Remembering the Rickshaw Everyman: Transport, Labor, and Consumer Society in Postwar Japan

Professor Kate McDonald – University of California, Santa Barbara

At the turn of the twentieth century, the rickshaw puller represented the bottom rung of urban life in modern Japan. By the turn of the twenty-first, the rickshaw puller symbolized the essential heritage of the postwar nation. This talk examines the history of the Rickshaw Everyman. Using examples from museums, emerging logistics technology, labor organizing, and urban riots, I show how the rickshaw and the rickshaw puller became powerful targets of memory work as government officials, cultural producers, and transport workers debated whether Japan was a society of consumers or of producers.