to explain the functions of the buildings.

However, Sakubei Yamamoto’s pictorial records of coal mines attracted attention of experts from abroad, who visited Tagawa in the process of investigation into the above sites.

On recommendation of a few experts including Dr. Michael Pearson from Australia to apply for the inscription of the pictorial records onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, which is aimed at accelerating the preservation of the world’s documentary heritage, Tagawa City and Fukuoka Prefectural University cooperatively sent the letter of recommendation to UNESCO for the registration of the collection. The application was recognized on May 25, 2011, and the collection became the first Memory of the World in Japan.

In this way, the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” was unexpectedly given an opportunity and became known to the whole world.

We would like to talk about its value and appeal next time!

★日本語訳はコチラから

"The poor goddess of the moon must be suffocating from smoke!"

Hi,　there!　

A pair of huge chimneys as modernization-related assets soar into the air in the same way as the shaft head frame which we introduced you the other day, in the Tagawa City Coal Mining Memorial　Park　where our museum stands.



These two chimneys were completed in 1908 as parts of the Mitsui Tagawa Mining Station which was under construction at that time.

The chimneys 45.45 meters tall and 3.1 meters and 5.8 meters in diameter at the top and bottom are among the largest ones as existing chimneys in the Meiji era (1868-1912).

As many as 213,000 firebricks were used to build them and 181,000 of them are reportedly from Germany.

The bricks of the lower part of the “No.1 chimney” with no overhang at its foot were laid in Flemish bond and the upper part in English bond. 
The bricks of the "No.2 chimney" with a surrounding overhang at its foot were thoroughly laid in English bond. 

      

Flemish bond was popular around 1890, in which bricks are laid so that their long sides and short sides appear alternately on the surface of each tier.

In English bond, two types of tiers appear alternately. One is laid so that only long sides appear on the surface, and the other is laid so that only short sides appear.  
The latter is reportedly more durable than the former and the latter was mainly used after around 1900.
It can be said that the trend in bond changed in the middle of the construction of the two chimneys.

Though there is no related facility under the chimneys today, a building called kikan-ba (boiler house) with large boilers once stood there.
Those boilers were similar to the ones used for steam locomotives, in which coal was burnt to make large steam.
The steam was sent to engines to move machines for pertaining facilities including winding machines to move up and down the cages of the “shaft head frames.” 
In short, the chimneys were built to exhaust smoke from the coal burnt in those boilers!

In the lyrics of the “Tanko-bushi Song,” which was born at the coal dressing room of this pit, the following verses are found:

   “The two chimneys are so tall and smoking so badly
     that the poor goddess of the moon must be suffocating from smoke.”

The chimneys must have looked largest of all that they had seen before to the people at that time.
In the Chikuho Coalfield’s heyday, each pit had chimneys in different sizes and the chimneys were the symbols of the pit.

The lyrics of the “Gotton-bushi Song” sung by miners have verses that goes “Akai entotsu meate ni yukeba, kome no mamma ga abare gui,” which mean, “If we get a job at a pit with red brick chimneys, we can earn money enough to eat good rice heartily.” 

Electricity gradually took place of steam in coal mines, and the winding machines in the Ita Pit were electrified in 1952.
However, the boilers of this pit still supplied hot water for the affiliated hospital and baths for miners and their family members after that, too, and one of the chimneys was used alternately.

The chimneys finally stopped smoking in 1964 when this pit was closed.
“The goddess of the moon” above Tagawa was set free from annoying smoke from the chimneys at last!

Huge brick chimneys like these are rare and invaluable in the world today, because most of them were demolished from decrepitude.

Please come to Tagawa and see these great chimneys!


日本語訳はコチラから

What in the world is the shaft head frame?

Hi, there!

This photo shows a steel building of gigantic proportions in the Meiji era (1868-1912),
the “Shaft Head Frame” which soars into the air in the Tagawa City Coal Mining Memorial Park (Sekitan Kinen Koen)
where our museum is located.
It is popular as a symbol of Tagawa City and a building which typifies the good old days of the Chikuho Coalfield.

Now, what in the world do you think the shaft head frame is?

“Shaft” stands for “mineshaft” which means “a deep narrow hole that goes down to a mine (OALD).
“Head frame” is a structure which is built on the mouth of a vertical mineshaft.　Through a vertical shaft, coal is wound up and workers were raised and lowered in a lift (elevator) also called a cage. 
It is a shaft head frame that is built to hang and support the cage.

This remaining shaft head frame was completed in 1909 as the head frame for the Ita No.1 vertical shaft of the Mitsui Tagawa Mining Station (Ita Pit). It is an English-style head frame with backstays and 28.4 meters tall at the maximum. A winding machine pertaining to it was installed in a separate station. It has a pair of backstays on the west side, because the winding machine station was located on the same side to wind up and down a cage supported with wire ropes.

It developed that Mitsui ordered the steel to build this head frame from Alexander Findley & Co Ltd. in Britain.
We can find everywhere on the head frame punch marks to probably show the names of steelmakers as the subcontractors, such as "GLENGARNOCK STEEL," "LANARKSHIRE STEEL Co. Ld.," and "GLASGOW STEEL."

In Japan, the “Imperial Steel Works” with a “blast furnace” of German make came online in Yahata (Yawata) in 1901,aiming to use coal from Chikuho. It would have been natural for Mitsui if they had used domestic steel.

However, it seems that it was advantageous for them, also from the perspective of the term of construction, to import steel for the head frame from a developed country like Britain, because the newly built Steel Works could not supply enough steel to domestic users at first.

There was a vertical shaft approx. 5.5 meters in diameter and approx. 314 meters in operational depth beneath the head frame, and tunnels stretched to coalfaces from the depth.
When the shaft head frame was in operation, a two-storied steel cage went up and down the shaft without break to carry out coal.

By the completion of this shaft and the 2nd one which made the Ita Pit famous as one of the greatest pits with shafts in Japan, western-style mining facilities came into existence also in Tagawa, one of the centers of Chikuho which was the largest coal field areas in this country at that time. 


日本語訳はコチラから

Tagawa City Coal Mining Historical Museum Blog (English)

Tagawa City Coal Mining Historical Museum
(Tagawa-shi Sekitan Rekishi Hakubutsukan)

About us:
Our museum is a public historical museum whose name includes “Sekitan (Coal),” and is located in the Coal Mining Memorial Park (Sekitan Kinen Koen) where the two great chimneys and a shaft head frame sore into the sky. We hold and exhibit the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” which was registered as UNESCO Memory of the World, as well as materials related to the history of the Tagawa area including coal mining.

Unfortunately, our main building is now closed and under construction for repair. Therefore, you can only see the above two chimneys, shaft head frame, a steam locomotive engine used for coal transportation, reproduced miners’ row houses, duplications of selected coal mine paintings included in the “Sakubei Yamamoto Collection” and so on. 


Shaft head frame of the Ita Pit of the old Mitsui Tagawa Mining Station

No.1 and No.2 chimneys of the old Mitsui Tagawa Mining Station

No. 59684 of the Type 9600 steam locomotive engine

Reproduced miners’ row houses

In every season for outings, various amusing events are held in the Coal Mining Memorial Park with a parking space, to which it is a very short walk from JR Ita Station.

Come and see us, and you will surely be enchanted by our city, a former “center of coal mining (tanto).” 

Information:
The museum is open: 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
The museum is closed: Monday
* The museum is open even on Monday when it is a holiday and closed the following Tuesday.
When holidays succeed to the Monday as a holiday, the museum is open on every holiday  and closed the day after the holidays.

* The museum is closed at the beginning and end of the year (January 1-3, December 29-31)
* The museum is temporarily closed on such occasions as changes in exhibits.

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