Inside a Bar in Yokohama in the Early 1960s Through Beautiful Found Photos

In the 1960s, Yokohama was a city undergoing rapid transformation. As Japan’s second-largest city, it played a key role in the nation's post-war economic boom. The port of Yokohama was vital for trade and industry, especially in shipbuilding and manufacturing. The city also saw significant infrastructure development, including the completion of the Yokohama Bay Bridge in 1964.

Culturally, Yokohama retained its international character, with neighborhoods like Yamate reflecting Western influence. The 1960s also saw the rise of youth subcultures, shaped by global trends in music and fashion, further marking the city’s modernization and cosmopolitanism.

Here below is a small set of found photos that shows inside a bar in Yokohama, Japan on February 16, 1961.

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Rare Photograph of a True Samurai Taken by Felice Beato, circa 1864-65

Italian–British photographer Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909) was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He lived and worked in Japan from 1862 until about 1885, and dedicated himself to the comprehensive documentation of every aspect of the country, which had newly opened to the West.

This straightforward but intense study of an anonymous samurai dates from early in Beato’s period in Japan, and prior to the devastating fire that destroyed his studio and most of Yokohama in October 1866.

After 1615, when relative peace reigned in Japan and the importance of martial arts declined, most sumurai-the top of Japan’s social hierarchy during the Edo period (1603-1868)-became bureaucrats, teachers, or artists. Just a few years after Beato made this photograph, the feudal period in Japan ended with the Meiji Restoration. And after more than eight centuries of military leadership, the samurai class was officially abolished.

Felice Beato settled in Yokohama after documenting the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny with his brother-in-law James Robertson, and, on his own, the Second Opium War in China in 1860. Beato was persuaded to come to Japan by Charles Wirgman, a foreign correspondent with the British press and founder of Japan Punch, the first English-language magazine published in Japan. Beato and Wirgman were partners from 1863 to 1869, when Beato established his own firm. The studio remained active until 1877, when Beato sold it and all its contents to the Austrian photographer Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Rathenitz.

Between 1863 and 1877, Beato created the first substantial photographic record of Japan available to Europeans. His work spanned the period when Japan was emerging from the feudal, non-industrial society governed by the Shogun to the modern, industrial power ruled by the Meiji emperor. Thus Beato’s major publication, issued in 1868 in two volume entitled Native Types and Views of Japan, as well as his series Photographic Views and Costumes of Japan, document the last remnants of traditional Japan.

26 Amazing Hand-Colored Postcards Offer a Fascinating Glimpse of Japan from 100 Years Ago

This collection of postcards, which dates back to the early 1900s, provides a beautiful snapshot into a time in Japanese history when trolley cars and modern buildings were slowly beginning to appear on the landscape.

The hand-colored photographs also serve as an important document of the Tokyo and Yokohama regions in the years preceding the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which devastated the area and several surrounding prefectures.

Let’s take a look at some of the popular locations and see how much they’ve changed across the years.

Yokohama Bund.

Theatre Street, Yokohama.

Mayeta-bashi (bridge) Yokohama.

Yokohama.

No. 9 Yokohama.

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71 Vintage Photos That Capture Daily Life of Yokohama in the 1900s

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan by population, and most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area.

Yokohama developed rapidly as Japan's prominent port city following the end of Japan's relative isolation in the mid-19th century, and is today one of its major ports along with Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Hakata, Tokyo, and Chiba.

These amazing vintage photos of everyday life in Yokohama below are from the album of a German tradesman living and working here around 1908.

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