Yone Suzuki (鈴木よね, 1852.8.15–1938.5.6) was a Japanese businesswoman, described in 1918 as "the wealthiest woman in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Early life

Yone Suzuki was from

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

Himeji 260px, Himeji City Hall is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 525,682 in 227,099 households and a population density of 980 persons per km2. The total area of the city is ...

Career

As a widow with two sons, Yone Suzuki took over her late husband's business, the Suzuki Trading Company (''Suzuki Shoten''), trusting manager Kaneko Naokichi with many of the strategic decisions."Suzuki & Co. Ltd."
The Sojitz History Museum. In 1900, she made a fortune in a deal involving sugar, real estate, and

camphor Camphor () is a waxy, colorless solid with a strong aroma. It is classified as a terpenoid and a cyclic ketone. It is found in the wood of the camphor laurel (''Cinnamomum camphora''), a large evergreen tree found in East Asia; and in the kapu ...

. She started a peppermint factory, she bought the Kobe Steel Works, and expanded her operations in camphor manufacture, sugar refineries and flour mills. She built a factories to produce fish oil and bean oil, owned a fleet of ships, and added branch offices of the Suzuki conglomerate in several international locations, including Europe, North America, Australia, and elsewhere in Asia. Suzuki Shoten burnt out

She was described in 1918 as "the wealthiest woman in Japan", and in 1927 as the "richest woman in the world.""Richest Woman in the World; Wonder Widow of Japan"
''Canberra Times'' (June 14, 1927): 5. via

Trove Trove is an Australian online library database owned by the National Library of Australia in which it holds partnerships with source providers National and State Libraries Australia, an aggregator and service which includes full text documen ...

However, she was also described as "one of the best-hated persons in the country" for taking advantage of wartime conditions and for running up the price of rice."Japanese Mob Widow"
''Washington Post'' (December 8, 1918): E3. She had to go into hiding with an alias for a while during the rice riots of 1918, after angry crowds burned her company's headquarters in

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

. The Suzuki conglomerate was badly affected by a foreign exchange crisis in 1923–1924, and finally failed in a financial panic in 1927. The

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...

, dysfunctional internal dynamics, unpopular business practices, and external rivalries with other large Japanese conglomerates (''zaibatsu''), are also cited as contributing to the Suzuki collapse. Among the present-day companies descended from Suzuki & Co. are Kobe Steel,

Sojitz is a '' sogo shosha'' (general trading company) based in Tokyo, Japan. It is engaged in a wide range of businesses globally, including buying, selling, importing, and exporting goods, manufacturing and selling products, providing services, and p ...

, and J-oilmils ( Honen Corporation).

Personal life and legacy

She married Iwajiro Suzuki, a sugar merchant, when she was 13 years old. Their sons were Iwajiro and Ewazo. She was widowed when he died in 1894. At the peak of her wealth, she lived in a mansion at

Suma-ku, Kobe is one of 9 wards of Japan, wards of Kobe, Japan. Population As of February 1, 2012, it had an area of 30.0 km2 and a population of 166,324, with 71,745 households. Attractions There is a white sandy beach in this ward, which attracts ...

; she moved into more frugal conditions after the collapse of Suzuki & Co. The 2014 Japanese television drama ''Oiesan'' was a historical drama based on a novel by Kaoru Tamaoka about Yone Suzuki's life. Yūki Amami played Yone Suzuki in the program."Oiesan"
(2014), at Internet Movie Database.

References

{{authority control 1852 births 1938 deaths 19th-century Japanese businesswomen 19th-century Japanese businesspeople 20th-century Japanese businesswomen 20th-century Japanese businesspeople