광복 이전 한국 근대 철도 제복 연구

Abstract

This study organizes and examines the transformation of railway uniforms in modern Korea on the basis of primary sources. During the Gyeongin Railway period (1899–1903), operational staff were provided with uniforms; occupational titles were placed on the cap badge, and buttons bore crests stylized with the characters “京” and “仁.” In the case of the Gyeongbu Railway, cap badges likewise bore occupational titles, while buttons displayed the characters “京” and “釜.” The Gyeongui Railway reflected its military character by adopting armbands with silver star motifs and buttons identical to those of the Japanese Army. After the establishment of the Residency-General in 1906, operational staff continued to wear the Gyeongbu Railway uniforms, while non-operational staff wore the Residency-General uniforms. The “Simplified Uniform Regulations for Operational Staff” promulgated in 1908 codified the use of occupational titles on cap badges, crests on buttons, and stipulated that the jacket be a stand-collared single-breasted style with five buttons. With the incorporation into the Japanese Railway Bureau in 1909, the crest of the locomotive driving wheel was introduced. After the establishment of the Government-General in 1910, the uniforms for non-operational staff largely followed those of the Residency-General, while the uniforms for operational staff were newly instituted in 1911. At this time, the cap badge that had borne occupational titles since the Gyeongin Railway was replaced with the Rising Sun emblem, and the button design changed from the bureau’s crest to the Paulownia crest. During the South Manchuria Railway (Mantetsu) entrustment period (1917–1925), operational uniforms were maintained, but non-operational staff ceased to wear uniforms following the abolition of the Government-General uniforms in 1919. After the railways reverted to direct management by the Government-General in 1925, a new crest combining the bureau emblem with the Paulownia motif was used on caps and buttons. In 1935, the “Uniform Regulations for Officials and Treated Officials” were enacted, completing a comprehensive uniform system for both operational and non-operational staff. On the same day, detailed dress regulations were also promulgated, thereby regularizing the uniform system, and in 1937 uniforms for female staff were introduced. As a result, it can be said that the history of modern Korean railway uniforms originated with the Gyeongin Railway and reached institutional completion with the 1935 regulations of the Railway Bureau under the Government-General of Korea. In Western-style modern uniforms, symbolic motifs were typically applied to cap badges and buttons. In the uniforms of the Gyeongin, Gyeongbu, and Gyeongui Railways, symbols representing the railway or the military were used, but Japanese national emblems appeared only from the Residency-General uniforms onward. The adoption of the Rising Sun and Paulownia emblems in the 1911 operational uniforms marked, at the level of uniform systems, the completion of Japan’s imperial annexation. Unlike the military, police, and ceremonial uniforms of the Korean Empire—which reflected autonomous national symbols such as the Hibiscus syriacus or pear blossom—railway uniforms lacked Korean motifs from the outset, as the railways had been established under Japanese corporate initiative. By compiling and analyzing these historical developments, this study provides a foundation for subsequent research.