Edo society refers to the society of Japan under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.
Edo society was a feudal society with strict social stratification, customs, and regulations intended to promote political stability. Japanese people were assigned into a hierarchy of social classes based on the Four Occupations that were hereditary. The Emperor of Japan and the kuge were the official ruling class of Japan but had no power. The Shōgun of the Tokugawa clan, the daimyō, and their retainers of the samurai class administered Japan through their system of domains. The majority of Edo society were commoners divided into peasant, craftsmen, and merchant classes, and various "untouchable" groups.
The Bakumatsu from 1853 on led to growing opposition to the Edo system and it was dismantled after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
1869Aug, 2
Japan's Edo society class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.
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Events on 1869
- 6Mar
Periodic table
Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. - 28Apr
First Transcontinental Railroad
Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First Transcontinental Railroad lay ten miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched. - 15May
Susan B. Anthony
Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. - 17Nov
Suez Canal
In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated. - 22Nov
Clipper
In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched and is one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving today.