The History of Osaka City University

Origins

Osaka Commercial
Training?Institute?

OCU traces its beginnings back to the 1880 with the founding of Osaka Commercial Training Institute, the center of commercial and industrial study in Osaka. It was founded by 16 people who strongly influenced the Osaka business world at that time, including the father of Osaka’s Economy, Tomoatsu Godai, who created Osaka Chamber of Commercial Law (found in the present-day Osaka Chamber of Commerce) and the Osaka Stock Exchange (presently known as the Osaka Securities Exchange). At a time when business was “more about experience than learning” amongst the citizens of Osaka, Godai established of Osaka Commercial Training Institute with the words, “To compete with the developed countries of Europe and America, merchants also need to learn”. In 1889, with the Special Act of Municipalization of Osaka City, Osaka Commercial Training Institute developed into the Osaka City Commercial School. Today, in the corner of Awaza Minami Park, close to Awaza Station, there is a small monument marked “The Remains of the Osaka Commercial Training Institute”.

Dojima

Osaka City Commercial
College (Dojima Campus

From a Renaissance style school building, the school had produced a large number of people, who excelled at representing Osaka’s economic world, such as Ichiji Iio (President of Osaka Goudoboseki), Tokushichi Nomura (established Nomura Securities and Daiwa Bank), ?Matazou Kita, Einosuke Iwamoto (benefactors of Osaka Central Public Hall), Kintaro Sugiyama (president of J-OIL MILLS, Inc.) and Yoshitaro Tanaka (patron of the Tanaka Memorial Hall).

Osaka City Commercial College

Osaka University?of
Commerce?(Karasugatsuji)

In 1901, despite the recession after the Sino-Japanese War, Osaka citizens and alumnus were eager to make a commercial college “by the hands of citizens themselves”, Osaka City Commercial School was then elevated as the Osaka ?City Commercial College. Soon, the Karasugatsuji ward was developed, which is said to have set a new era after the Russo-Japanese War and the Great Fire of the North. There, in a Karasugatsuji school building, our university was born as the Osaka University of Commerce.

Osaka University of Commerce

Dr. Hajime Seki
Former Mayor
of Osaka

Requisition?by
?the U.S. Army

With the maxim, “The university is here for the city, and the city is here for the university ”, Hajime Seki, the mayor of Osaka at that time, established the public university giving priority to “practical science”, which was inspired from the first university of commerce in Germany, the University of Cologne. At that time, establishing a new public university was limited only to Hokkaido and prefectures, which made this event even more special. In 1928, after a decade-long promotional campaign run enthusiastically by alumnus and Osaka citizens, including Mayor Seki, Osaka University of Commerce was born, featuring a trinity of undergraduate, preparatory, and high-commerce departments. Under the first president Shirō Kawata, expert faculty and staff gathered from all around one after another and a new school building was built in the Sugimoto-cho area. With the addition of research book collections such as the Sombart and Fukuda libraries, a temple of science was created, which combined theory with practice. However,?after the start of the Pacific War in 1941, the university entered its dark days. Even after the war, hardships continued with military training, student mobilization, and the seizure of the school in Sugimoto-cho as military barracks by the occupant army.

Osaka City University?

Building No. 1
(registered?as an?
cultural?asset?
by?The?Agency
?for Cultural?Affairs)

In 1949, Osaka University of Commerce merged with other two municipal colleges (Osaka Miyakojima Technical College and Osaka City Women’s College) to form Osaka City University, under Japan’s new educational system. “The new university should contribute to the overall growth of Japan, reconstruction and development of the cultural and industrial parts of Osaka City and should create an academic culture that emphasizes the natural relation of theory and its practical application.” Based on this philosophy of President