The Great Taehan Empire (1897-1910), although once seen as the last gasp of the Choson dynasty prior to the onset of formal Japanese colonialism, has increasingly come to be seen as a far more complex period, as the Korean court and various interest groups sought to introduce social reforms, and to appeal variously to Japanese, Chinese and Russian interests. In particular, the technical infrastructure introduced during the period (electric lighting, streetcars) has increasingly become the object of scholarly attention from those who seek to cite the moment as the origins of a “Korean” modernity, one that emerged prior to the massive Japanese techno-projects of the 1920s and 1930s.

This paper addresses this moment by looking specifically at the introduction of new technologies, focusing on their material and symbolic roles within late Choson culture, focusing on the electrification efforts associated with the Korean court. Incorporating technologies from abroad within a domestic setting, the Taehan electrification effort successfully achieved its designs with electric lighting, although at the same time, the tensions present within the project highlight the limitations of attributing an exclusively nationalist narrative to this activity.