was a textile worker and memoirist during the Meiji Era in Japan, daughter of samurai from Matsushiro, Shinano Province. She is known for writing a memoir called the "Tomioka Diary" (''Tomioka Nikki'') in which she chronicled her life among the female workers in the

Tomioka silk mill is Japan's oldest modern model silk reeling factory, established in 1872 by the government to introduce modern machine silk reeling from France and spread its technology in Japan. The factory is designated by the government as a National Histo ...

. She was among the daughters of

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

who were recruited in 1873, the sixth year of the Meiji period, from across the nation for practical training over a period of two to three years in the silk production process. They later became trainers in silk manufacture in their own prefectures. Upon leaving Tomioka in 1874, the government awarded Wada and her colleagues medals and the special title "Women Spinners' Victory Battalion". She became a trainer at the Saijō Village Silk Reeling Factory (later Rokkōsha mill) in Matsushiro, Nagano Prefecture. Wada married an army officer, who later died in 1913 from wounds he sustained in the Russo-Japanese war. She began composing the ''Tomioka Nikki'' while living at the Furukawa Mine company house at the

Ashio Copper Mine The was a copper mine located in the town of Ashio, Tochigi (now part of the city of Nikkō, Tochigi), in the northern Kantō region of Japan. It was the site of Japan's first major pollution disaster in the 1880s and the scene of the 1907 min ...

, where her son was a manager. It was published after her death by him, leading some historians to doubt its authenticity.

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Tomioka Nikki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wada, Ei 1857 births 1929 deaths Economic history of Japan Japanese women writers Textile workers Silk production 19th-century Japanese women writers

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