Quote:
Originally Posted by RadioKid
Returned from US, HIRAOKA started work in government office as an engineer and after ten years he quit the job and started his own company to make passenger car, freight car, bridge, railroad signals.
He earns so much money and also spend so much for his friends, artists and performers.
Also he started a party of his own music style.
As for the reference documents, the author of the book listed foreign documents as follows.
SPALDINGS OFFICIAL BASEBALL, A. G. SPALDING & BRS. 1876
THE BALL PLAYERS, ARBORHOUSE WILLIAM MORROW 1990
THE NEW DICKSON BASEBALL DICTIONARY, HARCOURT DRACE & COMPANY 1999
HIRAOKA wrote a letter to A. SPALDING to ask supporting baseball pro,motion in Japan. Spalding supported for years to support HIRAOKA by sending balls. bats and other baseball equipments for free.
In US, HIRAOKA stayed Poynton's in Boston who was famous for their contribution of education.
He went primary school (or grammar school) Reus (or Leus) in Boston. He skipped the school class and it was reported on news paper in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1873.
I hope these information help.
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Thank you for the information!
Although I do not read Japanese I purchased the biography based the image you showed from the book. The photographer shown on the front of the image in the book is located just 2.7 miles northeast of Hiroshi's address of "Miss Boynton's, No 1 Mt Pleasant Place, Roxbury" given in the rare notebook I mentioned above.
I have tried contacting the publisher Shogakukan and Viz Media who sells English versions of some of its books about who might own the image in the book, but they do not respond. I also have not found any contact information for the authors.
The image in the book and the two images I have are known as "carte de visite" photos and where used at the time as visiting cards to be given away as souvenirs. The two photos I have were given to a family of merchants Hiroshi stayed with while in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1873. I also have photos of a few other Japanese students the family met in addition to several Chinese students from a similar Chinese government program.
There are 78 Japanese students listed in the notebook I previously mentioned; however four are listed twice by accident. I've been able to find images of about 46 of them online, which are mostly located in various museums in New England. I am thinking the image shown in the book was also given by Hiroshi to someone in the U.S. and acquired by a museum or it may have been sent back to Japan by Hiroshi.
Personally, I would like to see the publisher Shogakukan issue the book in English as I think it would be of interest to U.S. baseball fans. I would also consider letting them use the two images I have if they would issue the book in English.
I also would like to see a movie made on Hiroshi's life. It would be very interesting to see his various achievements from a life that began only a few years after Commodore Perry entered Japan and whose life ended near the approach of WWII.