Tourism and Movement of People

This case explores how travel shaped the visual culture and national identity of Japan from the seventeenth century through the turn of the 20th century. The depictions of elaborate 17th-to 19th-century processions of feudal lords evoke an earlier era of ceremonial travel and spectacle, emphasizing traditional routes and social hierarchies. By the early 20th century, Japan’s interest in travel shifted toward promoting tourism as a tool for modernization and imperial expansion into regions such as Manchuria (Northeast China), Hokkaido and Korea. Postcards, travel guidebooks, and government-issued pamphlets offered carefully curated images and structured itineraries for both foreign and domestic travelers. Together, these materials illustrate changing conceptions of travel, from symbolic displays of authority to strategic assertions of national identity.

An Official Guide to Eastern Asia: Trans-Continental Connections between Europe and Asia, Vol. 1 (Manchuria & Chōsen [Korea])
Japan: Tetsudōin (Imperial Japanese Government Railways), 1913
Call Number: B7328

Aimed at European and American travelers, this six-volume guide was published in 1913 by the Imperial Japanese Government Railways to promote tourism across Japan’s expanding empire. Volume one details routes through colonial Korea and Manchuria (present-day Northeast China), presenting a vision of seamless modern transport. With carefully designed maps and railway lines, this government-backed guidebook reinforced Japan’s imperial claims while shaping how foreigners viewed the regions and thus shows how travel, infrastructure, and media were used to control movement and assert power in the early 20th century.

Thomas Philip Terry (1864–1945)
Terry’s Japanese Empire Including Korea and Formosa
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1914
Call Number: DS805 .T45 1914a

Written by American journalist Thomas Philip Terry, Terry’s Japanese Empire targeted the growing number of international tourists enabled by expanding global transportation networks. Part of a wave of English-language guidebooks, including An Official Guide to Eastern Asia (1914) and Pocket Guide to Japan (1914), Terry’s book featured practical maps, such as the detailed map of Kyoto, which helped form foreign travelers’ impressions of modernizing Japan. Regularly updated editions of this volume appeared through 1933, reflecting its sustained popularity.

Hiroshige Toyokuni meiga hyakushu daimyō dōchū 広重豊国名画百種大名道中
(One Hundred Famous Views of a Daimyo’s Journey by Hiroshige and Toyokuni)
Tokyo: Tōkōen, 1918
Call Number: E3579

This collector’s edition woodblock-print anthology depicts the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi (r. 1858–1866) and his historic 1863 procession from Edo to Kyoto. A republishing of earlier works by artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige II and Utagawa Kunisada, the prints illustrate how feudal processions mobilized thousands of samurai, servants, and traders across Japan’s major highways. Through scenes of both formal ceremony and everyday travel, the collection captures movement not just as spectacle but as a force that shaped early modern Japan’s social, political, and economic landscapes.