ANOTHER SPINNING INNOVATION: THE CASE OF THE RATTLING SPINDLE, GARABO, IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE JAPANESE SPINNING INDUSTRY

Through the importation of the state-of-the-art British spinning technology of the late nineteenth century, a new cotton spinning sector began to emerge in Meiji Japan during the 1870s and 1880s. This hectic technology transfer was accompanied by a remarkable domestic technological breakthrough that enabled the local spinners to significantly increase productivity to meet the unprecedented pace of the soaring market demand. This paper examines a relatively neglected case of the rattling spindle, Garabo, which was a product of Japanese native industrial endowments in parallel with the development of the British-style mills.