Takako Day

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5. Floyd Dell

Floyd Dell, an Illinoian and editor of Friday Literary Review, a weekly supplement of The Chicago Evening Post, also played a big role in Maedako’s career as a writer in the U.S. Dell was involved with Friday Literary Review from its beginning in March 1909¹ and was one of the main instigators of the Chicago literary renaissance that set a new standard for Chicago literary criticism.²

Dell was involved with The Progressive Woman as well. He had his own column, “Books and Writers, A Causerie” in The Progressive Woman from ...

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3. Suicidal temptations and rebirth

By June 1909, having lost hope and with no meaning to his life, Maedako attempted to commit suicide four times.¹ Ten years later, he reported that the experience was like being a gecko on the walls of hell, given six dollars a week, hanging upside down with his tail in the air, and staring into the depths of the abyss.² He bought a pistol and looked into trying to shoot himself but could not do it. Then he went to Gary, Indiana, and rented a boat to row out onto ...

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, once proclaimed “America’s most influential proletarian novel,”¹ was translated into the Japanese language by proletariat writer Hiroichiro Maedako and published for the first time in Japan in 1925. In a letter dated October 12, 1925 that appeared in the book, Sinclair told Maedako: “I shall be very glad indeed to give you the right to translate and publish The Jungle in Japan, for the period of five years.” According to the letter, Sinclair had previously given permission to translate and publish the novel to a man named Yasotaro Morri at Kokusai News Agency ...

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6. Shoyu forever

In August 1907, the year that the Takeda store came to Chicago, the Japanese YMCA, which was later directed by Rev. Misaki Shimazu, opened a dormitory for Japanese students at 3036 Groveland Avenue.¹ Komataro Katataye, another minister who was educated at the University of Chicago like Shimazu, had converted his home at 2938 Prairie to a lodging called the Japanese Mission Home for Japanese students in 1906. The Japanese Mission Home later grew to become the Japanese Christian Association at 4352 Cottage Grove, which was run by Shigeji Tani and had lodging facilities ...

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3. Shoyu manufacturers in Chicago: Shinsaku Nagano 

Hiroichiro Maedako, a socialist writer who lived in Chicago from 1907 to 1915, described Japanese production of shoyu in Chicago in his novel, Dai Bohu-U Jidai as follows. “Do you know that guy, Kimura? He has an office downtown and is in the food business. Kimura says he has good news and asks me, ‘don’t you want in on this?’ A lot of Japanese shoyu is now being sold in the US, but he says that shoyu can easily be made without using soybeans. To make a long story ...