| Shanxi’s modern textile industry was born around the turn of the twentieth century. The founding of Jinhua Textile Ltd. in1919marked a major innovation in production of Shanxi’s textile industry. Reassumed the military and political power of Shanxi and Suiyuan Provinces in1932, Yan Xishan formulated and launched "A Decade Plan for Shanxi’s Construction", which was guided by the idea of "manufacture saves the nation" and "exploiting the Northwest", and established the Northwest Industrial Company. As one of Shanxi’s earliest modern manufacturers, Northwest Woolen Mill was founded by the company in accordance with local resource distribution and social demands. In1937the Anti-Japanese War broke out, Northwest Woolen Mill was seized by the Japanese along with other local textile manufacturers and underwent severe damages due to over-production. When the war ended in1945Yan Xishan returned to Taiyuan and regained control over Northwest Industrial Company, taking over the ownership or management rights of factories run or newly founded by the Japanese military, including Taiyuan Woolen Mill (known as Northwest Woolen Mill prewar), Taiyuan Textile Mill (the privately-owned Jinsheng Weaving and Dyeing Factory prewar), Taiyuan Weaving Mill (Japanese-founded Taiyuan Sewing Factory), Taiyuan Cotton Textile Mill (the privately-owned Huachang Weaving factory prewar), Yuci Textile Mill (the privately-owned Jinhua Textile Ltd. prewar), Yuci Cotton Textile Mill (privately-owned prewar), Taiyuan Printing and Dyeing Factory (Japanese-founded), Qi County Weaving and Dyeing Factory (privately-owned prewar). Thus a unified management and planning over Shanxi’s modern textile industry was formed centering round Northwest Industrial Company.Previous researches have yet to achieve an overall examination of Shanxi modern textile industry’s birth, development and impact upon modern Shanxi society. The document that former researchers covered was limited to revolutionary history, general modern history, economic history and biography. Currently, local governments have begun to attach importance to the protection and reclaim of industrial heritages and their historical, technical, cultural and social implications, linking local industrial culture and history to urbanization development goals from a macro-strategic level. Therefore the technical and cultural history of Shanxi modern textile industry is a meaningful subject matter. Building on the findings of former researches, this dissertation attempts to systematically present the corporate structure and socio-historical development of Shanxi textile industry, with Northwest Industrial Company’s operation structure of industrial chain as a case study.The research consists of nine parts--introduction, seven-chapter-mainbody and conclusion.The introduction part, a general idea of this dissertation, presents the meaning of topic, literature review, structure, methods, innovation and shortcomings. Chapter one generally describes the background of the westernization of Chinese traditional textile technology at the end of the Qing dynasty and the sprout of modern textile industry in Shanxi Province, namely how modern textile industry rises in Shanxi. Chapter two defines the modern machinery textile, which is developed along with Northwest Industrial Company. In other words, it describes the status of textile industry in the whole development of Northwest Industrial Company. Chapter three explores how modern textile industry forms and develops in Shanxi with the help of the case study of Northwest Woolen Mill. Besides, it also tells how Japanese destroys the mill in the period of anti-Japanese war and features of its technological achievements and management methods in each history period. Chapter four summarizes the advancement and invention after the war including method of spinning, colored thread spinning, study of wasted cotton, skill of burning yarn, invention of electric thread and dyes and improvement of machines and finds out how the modern thought of "rationalization of industry" plays an active role in the production technology of textile industry attributed to Northwest Industrial Company as well. Chapter five explains the fundamental reason why Northwest Industrial Company can organize technical force and put back on production in such short time after the war. In detail, the dissertation studies how the company develops in Yichuan in Shaanxi Province. Chapter six summarizes the modern development of textile technological cultural undertakings encouraged by textile industry in Shanxi Province. Chapter seven concludes the mutual effects between the advancement of textile technology and social condition in Shanxi province. In the conclusion part, the dissertation reviews the history, features, rules, influences and inspirations of modern machinery textile industry of Shanxi Province. It also looks ahead and holds the opinion that textile industry is not the isolation of skill and economy system, but the coordination of modern agriculture, business, heavy industry and transportation. The government leaded by Yan Xishan encourages people to initiate vocational education, bring in advanced skills, develop financial industry, advocate scientific management and emphasize the progress of agriculture and transportation, which have significant effects on industrial development. The technological activities and management theories are still of some significance today.The study has following three aspects of innovations:Firstly, different from previous researches on modern textile enterprises with perspectives of modern history and economic history, this study adopts technological social history approach, which combines the technological individual and the whole society. That is to say, the research investigates the development of Shanxi textile enterprises during the overall expansion process of Northwest Industrial Company. And the textile technology improvement is not only subject to the market demand, national economy and people’s livelihood but also conform to the overall expansion strategic plan of Northwest Industrial Company. Therefore, this study, based on the research perspective of textile technological social history, facilitates the upgrade of textile technology and fills the gap of previous researches which focus on the angle of modern history and economic history to investigate the vicissitude of modern society and enterprise management.Secondly, compared with the research objects in the previous studies of Northwest Industrial Company and modern history of Shanxi Province, this study, initially, reviews the technology introduction and innovation and enterprises’ development history of the subsidiary textile companies of Northwest Industrial Company based on a large amount of firsthand newspapers and historical archives. Thirdly, in contrast with the single research object in previous studies, this research has more room to grow. It clarifies the history of Shanxi modern textile industry and inspects the current situation of industrial heritage left over by textile companies. Moreover, some suggestions on conservation and development are put forward. With the superiority that Northwest Industrial Company unifies and allocates the group supplies, the modern Shanxi textile industries respond flexibly to a variety of adverse conditions caused by the turbulent society. The management pattern that is based on conglomerate and industrial chains integrates the recycle of historical experience and studies of industrial heritage into contemporary enterprise collectivize operation and culture construction, which provides inspiration of practical significance and applicability. Meanwhile, it affirms the innovative research method of this study which focuses on the large conglomerate of Northwest Industrial Company.The incomplete area of this research lies in the corresponding materials and oral data are in need of further collection and the history of application, improvement and invention of Shanxi machinery textile technology require deep lucubration.
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