The primary goal of this study was to analyze the final dismantling process of Myeonju-jeon(綿紬廛, Silk Shijeon), which was one of the traditional merchant organization, by translating and organizing the The Meeting Reports of Executives (別出次知盟文謄錄) of ...
The primary goal of this study was to analyze the final dismantling process of Myeonju-jeon(綿紬廛, Silk Shijeon), which was one of the traditional merchant organization, by translating and organizing the The Meeting Reports of Executives (別出次知盟文謄錄) of 1888-1892 and 1898-1913. The secondary goal of this study was to examine how the internal components of the traditional privileged merchant organization were inherited during the reorganization of the commercial order in the late 19th century and early 20th century by synthesizing the human and economic information of Myeonju-jeon Documents.
During the first year of this project, the urgent issues of the Myeonju-jeon leadership and its countermeasure were analyzed. To do so, decode and translation of The Meeting Reports of Myeonju-jeon were preceded. In addition, each issue discussed by the executives of Myeonju-jeon was listed, categorized by topic. Examples of unknown special terms were also searched and collected.
Due to this work, it was captured that the biggest issue of the Myeonju-jeon Guild in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was ‘solving the problem of decreasing number of Jeob’bang(接房, shop occupants)’. The decrease in the number of shop occupants caused a series of problems in the entire Shijeon guild's operating system. The guild executives were forced to come up with direct and indirect countermeasures, such as increasing payments which should be given to the occupants, or recruiting and mobilizing more members, or even having senior members engage in active duties, to solve this problem.
The number of Myeonju-jeon members needs to be understood in a multi-layered structure. Because this organization is divided into Bibang(裨房, community of ordinary members) and Daebang(大房, community of senior members), and there are several detailed departments within it. Therefore, in this study, the rent payment books were additionally reviewed to reveal the change in the number of shop occupants, and the number of Bibang and Daebang members was analyzed with data that were recorded every year. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the Myeonju-jeon organization was dismantled in a certain order. First the respective shop occupants left, then the Bibang was broken up, and finally the Daebang circle was dismantled.
We can see that the Shijeon’s downfall at the end of the 19th century was not a simple process. When it became clear that the Myeonju-jeon marketplace would no longer guarantee a certain level of profit, the members of individual shops left the Shijeon marketplace. However, even after Bibang was finally abolished in 1905, Daebang was still left to attend to the marketplace’s remaining financial tasks and mutual aid efforts.
During the second year of this project, human and economic information that could be extracted from the entire Myeonju-jeon Documents was comprehensively organized and analyzed.
First, the list of executives from 1861 to 1913 was compiled. The lists of executives listed in most of the ledgers of Myeonju-jeon’s internal organizations were gathered and arranged in chronological order. As a result, it was possible to understand the general replacement cycle, the pattern of reappointment, retirement, change of position, and manners of courtesy for each executive.
Second, the list of borrowers and the amount of loans listed in the ledgers of each internal organization in Myeonju-jeon were compiled. By integrating and organizing the list of loan items of all organizations in chronological order, basic work has been made so that it is easy to analyze not only the loan situation by item and person at the same time, but also the long-term loan situation. The definition of each loan title was also tracked and analyzed in detail through the contexts of the The Meeting Reports of Myeonju-jeon, which was translated during the first year. In addition, it is also possible to recognize that the ledger of each organization, called ‘Jeon-jang Deung-rok(傳掌謄錄)’, had a loan function.
Third, the income and expenditures recorded in the ledgers of each organization were analyzed. When the records of various organizations were synthesized according to a time series, the contents of income and expenditure of several organizations except for some special organizations were mutually identical. Through this fact, it was also possible to see how the internal organizations in Myeonjujeon were sharing their roles.
Fourth, all records on funeral aids for Myeonjujeon members were collected and organized. Much of the expenditure title of each organization was funeral subsidies and there were certain rules among them. Since this is an important topic to materialize the membership of the organization, I explored additional records related to funeral aids among the Myeonju-jeon Documents and organized them.
Through the above studies, it was possible to clarify the internal operating system, network, and changes of Shijeon, which was understood to have simply declined or disappeared due to external factors, in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The comprehensive data of the Myeonjujeon Document translated and organized in this research project will also be used to continue and expand research on the transformation of traditional merchants not only in the late Joseon period but also in the process of modernization.