Chubei Itoh I was born in Hachime in Toyosato Village, Shiga Prefecture in 1842 as the second son of Chobei Itoh V. Toyosato Township, as it has now become, is located along the old Nakasen Road on the eastern shores of Lake Biwa, the area where the famed Ohmi merchants originated. Helping the family business from an early age, at eleven he traveled fifteen kilometers on business with his brother Manjiro to Goso in Houzuki Village (modern-day Taga Town, Inukami County). This was his first experience of selling wares by himself.
When Chubei began business in 1853, Japan had begun the great move towards opening herself to foreign trade, with the U.S. Commodore Perry landing at Uraga, near Yokohama, and the Russian envoy Putyatin landing at Nagasaki. In 1858, when he was 15, Chubei began business selling linen in the so-called mochikudari business method, marking the founding year of the ITOCHU Corporation. The following year he traveled to Nagasaki and was stimulated by the foreign trade activity there to begin his own trading business at the earliest opportunity. In 1861 he joined the Eiku trade association of Ohmi merchants taking drapery and cloth goods to Kyushu, later being a representative of this organization.

  Though it was fashionable at this time to open shops in Kyoto, Chubei went ahead of the times by opening his drapery store called “Benchu” in the middle of Osaka in 1872.
  In the Meiji era where modern business principles were put forward while the feudal system still remained in place, Chubei divided his profits equally between providing for his family, building his business and paying his employees. He set up an in-company meeting system allowing younger staff to speak their opinions freely, and with his enterprising spirit he was said to love in particular freedom and rationality.
Changing his store’s name to Itoh Honten (Headquarters), he opened a branch store in Kyoto. In 1885 he formed the foreign trading company ‘Itoh Sotoumi-gumi’ with Tetsujiro Sotoumi, steadily expanding his business to take in direct trade in general merchandise and so on.

  Chubei's spirit as a dedicated follower of Buddhism can be seen in his personal motto, "Trade is the karma of the Bodhisattva, the nobility of the way of trade is to achieve the will of Buddha by filling the world's wants from the benefits of buying and selling; true profit from work (a merchant's profits can only be gained by the merchant's own efforts;, only such profit is true profit).

  Though thrifty and hardworking, he held sukiyaki parties with his staff each month on days ending on a "1" or a "6", and set up social events regularly to watch plays or sumo matches. He never ceased to put energy into fostering human resources and imbued his staff with the belief that "prosperity can only be found where true liberty lies."

  With his active, quick and rational management Chubei I opened and put on a sound footing the Itoh Honten, Kyoto Branch, West Branch and the Itoh Itomise (Thread and Yarn Store), also serving as the Head of Toyosato Village (now Toyosato Town). He passed away in 1903.

   At the age of 17 Chubei I's second son Seiichi succeeded to become Chubei II.
He worked in the supply department of Itoh Honten and experienced rigorous training starting from basic shop tasks such as packing and delivering store goods.
With the Russo-Japanese War starting in 1904, there was a sudden increased demand for cotton in Japan causing the industry to develop dramatically.
Itoh Honten had already established trade with Korea from 1897, but now overseas trade flourished with an export department being set up in 1904, a Shanghai representative established in 1906 and a branch office set up in Gyeong-seong (the old name of Seoul, capital of the present Republic of Korea) in 1907.
In 1908 it was decided to incorporate together the four businesses and one factory heretofore run by different branches of the Itoh family into one concern. Chubei Itoh II set up the Head Office with himself as the managing director.
With the establishment of the Head Office, in the same year a branch was opened in Tokyo, the first such instance of a West Japanese textile shop doing this.
At the same time as this, the export department was set up as a separate business with the name of Itoh Exports.
The new-established Itoh Exports set up another branch office in Hankou in addition to the one in Shanghai, established a joint venture called ‘Kyoekisha’ with local capital in place of the Beijing Gyeong-seong branch office and opened another branch in Manila.

   From 1909 he spent a year and a half abroad to study in England via the U.S.A. While studying in England he gained in ability and experience as a businessman, discovering forms of trade that would become the basis of today’s corporation. He returned to Japan to take up such ideas as trading directly with the U.K. rather than through the foreign trading houses to gain more profit for Japan, and putting into action free importing making use of the U.K.’s low interest rates.

   Chubei II coolly analyzed the effects of the changing international situation on Japan as the world became caught up in the World War I. To strengthen the Itoh organizations he reorganized them into the business C. Itoh & Co. for a fresh start.

   After the war Japan was caught up in the unprecedented wartime boom with the textile market being highly active. C. Itoh & Co. thread and yarn shops made ground in both domestic and foreign trade (exporting), finally establishing themselves as an major textile trading concern. At this point the decision was taken to actively diversify from a textiles-centered business and to expand to the United States. A branch office was opened in New York in 1918, exports of cotton were made to the Philippines and of steel and machines to Japan, while based on the Shanghai branch trade between Japan and China for materials other than textiles was begun.

   In the same year, C. Itoh & Co. divided and a new public company called C. Itoh & Co., Ltd. was formed. A branch was established in London in 1919 and trade in steel, machinery and heavy chemical industry products was expanded.

   However, shares plunged in 1920 throwing the financial world into a great panic. Directly assailed by these events, ITOCHU incurred heavy debts. To find a way out of this dangerous situation the diversified businesses returned to the textiles market, overseas branches were consolidated and the workforce reduced, the final measure being taken to overcome the crisis being the splitting off of the foreign trade department into Daido Boeki Kaisha in 1920. The company steered its way through the difficult financial times of the Manchurian Incident, Great Kanto Earthquake and the Depression with crisis management and decision-making.

   As Japan entered the Showa Era there was a revolution in women’s fashions, from Japanese style to Western style. From 1924 onwards ITOCHU dealt in processed cotton, which increased in importance each year until it became the principal export product. In 1929 Kureha Cotton Spinning was founded. Increasing the amount of products and raw material it dealt in for all types of textiles for ITOCHU such as cotton, rayon and rayon yarn as a central part of the development of the Japanese textile industry, it established the foundation for a major textile trading concern.

   In this period overseas activity began once again, with branches and offices being opened in Calcutta, Semarang, Bangkok, Bombay, and New York, and an international network of representatives set up in South America, Africa and Australia.

   During the war years, ITOCHU was not able to function as a major textile trading concern under Japan’s total war system. In 1941 the company was merged with the Marubeni Shoten Ltd. and the Kishimoto Shoten Ltd. to form the Sanko Kabushiki Kaisya Ltd., with Chubei II as the chairman. In 1944 a further merger was made with Sanko, Kureha Spinning and Daido Boeki to form Daiken Co., Ltd with Chubei II as the president.

   Chubei II continued the business started by his father with the spirit of the Ohmi merchants and laid the foundations for a major trading corporation through his international outlook and rationalism. He passed away in 1973.