John Whitney Hall
Encyclopedia
Order of the Sacred Treasure
The is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
, he was one of only a very small number of Americans to have been singled out in this way.
John Whitney Hall became an authority on pre-modern Japan; and he helped transform the way Western scholars view the period immediately preceding Japan's modernization as well as the thousand years before that. Professor Jeffrey Mass, a one-time student and later colleague of Hall's on the Yale faculty, described him as a quiet, self-contained man—and a master punster. Hall was a great admirer of Japanese culture and he amassed a large collection of prints, folk art and pottery; but in addition to being a dedicated academic, he was also an experienced mountain climber who had climbed extensively in the Japanese Alps
Japanese Alps
The is a series of mountain ranges in Japan that bisect the main island of Honshū. The name was coined by William Gowland, the "Father of Japanese Archaeology," and later popularized by Reverend Walter Weston , an English missionary for whom a memorial plaque is located at Kamikochi, a tourist...
.
Early years
The only son of Congregational missionaries, Professor Hall was born in Kyoto in 1916 and lived in Japan until he was a teenager. According to his wife Robin, he visited the United States with his parents as a child and he had been appalled by how little Americans knew about Japan. After her husband's death, Mrs. Hall explained, "Being brought up in Japan and by missionaries, he was a very straight-arrow kind of person. There is this kind of missionary feeling, that you must make something of this [life], not just throw it away."He prepared for college by attending Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. At Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, he majored in American studies, comparing the United States to Japan. After receiving a A.B. degree in 1939, he returned to Japan an instructor in English at Doshisha University
Doshisha University
, or is a prestigious private university in Kyoto, Japan. The university has approximately 27,000 students on three campuses, in faculties of theology, letters, law, commerce, economics, policy, and engineering...
in Kyoto until 1941.
During the war, he served with United States Naval Intelligence, leaving the service with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Hall earned his Ph.D. in East Asian languages and literatures from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1950. At Harvard, he became one of the first graduate students to study under Edwin O. Reischauer
Edwin O. Reischauer
Edwin Oldfather Reischauer was the leading U.S. educator and noted scholar of the history and culture of Japan, and of East Asia. From 1961–1966, he was the U.S. ambassador to Japan.-Education and academic life:...
, who was another missionary's son and a pioneering Japan scholar.
Academic entrepreneur
Hall's obituaryObituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
in the New York Times described him as "something of an academic entrepreneur" because he was so central in the work of building up the fledgling field of Japanese studies in the years after World War II. In his lifetime, he served as a stalwart bridge linking historians in Japan with historians in the West. Harry Harootunian, a professor of history at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and a former student of Professor Hall's, summarizes this view succinctly: "What I think guys like Hall tried to do was de-exoticize the study of Japan. To de-exoticize anything is to bring it closer to us, to eliminate the distance that we imagine exists between ourselves and the object of our study."
Hall himself explained: "My own fascination with Japanese history lies primarily with the manner in which Japan's political and social institutions have changed and diversified over time and how this fundamentally 'Eastern' culture gave rise to a modern world power."
In 1948, Professor Hall began teaching at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, one of the few American universities that had a significant program in his field. He would become director of the Center for Japanese Studies (1957–1960) and a founder of the first American research venture in post-war Japan. Through that program, a field research station in Okayama, Professor Hall spent a year in Japan in 1952 and became the first person to begin examining the voluminous records of one of the daimyo families that had ruled Japan during the early modern period between 1600 and 1868. He became an expert in that period, identifying the seeds of Japan's subsequent industrialization and modernization—findings which challenged the traditional Western view that that period had been nothing more than Japan's rather backward, final feudal age.
His earliest book was Tanuma Okitsugu
Tanuma Okitsugu
' was a rōjū of the Tokugawa shogunate who introduced monetary reform. He was also a daimyo, and ruled the Sagara han. He used the title Tonomo-no-kami....
, 1718-1787. The work was published in 1955 as part of the Harvard-Yenching monograph series.
George Wilson Pierson
George Wilson Pierson
George Wilson Pierson was an American academic, historian, author and Larned Professor of History at Yale University. He was the first official historian of the university.-Family life:...
recruited Whitney to join the Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
faculty as part of a plan to expand the department's curriculum to include greater emphasis on Asian history. In 1961, he was named as the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, a position he held until his retirement in 1983. Five years after arriving at Yale, Hall published his most famous book, Government and Local Power in Japan, 500 to 1700, which traced the development of Okayama during that period and, some say, opened up the first thousand years of Japanese history to the English-speaking world. Although scholarly books rarely have a shelf life of more than a generation, some colleagues assert that Hall's book is in a category all its own.
While at Yale, Hall served as Chairman of the History Department from 1973 through 1976. He was also Chairman of the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department from 1971 through 1974. In 1983, he retired from the faculty. Yale University's John W. Hall Lecture Series in Japanese Studies was established in his memory.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Professor Hall became a leader in many of the organizations that were working to build up the field of Japanese studies. These groups were attempting to represent the interests of the field in order to get support from universities, foundations and the Japanese government. Professor Hall's activities included
- Chairman, the Japan-United States Friendship Commission
- Chairman, the United States-Japan Conference on Educational and Cultural Interchange
- Chairman, the Social Science Research CouncilSocial Science Research CouncilThe Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...
/Joint Committee on Japanese Studies.
Throughout these years, Professor Hall also worked closely with the Japan Foundation, which was set up by the Japanese government in the 1970s to help American universities establish Japanese studies programs. The Japan Foundation eventually gave $1 million to 10 major universities for activities in the field. Hall was honored with the Japan Foundation Award in 1976.
Selected works
In 1987 Hall was one of the recipients of American Historical AssociationAmerican Historical Association
The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
's Award for Scholarly Distinction.
In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about John Whitney Hall, OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
/WorldCat
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...
encompasses roughly 90+ works in 200+ publications in 8 languages and 10,000+ library holdings
- 1950s
- Hall, John Whitney. Japanese history; a guide to Japanese reference and research materials. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan PressUniversity of Michigan PressThe University of Michigan Press is part of the University of Michigan Library and serves as a primary publishing unit of the University of Michigan, with special responsibility for the creation and promotion of scholarly, educational, and regional books and other materials in digital and print...
, 1954. - _____. Tanuma OkitsuguTanuma Okitsugu' was a rōjū of the Tokugawa shogunate who introduced monetary reform. He was also a daimyo, and ruled the Sagara han. He used the title Tonomo-no-kami....
, 1719–1788, forerunner of modern Japan." [Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series, 14]. Cambridge, Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, 1955.
- Hall, John Whitney. Japanese history; a guide to Japanese reference and research materials. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press
- 1960s
- Hall, John Whitney. Government and local power in Japan, 500 to 1700; a study based on Bizen ProvinceBizen Provincewas a province of Japan on the Inland Sea side of Honshū, in what is today the southeastern part of Okayama Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Bitchu and Bingo Provinces. Bizen borders Mimasaka, Harima, and Bitchū Provinces....
. Princeton, Princeton University PressPrinceton University Press-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
, 1960. - _____. Japanese history: new dimensions of approach and understanding. Washington: Service Center for Teachers of History, 1961.
- _____and Richard K. Beardsley. Twelve doors to Japan. New York, McGraw-HillMcGraw-HillThe McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
, 1965. - _____. Japanese history; new dimensions of approach and understanding, 2nd ed. Washington, Service Center for Teachers of History, 1966.
- _____ and Marius JansenMarius JansenMarius Berthus Jansen was an American academic, historian, and Emeritus Professor of Japanese History at Princeton University....
, eds. Studies in the institutional history of early modern Japan. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968. - _____. Das Japanische Kaiserreich. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Bücherei GmbH, 1968.
- _____, Beardsley, Richard K. and Robert E. Ward. Village Japan. Chicago, University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
, 1969.
- Hall, John Whitney. Government and local power in Japan, 500 to 1700; a study based on Bizen Province
- 1970s
- Hall, John Whitney. Japan, from prehistory to modern times. New York, Delacorte Press, 1970.
- _____. Japan, from prehistory to modern times. New York, Dell Publ. Co., 1971.
- _____ and Jeffrey P. Mass, eds. Medieval Japan; essays in institutional history. New Haven, Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 1974. - _____. Das Japanische Kaiserreich. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschebuch Verlag, 1976.
- _____ and Toyoda Takeshi, eds. Japan in the Muromachi age. Berkeley: University of California PressUniversity of California PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
, 1977.
- 1980s
- Hall, John Whitney, Nagahara Keiji, and Kozo Yamamura, eds. Japan before Tokugawa: political consolidation and economic growth, 1500-1650. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
- _____ ... et al., eds. The Cambridge history of Japan. Cambridge : Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1988-____. [Incomplete contents: v. 1. Ancient Japan / edited by Delmer M. Brown—v. 3. Medieval Japan / edited by Kozo Yamamura—v. 4. Early modern Japan / edited by John Whitney Hall—v. 5. The nineteenth century / edited by Marius B Jansen—v. 6. The twentieth century / edited by Peter Duus.]