I’m not much of a collector—not like my husband, who has more than one hundred college basketball T-shirts all hung in our second bedroom’s closet. But there has been one item that has stuck since my elementary school years—postcards. First, it was postcards that my friends and acquaintances had sent to me on their summer travels to such places like Formosa (present-day Taiwan), Japan, Holland, and less faraway places like San Francisco.
Years later, when I was working on an exhibition related to Descanso’s Japanese tea house’s 50th anniversary, I observed how historian Kendall Brown was able to use his extensive postcard collection of historic Japanese-style gardens in America as valuable ephemera. The same goes for Geraldine Knatz, former Los Angeles port director and USC professor, in her work to preserve maritime history.
As a result, for the past decade or so, I’ve been regularly dipping into eBay and attending Archive Bazaar on a hunt for historic postcards that either provide me an obscure, precious, or amusing record of a past phenomenon or setting, mostly related to either Southern California or Japanese American history. I don’t necessarily have that many, but it’s enough to fulfill that desire to perhaps organize uncertain times. (The best financial deal I ever made was buying a Hotel Cecil postcard for two dollars, while eBay sellers are currently offering it for $50 to $75.)
And while I’ll be using this column to write about Pasadena’s history, I’ll also be alternating my focus to recently acquired postcards outside of the city. Today’s installment will be on this charming postcard that I acquired earlier this year.
I was attracted to this postcard because it reminded me of the Japanese “healing” novels (see New York Times article) that seem to be the rage in translation in the U.S. right now. I, in fact, had the opportunity to interview the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series author Toshikazu Kawaguchi at Japan Foundation Los Angeles last October and got to witness firsthand the passionate response of these novels’ readers. They tend to be episodic and sentimental without the twists and turns of thrillers.
As a result, this three-story retail store, with its name written at the top, Yamato, Inc., 635–637 So. Broadway, Los Angeles, immediately captivated my attention. At the bottom of the postcard was this message: “Visitors Welcome.” I pictured romance between one sales clerk and perhaps a sales girl carrying a perfectly wrapped piece of Japanese merchandise. But when I did a deeper dive in Los Angeles–based newspapers, it became quite clear that “The Yamato” was all about business, and many times financial challenges caused this “largest Japanese bazaar in the West” to place advertisements for help.
The first serious call for assistance was publicized in the Los Angeles Evening Express on October 27, 1909. “The Yamato Must Go to the Wall . . . Unless We Can Raise $30,000 Cash at Once” was the message. More than $150,000 worth of Christmas inventory was being held by the custom house at San Francisco. Custom duties were outstanding, in addition to payment to shippers. “We cannot do any holiday business unless we get these goods. We cannot do business unless we pay our drafts,” the company announced.
The cause of this financial misfortune was identified as the closure of the Yamato’s Japanese American bank based in Los Angeles. The Panic of 1907, the first worldwide financial crisis of the 20th century, involved the instability of trust companies, leading to the establishment of well-known institutions such as the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. This crisis led to a significant drop in industrial output and real Gross National Product.
Immigrant banks fell victim to this “panic,” and the New York Times on October 20, 1909, announced the closure of Japanese banks in Utah and two in Sacramento. This eventually led to the consolidation of Japanese immigrant capital into Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB).
As a result, Yamato’s cry for help was justified, and on November 5, 1909, in the Evening Express, the store announced: “We extend our heartfelt thanks for the prompt response to our appeal for cash. The money is raised, the drafts paid, the ‘THE YAMATO’ has entirely recovered from its sudden misfortune, and now stands as firm as before, with a bright future before it.” There was also a postscript with a typo that perhaps foreshadowed its eventual fate: “First and Last Fatal Sale of The Yamato will close Saturday, November 6th, at 10 p.m.”
I was intrigued by the location of the Yamato—around the intersection of Broadway and Sixth Street. I largely know Broadway over the past 30 years as a street crowded with discount stores aimed toward Spanish-speaking customers. It has been going through gentrification over the past decades, with lofts and fancy eateries coming and going.
But there are also signs of its legacy as a fancy entertainment district by the still-extant grand movie theatres, some that Sessue Hayakawa graced in his signature silent films. Los Angeles City Hall was located on South Broadway from 1888 to 1928, and so were several various Japanese establishments and businesses, including The Rafu Shimpo. Broadway and Sixth seems to have been a popular destination for shoppers in search of Asian artwork, clothing, and curios.
In fact, in the Yamato’s ad in the Los Angeles Times on July 24, 1910, it claimed that “in 1907 there were 17 Japanese stores on Broadway—and now only a few are left.” In a Los Angeles directory, the following stores on South Broadway selling Japanese and Chinese goods were listed in addition to the Yamato: the Kimono Store (557), Naman DK (711), the Nippon Co. (703), Oriental Company (719), and Takahashi Brothers and Anraku Co. (557 and 703). A large competitor on the same block as Yamato was Sing Fat Co. (615), a very successful self-described “Chinese bazaar.”
It is quite amazing that the demand for Asian art goods would draw this volume of enterprises, even with its reduced number in 1910. The items carried by these establishments included kimono, porcelain, lacquerware, bamboo baskets, and embroidery. Toys and calendars would serve as holiday gifts.
The Yamato stood out from the rest in its offerings of Chinese carved wood furniture, brass and bronze goods, and a tea garden on the second floor. Like commercial Japanese-style gardens such as the one established by G.T. Marsh in Pasadena from 1904–1910, “charming Japanese ladies” would serve tea and rice cakes to customers, predominantly women. The Yamato advertised various promotions to groups such as the Elks Club, promising “a pretty illustrated silk fan will be given free with every purchase during Elks’ Week.”
For its Thanksgiving sale and appreciation to customers for saving them from financial ruin, a bag of Japanese rice cakes was offered to each customer purchasing goods over twenty-five cents. Moreover, as an added incentive, thousands of chrysanthemums were used to decorate the showroom floors.
In 1910, the Yamato boomed with growth, even expanding with another shop on the Pike in Long Beach near Hotel Virginia. This location also had a roof tea garden. The following year, they acquired the entire fine art collection of a Broadway store owned by N. Sato that was closing and conducted an auction at cut-rate prices. Perhaps this was a sign that the craze for Japanese goods was starting to falter.
Information about the owners was a bit opaque and not identified even in the 1911 Rafu Shimpo directory. Just ten days after the announcement of the auction came news that the Yamato would close its Long Beach location.
In a Los Angeles Times article on July 18, 1917, a person connected to the Yamato was finally named—general manager Uyeno. The Yamato would be moving next to a retail store, Ville de Paris, at 412–414 West Seventh Street. Then, a year later, with an announcement in the Los Angeles Evening Post-Record, it became clear that the New Yamato could not continue to be in business.
In a section titled “A Plain Statement of Facts,” came this message: “The stockholders of The New Yamato, Inc., are Japanese of education and refinement, struggling to get on in this country. They came here, invested their money, and for a time were fairly successful. Each man is an honest, conscientious worker, experienced in his particular line.”
Then came the bad news: “A general depression in business followed—then came drastic government restriction [a war measure] on the importation of their best-selling lines of Oriental goods.” In March 1918, creditors closed the business, and a trustee’s sale of stock and fixtures was held in hopes of recouping the remaining loss of $40,000.
In contrast to the early 1900s, the demand for things Japanese had certainly waned, affected by World War I trade policies. I’m glad that I have this postcard of The Yamato during better times, a reminder that consumer trends can come and go—sometimes affected by larger happenings outside of our control.
© 2025 Naomi Hirahara
