일제 강점기 인천 성냥공장 여성노동자의 동맹파업

Abstract

There was a time when Inchoen used to be synonymous with the matchbox industry of Korea. A martial song with an unknown origin, called ‘Matchbox Factory Girl,’ remains as a key to illuminating the past century of Korea. The women workers of matchbox factories in Incheon went on general strike for as many as four times in protest against the Japanese exploitation of the Korean workers in the 1920s-30s. Nevertheless, they were overshadowed and ignored amid the modern industrialization movement of the 1960s, with their hard life as workers even becoming an object of foul mockery. It was their ironic fate that motivated me to write this article with a humble purpose of shedding lights on their struggle. As a precondition to understand the labor strife of the women workers of the matchbox factories in Incheon, this article re-examined such conventional views about the matchbox industry of Incheon as following: the argument of the local historians of Incheon that the first matchbox factory of Korea was set up in Incheon; and the alleged facts about the first matchbox factory set up with native capital and about the matchbox factories established in the wake of the Japanese industry’s advance to Incheon. Based on the fact-finding efforts, this article explained about the labor struggles of the women workers by dividing them into the one for their rights to live in the 1920s and the other for their labor rights in the 1930s. It gave an account for their labor conditions and wages, as well. The facts above have never been accounted for, much less being mentioned, with the records about the matchbox factories being scarce. Therefore, this article was intended to re-examine the alleged facts about the factories, mainly based on the news reports at that time. I wish that the newly found facts about the matchbox factories in Incheon in this article would help better understand the women’s rights movement of Korea and local history of Incheon during the Japanese colonial period.