150 Years of Post Office Postcards

The calendar is ticking down on 2023. I would imagine that some of you, our readers, are starting to get ready for the year-end holidays. For readers in Japan, that may also include preparing New Year’s greeting postcards, or nenga . It is said that, due to things like the growth of social media, the number of these postcards has been steadily declining. Even so, it has been announced that around 1.4 billion of special postcards that also offer a chance to win a New Year’s lottery are being printed for the 2024 New Year.
In tracing back the history of these cards that evoke New Year’s in Japan, it turns out that 2023 marks the 150th year since the government first issued New Year’s postal cards. In this article, I will lead you back through that history by introducing you to records related to postcards available through the JACAR database.

1. The Issuance of Postal Cards and Postcards

 

Japan’s first postal cards were issued in 1873, the year of the so-called Seikanron political debate over sending a punitive expedition to Korea that led members of the pro-invasion faction including Saigō Takamori and Itagaki Taisuke to resign their government positions as councilors. In item 1 (“Yūbin hagaki-kami nami fūto hakkō no ken,” JACAR Ref. C04017540600, 1873 [Meiji 6], Classification: Dajōkan futatsu 4 [Ministry of Defense, National Institute for Defense Studies], slide 1), we have a proclamation announcing that postal cards would be issued starting December 1, 1873.

The format of these first cards to be used differed from today’s in that they were folded in two. When these postal cards were issued, the custom of sending out New Year’s greetings cards quickly spread. In 1882, postal regulations were set down, and the postal administration structure itself was expanded. Furthermore, in 1884, as set down in item 2 (“Yūbin ōfuku hagaki hakkō kyoka,” JACAR Ref. A15110966300, Classification: Kōbun ruiju / Dai-8-hen, Meiji 17-nen / Dai-43-maki / Keisatsu, Keisatsu-sō – zassai / Un’yu, ekitei, yūbin, denshin [National Archives of Japan], slide 1), permission was granted to issue postcards with prepaid reply cards attached. As the Meiji state modernized, the postal system likewise was gradually arranged into its form as we know it today. That said, at the time only the use of government-issued postal cards was allowed. People could not use commercially made postcards such as picture postcards.

Permission to use such cards was granted in 1900. That year also saw the enactment of the Postal Law. Let’s start by looking at the Postal Law.

As we see item 3 (“Yūbinhō o sadamu,” JACAR Ref. A15113364700, Classification: Kōbun ruiju / Dai-8-hen, Meiji 17-nen / Dai-43-maki / Keisatsu, Keisatsu-sō – zassai / Un’yu, ekitei, yūbin, denshin [National Archives of Japan], slide 6), postcards are covered in Article 18 of the Postal Law. Article 18 established the classes of mail and their rates, with postcards being described as second class mail. As the item shows, the price for “ordinary postcards” was set at “gold 1 sen, 5 rin.”

Meanwhile, the granting of permission to issue commercially made postcards stimulated the use  of cards of all types, including for New Year’s greetings. However, problems also arose. Item 4 (“Ratai sono hoka fūzoku o kairan suru egaki o byōshutsu shitaru shisei yūbin hagaki ni kansuru ken,” JACAR Ref. A05020111500, Classification: Uemura-shi keisatsu sankō shiryō dai-7-hen [National Archives of Japan], slide 1) states that “disciplinary action” will be taken in the name of the director of the Home Ministry’s Criminal Affairs Bureau against any person who issues picture postcards “with nudity or that corrupt public morals.” We can surmise that one year after permission for commercially made postcards had been granted, this issue of controls had also arisen.

 

2. Postcards During the Taishō, Pre-war Shōwa, and Wartime Shōwa Eras
How was this postal system that had been developed used by the state? Here, we will consider a number of case studies.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs compiled a record titled Tsūsho hagaki [Trade postcards].  We see here that he photos used for the frontispiece to this report as shown in Item 5 (“8. Jiandao,” JACAR Ref. B13080860200, Classification: Tsūshō kōhō hakkō 1-ken/Keisai zairyō, Dai-3-maki [7-2-2-9_1_003], [Diplomatic Archives (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)], slide 2) had been sent to the Ministry from Japan’s diplomatic missions overseas.

 

Let’s look at eight of these picture postcards, which were sent in by resident Jiandao consul Eitaki Hisakichi (slides 14 through 17). As with the photos tagged as (2), given that these are said to refer to “Local customs and scenes,” we can infer that these picture postcards show settings around Jiandao.

 

Next, as Item 10,11(“Hōkan Futami kankei-zu o ehagaki ni sōnyū no ken,” JACAR Ref. C04016668300, Classification: Kōbun bikō E Kyōiku enshū ken’etsu 14 [Ministry of Defense, National Institute for Defense Studies], slides 2–3) shows, the Imperial Navy commemorated the launching ceremony of a gunboat by making a picture postcard. The actual image of Futami is shown on slide 3. We can catch a glimpse of a strategy of making such picture postcards as a way to get people to feel more familiar with the Navy.

As these examples show, government ministries and agencies make proactive use of picture postcards. However, during the Taishō period (1912-1926), New Year’s postcards were faced with a crisis. That crisis was the Great Kantō Earthquake that struck Tokyo and surrounding regions in September 1923. The Great Kantō Earthquake has already been the subject of a JACAR special exhibition and a special feature in issue No. 41 of this newsletter, but here we note that the offices and facilities of both Ministry of Communications that administered postal operations and its Printing Bureau were both burnt down in the disaster. Item 12(“17. Nenga yūbin setsuyaku ni kansuru ken,” JACAR Ref. B12081255600, Classification: Honpō yūbin jimu kankei zakken, dai-1-maki [B-3-6-10-60_001] [Diplomatic Archives (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)], slide 2) reproduces a telegram that the Communications vice minister sent to his counterpart at the Foreign Ministry.

The vice minister wrote that, due to the fires, “the warehouse for stamps and postal cards” was lost and “the fact is things are not like they used to be” when it comes to printing new ones. In light of these conditions, he notified his counterpart of the policy “to suspend the system for the special handling of New Year’s mail” and “encourage the cessation of exchanging New Year’s greetings by post.” A telegram sent to the Foreign Ministry from Mie Prefecture states, “Nengajō wa sashidashi sasaru yō itashisoro ni tsuki go-ryōchi narihodo soronari” suggesting that the sending of New Year’s greetings cards should be halted. These telegrams again remind us of the impact and damage that the Great Kantō Earthquake caused.

New Year’s postcards got over this disaster-induced crisis, but soon they would be faced with a different one. The Second Sino-Japanese War began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, and war between Japan and the U.S. began in 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor. In Japan, the National Mobilization Law had been enacted in 1938, and with it restrictions were imposed on the ways that people had lived during peacetime. “Self-restraint” when it came to the sending of New Year’s greetings cards began in 1937, and in 1940 the special handling of such cards was suspended for the duration.  Historical record 13 is a postcard that gives us a sense of these wartime conditions.

This record (“Kokumin seishin sōdōin undō senden e-hagaki Naikaku Jōhōbuchō yori sōfu tsūchi,” JACAR Ref. A06050785500, Classification: Sūmitsuin bunsho; Kunaishō ōfuku, ringi, zassho; Shōwa 12-nen [National Archives of Japan]) is a postcard that was made as propaganda for the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement. The eye is drawn here to the slogans on the card such as “Shigen no aigo” [Preservation of resources], “Kyokoku itchi” [National unity], and “Shakai fūchō no isshin” [Rejuvenation of the social climate]. We can see the step-by-step shift to a wartime footing, and at the same time also see how postcards were responsible for one fragment of propaganda policy. Further, we have historical record 14 (“Shashin shūhō 3-gō,” JACAR Ref. A06031059800, Shashin shūhō [National Archives of Japan], slide 2) featuring Shashin shūhō [Photography weekly], a weekly magazine that was produced by the Cabinet’s Information Bureau. On this page we have advertisements for patriotic postcards and stamps. So what exactly were patriotic postcards and patriotic stamps?

Patriotic postcards and stamps went on sale in June 1937. Both items were sold at a price that included a donation on top of the regular postcard and stamp prices. Because Japanese aviation lagged behind that of other countries, the purpose here was to collect donations for aviation development. The cost of postal cards was 2 sen. To this was added a 3-sen donation, meaning they were sold for 5 sen. While the cost of the donation may have been higher than that of the cards themselves, more than 4 million are said to have been sold.

3. Postcards after the War
In August 1945, the Japanese government decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration, and Japan under the occupation led by the Supreme Command for Allied Powers (SCAP) and its General Headquarters (GHQ). As we can infer from historical record 15 (” Nihonkoku kenpō kōfu kinen Nihon e-hagaki hakkō ni tsuite,” JACAR Ref. A13110692300, Classification: Kōbun ruiju / Dai-70-hen, Shōwa 21-nen / Dai-40-maki / Zokushaku, kuntō, kishō; giten, Nihonkoku kenpō kōfu ni kansuru ken, fukusei [National Archives of Japan], slide 2) that shows an illustration of the promulgation of Japan’s postwar Constitution, Japan was gradually returning to peacetime conditions.

In any case, special handling of New Year’s greeting cards resumed in 1948. Owing to a lack of material resources and so forth, it was not possible for the service to resume right away, and the exchange of New Year’s postcards did not flourish.

Initiatives to promote New Year’s greetings cards began in 1949. This marked the launch of the New Year’s lottery postcards. Historical record 16~18 (“Otoshidama-tsuki yūbin hagaki nado no hatsubai ni kansuru hōritsu,” JACAR Ref. A20040123500, Yūbinshō kankei Shōwa 24-nen 8-gatu / Denki tsūshinshō kankei  Shōwa 24-nen 12-gatu [National Archives of Japan], slides 1 through 3) is the law established regarding New Year’s lottery postcards.

From the numerous annotations we can see that a variety of corrections were made. It established that ¥2 postcards would now be priced at ¥3, and that as in the past they would serve as revenue for a community chest while at the same time “the purchaser or recipient of that New Year’s greetings card would by lottery be given a prize.” Thus, we can confirm that the New Year’s lottery postcards that have come down to us today got their start soon after the end of World War II.

Although people had practiced self-restraint with respect to New Year’s greetings cards during the war years, the New Year’s lottery postcard system not long after the conflict’s conclusion. However, what exactly was the situation like in terms of actually exchanging such cards? Historical record 12 (“Nenga yūbin ni kansuru yoron chōsa hōkoku (Kokuritsu Yoron Chōsajo),” JACAR Ref. A17112109800, Dai-3-ji Yoshida Naikaku jikan kaigi tsuzuri / Shōwa 26-nen 3-gatsu 8-nichi ~ Shōwa 26-nen 3-gatsu 19-nichi [National Archives of Japan], slides 1–2) summarizes the results of a 1951 public opinion poll the government conducted of 600 men and women between the ages of 20 and 60 living in the wards of Tokyo. On the first slide are recorded remarks “for or against New Year’s greetings cards.” The in-favor tally stood at 91%, versus 3% who were against. It can be inferred from this that exchanging New Year’s postcards had overwhelming support. As evidence of this, the survey results also show that some 400 million New Year’s postcards were sold in 1951, more than double the amount sold the previous year.

We can also see from the survey results the reasons why sales had increased so much. Some 57% of respondents cited “We seem to have more leeway in our lifestyle” and similar comments as the reason for it. Based on such factors as the San Francisco Peace Treaty having been concluded that September, and several years later the Economic White Paper of 1956 declaring that “the postwar period  is over,” we can readily be persuaded that people’s living circumstances had stabilized. Additionally, 8% of respondents said that “they had prospered” from New Year’s lottery postcards.

 

4. 4. Conclusion

 

Thereafter, the numbers of New Year’s postcards being produced continued to increase, with around 4.4 billion printed in 2003 during their peak years. As mentioned earlier, today the numbers of New Year’s postcards themselves are gradually falling, but the custom of exchanging New Year’s greetings itself is continuing—albeit in a different form—through social media and other channels.

Looking back over this past century and a half, perhaps we can still take note of the presence of these postcards as a reflection of their times. Even just looking at how many New Year’s postcards were printed can give us a sense of what was happening at the time. Furthermore, in the case of postal cards, they stand as an historical record for understanding what message the government of the time wanted to get across. The JACAR database has available records related to postcards even beyond those mentioned above. We would be delighted for you to seek them out.

 

Literature Cited

Inoue Takurō and Hoshina Sadao, Yūbin no rekishi, rev. and exp. ed. Tokyo: Narumi, 2021.

MAEKAWA Yuta, Assistant Researcher, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records