Picture Bride - Motives of Husbands

Motives of Husbands

In the late 19th century Japanese and Korean men traveled to Hawaii as cheap labor to work on the plantations. Some continued on to work on the mainland. These men had originally planned to leave plantation work and go back home after a few years or a contract was up. Between the years of 1886 and 1924, 199,564 Japanese entered Hawaii and 113,362 returned to Japan. However, many men did not make enough money to go back home. Also, in 1907 the Gentlemen’s Agreement prohibited immigration from Hawaii to the United States for laborers. Because now these men were put in situations with limited mobility, they had to make Hawaii or the United States their home, and part of that was getting married. In Hawaii, the plantation owners also wanted to see the laborers get married. Though they had originally preferred single men, when the contract labor system was abolished, the owners thought that wives would make the men more likely to settle down and stay. Also, the plantation owners hoped that wives would limit the amount of gambling and opium smoking the workers did, and act as a morale booster for the men.