This study aimed to examine the activities of the Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office; a women's organization created in July 1905.
The Daehan Women's Association is a women's organization established under the active support of Kin ...
This study aimed to examine the activities of the Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office; a women's organization created in July 1905.
The Daehan Women's Association is a women's organization established under the active support of King Gojong and the imperial family, and its main activity was the operation of the Sericulture Training Office. In 1905, as the women's social gatherings between Joseon and Japan became active, the wife of a Japanese legation official in Joseon insisted on organizing the Joseon-Japan Women's Association, and Lee Ok-kyung joined forces to create the Daehan Women's Association. Lee Ok-kyung, who was pro-Japanese, was elected as the chairman, and a number of wives of the Tonggambu(統監府) officials were appointed as the executives.
The Daehan Women's Association planned to set up and operate a Training Office for women and was granted the Sericultural Experiment Station in Yongsan, which belonged to the Gungnaebu(宮內府). The Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office was originally an educational institution for women, but there were few female applicants in the beginning, so it recruited and operated male students. As the number of female applicants for admission gradually increased, only women were selected and educated from 1909. The Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office selected students after oral and written and arithmetic tests, and trained them in theory and practice for four to six months. Due to the nature of the Sericulture industry, classes were centered on practice, and students were in charge of disinfection of Jamsil(蠶室), cleaning tools, and picking mulberries. In addition, the students were divided into groups to elect the head of the group, and the head of the group was ordered to deliver the instructions of the institute and instructions of the professor.
Since the beginning of the establishment, the Sericulture Training Office has been operated under the dormitory system. Since 1909, students have been paid six won per month for food expenses. The Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office produced a total of 97 graduates in the four-year period from 1906 to 1909. Among them, 57 were male and 40 were female.
In addition to the Sericulture training, the Sericulture Training Office also distributed silkworm eggs and mulberry seedlings, or mediated the purchase of silkworm eggs and Sericulture tools to students and local sericulture farmers. It also featured silkworm-related items at the 1907 Gyeongseong(京城) Exposition. After graduation, the students of the Sericulture Training Office were appointed as engineers of the Ministry of Agriculture, or became teachers of the Government Administration and Private Sericulture Training Office. Female graduates were employed as assistants in Sericulture at the palace or as short-term private tutor. Some of the graduates with economic power established the Sericulture School.
In February 1910, when the imperial Japan reorganized and operated the Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office as a governmental women's Sericulture Training Office, the Sericulture Training Office was abolished. Although the Daehan Women's Association-Sericulture Training Office was created and operated under the guidance of the Japanese colonial government, it should be acknowledged that it played a positive role in fostering women's Sericulture and women's social advancement.