미군정기 부산항과 도시민 생활 = Pusan Harbor and the Life of Its People under USAGIK

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article is a study on the operating realities of Pusan harbor developed by Japanese imperialism in the post-Liberation periods and the influences of Pusan harbor on the life of its people. Furthermore, in this study we explain whether the roles of Pusan harbor changed or not after Liberation, by the survey of its forming processes and roles in the periods of Japanese imperialism. Especially, the influences that Pusan harbor then impacted on the life of its people were researched in terms of populations, unemployment rates and prices.
Since the modem times, Pusan was an advanced post that Japanese imperialism had developed to exploit Korea efficiently. In that sense, Pusan was a model of the colonial city. It is natual that Pusan developed with the harbor in the center. In the period of Japanese imperialism, the major roles of Pusan harbor were seen as the means of the trade between Korea and Japan.
On the other hand, the industry related with the harbor had grown in Pusan. Therefore, Pusan became the backbone of the Namsun industrial area(南鮮工業地帶) to which the area of Keongnam(慶南) belonged including Masan(馬山), Jinhae(鎭海), and so forth, and it was the greatest industrial area in south Korea except Keong-In industrial area(京仁工業地帶). The developed industry of Pusan was largely the grocery industry, the ceramic industry, and the rubber industry. In that respect, Pusan was an industrial city as well as a port city, though the former was secondary one.
The rapid nature changes of Pusan were attributed to Liberation from Japanese imperialism. The roles of Pusan harbor shifted from the center of trade between Korea and Japan to the major harbor introducing aid goods. As a result of this, the amounts of mobilization of materials with which dealed in Pusan became more than before Liberation. Another reason of increasing the amounts was a decline of other harbors. And after Liberation, the necessary goods were supplied not by interior productions but by assistances and trades in the economy of Korea. Under this both circumstances, while the industry of Pusan declined, the function of Pusan harbor became even more intensive.
In Pusan, the intension of harbor function influenced on the life of its people in both negative and positive aspects. We can say as a positive aspect that many jobs related with the intension were created. And the unemployment rates of Pusan were relatively low. But as a negative aspect we can also say that Pusan changed into a consuming city, although that intension was one reason among others. Many people who intended to use aid goods unfairly gathered in Pusan, and temporarily that number amounted to a hundred thousand. In addition, many returning brothers settled in Pusan. All these factors accelerated Pusan to be consuming city. In the long run, the prices and the living costs of Pusan reached the highest level in the country for all the American military government periods.