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Views of Korea and Japan
94.R.22
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Views of Korea and Japan
Identifier/Call Number: 94.R.22
Physical Description:
1 Linear Feet
Date: 1910
Abstract: An album of 36 views of daily life in Holkol and Pyongyang, Korea, and ten views of Kobe and Kyoto,
Japan, taken by four traveling missionary women.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
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Language of Material:
English .
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 1994.
The collection was digitized in 2023 and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/94r22
Arranged in a single series: Series I. Views of Korea and Japan, 1910.
Hol Kol Mine is a gold and copper mine located 75 kilometers southeast of Pyongyang in what is now North Korea. In the mid-
nineteenth century the mine
was operated by the Korean royal family, and then by a succession of British, Korean, American, and Japanese interests during
the early twentieth
century. The album was compiled by a young American woman identified only as Ethel, who was perhaps the daughter or wife of
an Ameican mining official,
residing in the mining village of Holkol (Hol-gol, North Korea).
Views of Korea and Japan, 1910, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 94.R.22.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa94r22
The finding aid was written by Beth Ann Guynn in 2023.
Scope and Content of Collection
The album contains 36 gelatin silver snapshots of daily life in the mining village of Holkol (Hol-gul, North Korea) and neighboring
Pyongyang, and ten
views of Kobe and Kyoto, Japan.
The photographs of Holkol depict life in that mining village, including cutting ice blocks for summer; activities at a grist
mill; Korean villagers,
clothes washing on the hillside, and other scenes. Views in Pyongyang include the Tahlong (Tatong) River bridge. Five American
and/or European women,
including the compiler, appear in various photographs throughout the album. The photographs of Japan appear to be from a trip
that Ethel, the compiler
of the album, took to that country with her mother and include a view of Kobe and its harbor taken from Suwayama Park; rickshaw
stands; and other street
scenes in Kobe, Kyoto, and Kamakura.
The leporello album is bound in green cloth with "Photo Album" in debossed gilt letters on the front cover. The album comprises
24 pages with
photographs pasted on both sides of each page. The inscription on the first page (1 recto) reads "Hokol, Korea, November 25,
1910. The inscription on
the second page (2 recto) reads: Birthday greetings / from / Ethel and her fiery steed. Ethel, the young American woman who
compiled the album for her
friend is depicted in Holkol standing with another woman (page 10 verso), and again in Kobe, riding in an open carriage with
her mother (page 20
verso).
Titles for most of the photographs are from the early twentieth century captions written in American English on the mounts
below the images.
Consequently, some of the language in the titles, such as coolies (from the Hindi and Urdu word qulī which became an offensive
term used for unskilled,
low-wage workers) is now considered to be outdated, racist, or offensive.
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Subjects and Indexing Terms
Japan -- Description and travel
Korea -- Description and travel
Photograph albums -- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints -- Japan -- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints -- Korea -- 20th century
Snapshots -- Korea -- 20th century
Snapshots -- Japan -- 20th century
Accordion album bindings -- 20th century