Furukawa Ichibei

Furukawa Ichibei
Furukawa Ichibei, "The Copper King of Japan"
Born	April 16, 1832
Died	April 5, 1903
Nationality	Japanese
Other names	古河 市兵衛
Occupation	Industrialist

Furukawa Ichibei (古河 市兵衛^?, April 16, 1832 - April 5, 1903) was a Japanese businessman who founded one of the fifteen largest industrial conglomerates in Japan, specializing in electrical goods, chemicals and metals. He bought the Ashio copper mine from the Japanese government in 1877, which he later organized, with his other holdings, into an industrial conglomerate called the Furukawa zaibatsu, one of the most important in Japan. Japanese companies today with the names "Furukawa" and "Fuji", often belong to this group.

Furukawa's school education began and ended before Commodore Perry's ships entered Japanese waters. His parents were lower middle-class and could not afford to give him a higher education. It was about the time of the treaty that opened Japan to commerce with the United States and other civilized nations, that the strong traits manifested by the boy attracted the attention of a business man in his native town. He was adopted by an eccentric man named Furukawa Tarozaemon, who gave his adopted son some schooling in business. The stepfather and son had frequent but respectful differences of opinion, but in time the father realized that Furukawa was usually right and in time gave him free rein – a Japanese instance of fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.

Furukawa made large profits in the raw silk trade, exporting his stock for foreign consumption. He also did well in the rice trade, while suffering severe losses at times - an early example of the vicissitudes of commodities trading.

In spite of his successes in commerce, Furukawa felt the need to be directly involved with the working man. He yearned to be a captain of industry, desirous of expanding employment opportunities for his compatriots, as unemployment was a serious problem in Japan. He had aspirations similar to a few pioneering industrialists in the West who wished to improve the lot of the working man and to expand the demand for his services. He also had benevolent ideas on raising the standard of living for the working classes, espousing methods of making provision for old age, and suitable foundations to help toward that end.