Read Chapter 3

The Sino-Chinese War, one of three major developments for Japan in the latter half of the 1890s, stimulated national awareness for Japan, a powerful nation with an imperial colony (Taiwan). This prompted a military buildup financed largely by loans, and turned popular and business attention to Korea and China in terms of markets and geopolitics. The second change was the almost-complete cancellation of the “unequal treaties” that placed control of Japan’s trade in the hands of Western trading partners. The third was the official adoption of a pro-emigration policy implemented through formation of “emigrant companies.” An emigration section was created in the Foreign Office in 1891. After passage of the Emigrants Protection Act in 1894, forty-eight companies were set up; by 1900, eighteen more were added, including two each in 1896 and 1898 and five in 1899. These developments forming the conditions in which Ohashi went off to a distant land to study.

During the 1890s, the combination of urban population growth, transport and communication infrastructure, acquisition and application of technology, and other factors promoted change in industry. Some small or regional industries based on local resources died out. Others transformed, while entirely new industries were established. The times were changing; threats and opportunities were abundant, with great consequences realized.

Thus, the cottage industry that financed Ohashi’s foreign study saw favorable developments, but was also gravely threatened. These conditions, and an economic slump after the costly defeat of Russia (a war fought on credit, with a heavy tax burden placed on the emperor’s people), held formidable risks. It is easy to imagine that these conditions were the cause of Ohashi’s suffering. After the cotton industry in Tsushima suffered setbacks, local initiative led to the establishment of a robust woolen fabric industry that boomed by supplying fabric for military uniforms at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. And in 1901, a method of reeling wool and cotton strands together was developed; serge, the fabric made with this yarn, was favored for military uniforms.

Whether this conversion of a local industry augmented the fortunes of the Ôhashi family is not known. The war made many Japanese businessmen into “overnight millionaires” (narikin, 成金), but there must have been some exceptions. Nor do we know how Tsushima Bank fared after the war. Be that as it may, Sukesaemon was still president of his bank in 1907, when it was absorbed by Nagoya Bank, a change that likely impacted his business life and the family’s position.¹ Furthermore, exporters were vulnerable to the decline in the market price of silver, which Japan used to pay for imports. Overall, economic conditions in Tsushima likely affected the family business. They may have resulted in an end to financial support for the young Ohashi, raising the prospect of penury.

Ohashi’s hardship in Boston did not last long. He abandoned poetry and left for New York. There he became an inventor and went into business making and selling office supplies. Perhaps he was still receiving some financial help from home, at least intermittently, but the situation is unclear. In order to profit from his own initiative and inventions, he established a firm, Hydesaburo Ohashi & Co., with offices and production facilities located at 54 Leonard Street in Manhattan.² He built the business, hired salesmen, and did well. His college pal later wrote, “Through innumerable rebuffs he struggled, arose from disasters and failures, conquered illnes and bankruptcy, struggled desperately—and won.”³ Manufacturing and selling typewriter ribbons and carbon paper was hardly something to be expected of a samurai descendant, even in modern times. Neither that background nor his studies prepared Ohashi for dealing with lawyers and accountants needed to establish and operate a company engaged in manufacturing and sales.

Ohashi was targeting a growth industry. The demand for typing stimulated the need for ribbons and carbon paper.⁴ Population, business growth, and awakened interest in business management and efficiency drove demand for these products. The increasing use of typewriters also created jobs for women, due to a shortage of operators. By 1893—statistics specifically for typewriters were available only from the 1890 Census onward—America had invested about $5 million in typewriters and their parts. Production in 1900 had risen to nearly $7 million, from $3.75 million in 1890, by forty-seven companies concentrated in the Northeast and especially in the state of New York, where Syracuse was the major center for the typewriter industry. These companies manufactured 144,873 typewriters in 1900. Many improvements in design and functionality ensued, and the number of manufacturers increased to eighty-nine in America alone by 1909.⁵ Demand was strong enough to establish companies that specialized in rebuilding typewriters. Annual typewriter sales at that time came to $2 million. The Great War in Europe accelerated the demand for typewriters, for both government and private-sector use. Supply could not always keep up with demand, owing to a shortage of available metal. Meanwhile, demand for ribbons and carbon paper also increased at a rapid rate, prompted by the heightened demand for wartime efficiency. The outlook for the industry certainly was rosy.

Around New York City, the Japanese community included scientists Hideyo Noguchi (野口英世), a bacteriologist who later identified a causative agent of syphilis, and Jôkichi Takamine ( 高峰譲吉), who synthesized diastase and introduced Bakelite to Japan.⁶ The businessmen included representatives of large companies engaged in trading general merchandise, such as the Mitsui company, Morimura Brothers, silk importers like Rioichiro Arai (新井領一郎), and several tea traders. Also present were doctors, lawyers, operators of boarding houses and restaurants, purveyors of Japanese foods, farmers, a horticulturist, a laundryman, a dentist, a bath house operator, an importer of shoe brushes, and even a sole proprietorship that made glass wind chimes—not to overlook a number of sellers of handicrafts, antiques, and art objects. In 1894, a Harper’s Weekly article describing a visit to the Nippon Club on Twenty-Fifth Street estimated the number of Japanese in New York and its suburbs at 200 to 300. By 1907, the Japanese community had grown to number about 4,000 persons, including some who may have been assisted by a Japanese mutual aid society. Except for one man who went into the toothbrush manufacturing and sales business, Ohashi was unlike any of them.

In 1906, Ohashi invented the first of several innovations for which he received patents. Most of his inventions were related to the newfangled hit product, the typewriter. According to his own contribution to the Harvard Class of 1903’s Decennial Report, it was also this year that he invented something “in the line of typewriter supplies, and with it started a typewriter supply business, which for the past seven years has been and now is my occupation.”⁷

A flurry of activity in 1906 marked the recovery of the young man’s position. The first products Ohashi patented were unrelated to typewriters. One was a detachable shirt collar that did not ride up or down.⁸ Whether this collar was ever manufactured is unknown. Other than the revolutionary collar, he also received a postcard protector patent in 1907.⁹ This was during the golden age of the postcard; collectors were numerous, and many homes had three books: the family Bible, photo album, and postcard album.

The first typewriter-related innovation by Ohashi, also in 1906, was a paper backing sheet that would improve the productivity of modern office work.¹⁰ In its left and right margins were printed a sequence of numbers of lines. This was to be placed beneath the sheet on which typing was being done, preventing the typist from typing too far down on the paper from carelessness or other causes, while it indicated at a glance the number of lines typed. The backing sheet was merely a sheet of paper with some printing on it. Similar productivity-enhancing innovations by others at the time were the “Never Lose” eraser holder that could be attached to a typewriter, and copy stands to hold sheets at the typist’s eye level. A plastic erasing shield was patented (appropriately, by a woman) in 1900. Information on production of Ohashi’s protector has not been found.

There is no information readily available as to what Ohashi did in the years just before or after his first patents. By 1910, 6,200 typewriter patents had been issued, some by Ohashi. In 1916, he applied for two patents. One was for a device that re-inked ribbons while in typewriters.¹¹ Another was for a carbon paper and ink compound.¹² In 1917, he filed a carbon paper patent application; it mainly involved crumpling or creasing the paper so it would take up more of the ink compound.¹³ He patented a coating device for “renovating or testing ink ribbons while fitted in the machine using the ink ribbons” in 1921.¹⁴ The latter invention improved on a design for which Ohashi applied for a patent on December 8, 1916. These were only part of Ohashi’s entrepreneurial efforts; he also obtained patents abroad. In England and France, he obtained shirt collar patents similar to the American one.¹⁵

It is remarkable that Ohashi was internationally-minded at this time in history and in his life. Other than what was written in the patents, no detailed information has been found, rendering the question of how this idealistic fellow came to devise mechanical and chemical inventions a mystery. It is easy to imagine a curious-minded person inventing such things as a postcard protector or a shirt collar. Conceiving a mechanical device that signficantly advances the functionality of the typewriter is a higher level of achievement. The puzzling question of how Ohashi became an inventor—nothing in his background provides an answer—is even more challenging when considering another of his inventions, unrelated to the others: an automobile tire. This invention featured studs for prevention and reduction of skidding.¹⁶ The technology could also be used for baseball, tennis, and golf shoes. In a sense, this was similar to the backing sheet and collar; it could have been easily conceived. However, its materials and functions entirely differed from all his other inventions.

 

Notes

1. Nagoya Bank was forerunner of Tokai Bank, which was acquired in recent years by the Mitsubishi banking concern.
2. Harvard and other information from about 1912 give his business address as 395 Broadway, which would be near Leonard Street. His residence at the time was at 229 West 109th Street. The only invention that appears to have been produced for sale was the backing sheet, which Ohashi mentioned in advertisements, but this was little more than a sheet of printed paper.
3. George Allan England, “Hydesaburo Ohashi,” in Harvard College Class of 1903: Quindecennial Report, (Plimpton Press: 1920), 222.
4. Regarding carbon paper, see “The Exciting History of Carbon Paper!” by Kevin Laurenve.
5. George Nichols Engler, “The typewriter industry: The impact of a significant technological innovation” (PhD diss., University of Califonia, Los Angeles, 1969), 29. For a history of the typewriter, see Herkimer County Historical Society, “The Story of the Typewriter 1873-1923” (Andew H. Kellogg Co., 1923), Project Gutenberg. For additional sources, see the Smithsonian Institution’s “Selected Bibliography of Typewriters and Related Office Machines.”
6. Anraku Publishing Co., Japan in New York (New York: 1908). See the present author’s research note: Early Japanese Importers of Japanese Craft Items, Art, and Antiques in New York.
7. “Hydesaburo Ohashi,” in Harvard College Class of 1903: Decennial Report (1913), 374.
8. Hydesaburo Ohashi, US Patent 837,248, filed September 9, 1906, and issued November 27, 1906. A patent was obtained in Canada at the same time.
9. Ohashi, US Patent 843,416, filed September 1, 1906, and issued February 5, 1907.
10. Ohashi, US Patent 898,916, filed November 5, 1906, and issued September 15, 1908.
11. Ohashi, US Patent 1,300,999, issued April 15, 1919.
12. Ohashi, US Patent 1,328,188; filed December 5, 1916, and issued January 13, 1920.
13. Ohashi, US Patent 1,332,141, issued August 24, 1920.
14. Ohashi, US Patent 1,393,637, issued October 11, 1921.
15. Ohashi, British Patent GB190626597T, filed November 23, 1916, and issued August 15, 1907; French Patent FR373283A, filed January 2, 1907, and issued May 7, 1907.
16. Ohashi, US Patent 1,260,791, filed October 17, 1916, and issued March 26, 1918.

 

© 2025 Aaron Cohen