Jang Il-soon(pen name: Muwidang) was a talented calligrapher and spent most of his life as a social reform activist who helped Wonju become a city of cooperatives and also of Life Ideology(whose meaning and vision is to respect every life form). He is considered as one of the active protagonists who helped form Cooperative Ideology and Life Ideology together with a Korea’s iconic poet, Kim Ji-ha, who dedicated his life to Life Ideology and the democratic movement of Korea when the Korea’s military government ruled the country.

He graduated from Wonju Elementary School in 1940 and from Bae-jae High School in 1946. He was admitted to Seoul National University in 1946 right after his high school graduation. However, the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was not able to continue his education, and he moved back to his hometown, Wonju.

He contributed to the establishment of Wonju Dae-sung Educational Foundation in 1954 and served as chairperson of the Foundation. He ran for lawmaker election twice in 1956 and 1960 but failed to become a lawmaker. He strongly asserted that Korea should go for neutralized unification theory and the military government didn’t like the idea of his unification theory and arrested him for this excuse. He served three year sentence in prison.

In 1966, he started dedicating his life to the establishment of credit union cooperatives. He enormously helped Wonju to become a mecca of credit union cooperatives.

On October 1971, together with Tji-Hak-soon, one of the respected bishops of Korea and democracy movement leader who contributed to the justice and peace of humanity of Korea, he disclosed irregularities of the military government. led street rallies and demonstrations to cry for the democracy of Korea. These rallies and demonstrations led to the democratic movement in Wonju against anti-dictatorship of the military government.

In 1983, he helped ‘National Association of Korea Unification’ to carry out a unification movement. On October 1983, he established the Korea’s first ever cooperative, ‘Hansal-rim’, citizen-led organization that sells organic, agricultural produce grown from rural areas of Wonju to food stores in cities, without middlemen and/or distribution channels, whose concept has spread throughout Korea and many cooperatives of the same form or different types were established in Wonju and also across Korea. After establishing ‘Hansal-rim’ cooperative, he began leading ‘Life Ideology’ campaign, whose key concept influenced the birth of ‘Life Literature’ that is very specific to Wonju. As the word of ‘Life’ itself suggests, ‘Life Ideology’ and ‘Life Literature’ are based on everything that respects all forms of life creatures and balances with all of them, not ignoring or disregarding anything around us.

Since young, Jang Il-soon has learned from one of well-known calligraphers and painters of the time about how to do a calligraphy and paint. In the 1960s, he became an authority on calligraphy and painting. He held many circuit displays in Wonju, Chuncheon, and Seoul and the proceeds from these exhibitions were used to help fund ‘Hansal-rim’ campaign and many other social cooperatives.