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Japan Day by Day? William Henry Metcalf, Edward Sylvester Morse and Early Tourist Photography in Japan

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17460651003693360

1746-0662

Luke Gartlan,

Visual Culture and Art Theory

Abstract Edward Sylvester Morse occupies a pre‐eminent position as one of the key proponents of Japanese studies in late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century America. A prolific essayist and collector, Morse’s account of his first visit to Japan, published forty years after the event as Japan Day by Day, presented the author as an avid, albeit nascent observer of Japanese culture. A close examination of the original unpublished manuscript, however, reveals the presence of a compatriot traveller who accompanied him on his excursion to Nikkō. The Milwaukee businessman and amateur photographer William Henry Metcalf has received virtually no critical attention; an obscurity that stands in stark contrast to the copious scholarship devoted to his travel companion. This article explores his photographic activities during his four‐month visit to Japan, establishing his significance as a nineteenth‐century amateur photographer and the earliest to make extensive use of the dry‐plate process in Japan. By shifting the analysis to his visual and textual documents of Japan, and placing them in critical dialogue with those of his more renowned travel associate, this article intends to suggest the motivations that prompted his later excision from Japan Day by Day. This essay argues that the removal of the photographer’s presence from the published account is symptomatic of the marginal status of photography in Japanese visual studies. Morse’s removal of his travel companion from his account reflects a general discomfort with photography as a medium with close associations to tourism and sightseeing rather than the sombre image of the Japanese Area specialist. Keywords: William Henry Metcalf (1821–1892)Edward Sylvester Morse (1838–1925)Henry Hamilton Bennett (1843–1908)Samuel Cocking (1845–1914)nineteenth‐century photography in Japanstereography – Meiji JapanJapanese‐American cultural exchangetravel literature and visual culture Notes I am grateful to the Friends of the University of Wisconsin‐Madison Libraries for a grant‐in‐aid, which enabled research toward the completion of this article. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference Photography and Literature, held at the University of St Andrews in May 2007 in honour of Professor Graham Smith. For their assistance in the preparation of this paper, I would like to thank Ellen P. Conant, Sebastian Dobson, Tom Garver, Loren Hegge, Takahashi Norihide, Robert Sandow, and Cary Stone‐Greenstein. 1. To my knowledge, Angus C. Fairweather was the only comparable amateur photographer to visit Japan with his camera prior to Metcalf. See Anonymous Citation1867, 270. 2. For the original manuscript, see Morse Manuscript Diary of Japan (hereafter Morse, MDJ), E. S. Morse Papers, Manuscript Collection E2, Box 20, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. Regarding the lack of attention directed to the manuscript, Rosenstone candidly stated ‘Because Morse’s handwriting is so difficult to decipher, and because the published volumes include most of the material from the original journals, I cite from the published version’ (Rosenstone Citation1988, 280). As this study argues, the published account certainly does not include most of the material, and while the script is at times difficult to decipher, an unexpurgated and fully annotated edition of the original manuscript is well overdue. 3. The primary source for Metcalf’s biography remains the family memoir of his daughter Julia (Metcalf Cary Citation1937). Other sources include Anonymous (1892a); Anonymous (Citation1892b); Anonymous (Citation1893); and Anonymous (Citation1894). 4. For a small group of his Texas stereographs, see Henry Hamilton Bennett Studio Collection, Photographs by Other Photographers, PH6062C/32.1, 3–4, 6–7, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison. 5. W. H. M. [William Henry Metcalf] to Bennett, 21 Feb 1877, Henry Hamilton Bennett Papers, Mss 935, Box 2, Folder 5. Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin (hereafter HHBP). 6. Metcalf to Bennett, 2 April 1877, HHBP, Box 2, Folder 5. 7. Metcalf to Bennett, 4 April 1877, HHBP, Box 2, Folder 5. 8. Metcalf to Bennett, 29 May 1877, HHBP, Box 2, Folder 5. 9. ‘E. S. Morse … W. H. Metcalf’ listed among the passengers aboard the City of Tokio to disembark at Yokohama. The Japan Gazette, no. 2878 (18 June 1877), 2. 10. Morse, MDJ, 62. 11. Stillfried and Andersen had only recently moved to No. 17, the Bund, a studio formerly occupied by Felice Beato & Company (1869–1877), after the destruction by fire of their premises at No. 59, Main Street, Yokohama. An announcement of the studio’s change of address appeared in L’Écho du Japon, no. 2117 (25 January 1877), 3. 12. Although the original photographs and lantern slides are lost, the copy negatives (glass dry plates) necessary to produce the lantern slides are preserved in the Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. They are of the dimensions expected for the production of lantern slides (approximately 4 × 3¼ inches). Henry Hamilton Bennett Studio Collection, PH6062A/AS/432.1–72. Metcalf requested that the slides be made soon after his return from Japan: ‘Friend Bennett, I have a favor to ask of you. It is that you will come in to Milwaukee and do something for me in a photographic way. I want some prints made and mounted and lantern slides made – the latter to illustrate a lecture on Japan which I am preparing…’ Metcalf to Bennett, 2 December 1877, HHBP, Box 2, folder 5. 13. In his preface to his study dated October 2, 1878, Griffis credited several colleagues for the supply of reference materials, including ‘Mr. Metcalfe, of Milwaukee, for photographs of Coreans…’ (Griffis Citation1882, vii) I am grateful to Sebastian Dobson for pointing out the existence of this reference. Although the original prints are now lost, these photographs almost certainly derived from the portfolio of the renowned photographer Felice Beato, who accompanied the American punitive expedition to Korea in the summer of 1871 and whose portfolio of negatives had only recently passed into the hands of his successors Stillfried & Andersen. Reprints of this portfolio would therefore have been available for purchase at the time of Metcalf’s visit to the studio. Evidence in support of this claim exists in the form of a single reprint from Beato’s Korean portfolio among the copy negatives based on Metcalf’s acquisitions in Japan (Henry Hamilton Bennett Studio Collection, PH6062A/AS/432.54). This work appears as a reproduction with the caption Two‐Masted Corean Vessel (from a photograph taken in 1871) in Griffis’ Corea, A Hermit Nation (Citation1882, 75). On Beato’s Korean portfolio, see White (Citation1982, 76–85) and Chang (Citation2003, 1364–1365). 14. For a biographical dictionary of more than eleven hundred photographers active in nineteenth‐century Japan, see Izakura and Boyd (Citation2000). 15. Metcalf would have been aware of these debates on the merits of dry‐plate processes, especially since he published his own article on the subject. (Metcalf 1881b, 191–193) 16. In a letter addressed to Bennett, Metcalf offered thirty negatives from his trip to Japan. An accompanying list documents each negative and title, along with their corresponding number from the set (the thirtieth negative listed for publication being the forty‐eighth of the entire set). Metcalf to Bennett, 19 February 1878, HHBP, Box 2, Folder 5. Twenty‐seven of the glass dry‐plate stereographic negatives from the series are preserved in the Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. See William H. Metcalf, Stereographic Glass Negatives, H. H. Bennett Collection, PH6062A/AS/431.1–27, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives. 17. David Murray to Cousin Lucy, 25 June 1877, David Murray Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 18. Morse, MDJ, 210. 19. Morse, MDJ, 243. 20. Nonetheless, Morse does refer to his travel companion’s presence as a sightseer. Regarding a sculpture of an animal (for a sketch, see JDBD, 77), Morse noted ‘Mr. Metcalf has since learned that it represents an animal just after it had leaped over!’ Morse, MDJ, 308. 21. Morse, MDJ, 324. 22. Morse, MDJ, 331. 23. Morse, MDJ, 346. 24. In 1870, Yokoyama Matsusaburō (1838–1884) produced a portfolio of Nikkō and its surroundings. For a discussion of fifty‐seven prints from this series, see Ikeda (Citation1995). Baron Raimund von Stillfried advertised the sale of ‘Views of Nikko and Vicinity, the first ever taken,’ available at his Yokohama studio, then styled the Japan Photographic Association, on June 17, 1875 (The Japan Gazette, no. 2268 (17 June 1875), 3). Given Metcalf visited the photographer’s subsequent studio adjacent the Grand Hotel (and presuming the negatives survived the studio fire), he may have viewed this portfolio before his trip to Nikkō. 25. The Japan Gazette, no. 2967 (29 September 1877), 2; and The Japan Weekly Mail 1 (new series), no. 36 (29 September 1877), 860. 26. L’Echo du Japon, no. 2352 (5 November 1877), [2]. 27. Metcalf to Bennett, 18 April 1878, HHBP, Box 2, folder 5. 28. Japanese Homes and their Surroundings included more than 300 line illustrations, and the two‐volume Japan Day by Day consisted of 777 line sketches. 29. Morse, MDJ, 7. 30. Morse, MDJ, 294. 31. Morse, MDJ, 298. 32. Morse, MDJ, 311–313.