Episode 77 - Dr. James Huffman (Wittenberg)

In this episode, Dr. Huffman chronicles the daily lives of the down and out poor residents in the slums of Tokyo and Osaka during the late Meiji Period.  We discuss the life patterns and living conditions of slum residents, the rural poverty that drove people to look for jobs in the cities and overseas in places like Hawaii, the existence of charity and other social welfare programs to help the poor, and contemporary press coverage of the slums in the mass media before talking about the status of Tokyo slums today. (Transcript here).