Jump to:
- In the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
- In the Prints and Photographs Division
- Related External Web Sites
- Selected Bibliography
Descriptive Record 
Enlarge ImageIn the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog:
- Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Negatives
- Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs
This collection documents Americans at home, at work, and at play between 1935 and 1945, with an emphasis on rural and small-town life and the adverse effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and increasing farm mechanization. In its latter years, the project documented America's mobilization for World War II, including the resettlement of the Japanese Americans. These images were taken mostly in the spring of 1942 in California and include evacuation, selling possessions, transportation to centers, and arrival at camps. Access is by keywords taken from the photo captions, such as "Japanese Americans." The lack of formal subject headings makes it difficult to do a comprehensive search. However, the Web site shows all the negatives made by the FSA/OWI photographers, including those that were rejected for printing for the "open files," now housed in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room. Using the "open files" provides a different and more thorough approach to using the collection to find all printed images on one subject. (Note: These photographs are also available through American Memory as America from the Great Depression to World War II.)
In the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Open Files
The "open files" of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection contain most of the photographs shown in the American Memory collection America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945. These images were taken mostly in the spring of 1942 in California and include evacuation, selling possessions, transportation to centers, and arrival at camps. In the "open files" they are arranged in sections by broad subject (evacuation; selling possessions; transportation to centers; arrival at camps), providing a different approach from the keyword access offered through the online presentation.
LOT 10617
Japanese merchant posts sale sign in preparation for evacuation as small son looks on. LC-USZ62-120142. P&P Online Catalog.
San Pedro, Calif. Apr. 1942. Residents of Japanese ancestry being moved from Los Angeles harbor before their eventual resettlement in war relocation authority centers. LC-USZ62-127305. P&P Online Catalog
These fourteen volumes of photographs were received from the Wartime Civil Control Administration. They were assembled from news agencies and various government sources and are organized into two main categories: evacuation and assembly centers. The evacuation photographs concentrate on California and Arizona while the assembly center photographs are from California, Oregon, and Washington. Of particular interest are photographs of evacuees voting in California state elections or registering for the draft and of the stables at the Santa Anita Race Track being converted into housing.
View selected images from this LOT in the P&P Online Catalog.
LOT 1801
This group of more than two hundred official War Relocation Authority photographs details the evacuation of Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry from the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. Most of the photographs were taken in April of 1942 and show families before their evacuation and registering with the Wartime Civil Control Administration in San Francisco. The Santa Anita Reception Center is documented as is construction of war relocation centers at Manzanar, California, and Parker, Arizona. The photographs show evacuation to and arrival at assembly centers as well as living conditions and recreational activities.
View selected images from this LOT in the P&P Online Catalog.
LOT 4842
These forty-four photographs show that not all Japanese Americans were put in internment camps. Some were moved to new homes away from the West Coast. These uncaptioned photographs, contributed by the War Relocation Authority, show relocated persons in many different occupations.
LOT 4460
These twenty-four photographs include views of a War Relocation Authority warehouse in Seattle where belongings of evacuees were stored during their internment. Also included are photographs of Christmas pageants at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming and Topaz Relocation Center in Utah.
LOT 2244
These twenty-three untitled Office of War Information photographs were taken at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center. Included are photographs of camp life, a dance, and exterior views.
Related External Web Sites
Ansel Adams
- Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Ansel Adams was a co-founder of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP). CCP holds the largest collection of Ansel Adams's work in the world, including his photographs, negatives, correspondence, and cameras. - The Sierra Club, San Francisco, California
Ansel Adams was involved with the Sierra Club throughout most of his life. This site includes a brief biography of Adams and a sample of his photographs.
Japanese-American Relocation--General Information
- Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Text of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War to place Japanese Americans in relocation camps. - Las Positas College, 3033 Collier Canyon Road, Livermore, CA 94550
An extensive bibliography of books, videorecordings, and internet sites related to Japanese American evacuation and relocation, 1942-45. - Manzanar National Historic Site
The former Manzanar War Relocation Center was designated a national historic site on March 3, 1992. - National Park Service
This site features on online book, Confinement and Ethnicity, that details what remains at the internment sites. Also included is a history of Japanese-American relocation. - San Diego Historical Society
"Further and Further Away: The Relocation of San Diego's Nikkei Community--1942" by Donald H. and Matthew T. Estes. An article detailing the relocation of the San Diego Japanese-American community. - Museum of the City of San Francisco, 945 Taraval Street, San Francisco, CA 94116
Links to The San Francisco News articles for the first six months of 1942, which carried almost daily reports of FBI and police sweeps, and the various proclamations, plans—and restrictions to civil liberties—issued by Lieutenant-General John L. Dewitt at the Presidio of San Francisco.
Documentary Materials
- Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records. Collection number: BANC MSS 67/14c
University of California, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records include records from the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and the records of the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS) at the University of California, Berkeley. The WRA portion of the collection contains some materials that are not represented in the National Archives collection. JERS was established in 1942 to study the sociological, political, economic, and legal issues of the relocation program. The collection includes journals, diaries, and field reports. - War Relocation Authority Photographs. Collection number: BANC PIC 1967.014-PIC
University of California, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) records represent the official documentation of the United States agency created to assume jurisdiction over the Japanese and Japanese-Americans evacuated from California, Oregon, and Washington by the Western Defense Command, the Fourth Army, and the Wartime Civilian Control Administration during January and February of 1942. The collection includes seven thousand photographs and 317 Kodachrome slides arranged into eighteen series. Dorothea Lange's work as a WRA photographer is included in this collection. - Manzanar War Relocation Center Records. Collection number: 122
University of California, Los Angeles, Charles E. Young Research Library, Department of Special Collections
The collection includes approximately 170 photographs from Ansel Adams's work at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Additional photographic materials include more than four hundred negatives of Manzanar documenting the construction of the camp through its closing, as well as photographs documenting Japanese internees after they left the camp. - National Archives and Records Administration Records of the War Relocation Authority. Record Group 210
The War Relocation Authority was responsible for the removal, relocation, and supervision of the ten relocation centers for persons of Japanese ancestry. This collection contains textual records, motion pictures, architectural and engineering drawings, and photographs by Dorothea Lange, Hikaru Iwasaki, Clem Albers, Tom Parker, and Charles E. Mace.
Exhibits
- National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution
An online exhibit of letters sent from young persons interned at the Poston Relocation Center to Miss Clara Breed, a children's librarian in San Diego. - University of Utah
A selection of photographs from the Special Collections Department of the J. Willard Marriott Library of the University of Utah. These images focus on the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah and the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California. - University of Washington
This online exhibit tells the story of the relocation of Seattle's Japanese-American community through photographs, a camp newsletter, and sketches by an internee.
Selected Bibliography
Ansel Adams
Adams, Ansel. Ansel Adams--Images, 1923-1974. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1974.
Call Number: TR654.A33 1974 [P&P folio]
-----. Ansel Adams: The National Park Service Photographs. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.
Call number: E160.A298 1984 [P&P]
-----. Born Free and Equal: An Exhibition of Ansel Adams Photographs: Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art, History and Science. Washington, D.C.: Echolight Corp., 1984.
Call number: TR820.5 .A3 1984
-----. Born Free and Equal: The Manzanar Photographs of Ansel Adams, from the Library of Congress Collection. Edited by Wynne Benti. Bishop, Calif.: Spotted Dog Press, 2002.
-----. Born Free and Equal, Photographs of the Loyal Japanese-Americans at Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California. New York: U.S. Camera, 1944.
Call number: F870.J3A57 [P&P]
-----. The Mural Project. Photography by Ansel Adams. Santa Barbara: Reverie Press, 1989.
Call number: E160.A299 1989 [P&P]
-----. Yosemite and the Range of Light. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1979.
Call number: TR 660.5.A33 [P&P]
-----, and Toyo Miyatake. Two Views of Manzanar. Edited by Graham Howe, Patrick Nagatani, and Scott Rankin. Los Angeles: Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 1978.
Call number: D769.8.A6 A29
Alinder, James. Ansel Adams: Classic Images. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1986.
Call number: TR647.A43 1985b
Alinder, Mary Street. Ansel Adams: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
Call number: TR140.A3 .A79 1996
-----, and Andrea Gray Stillman, eds. Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916-1984. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1988.
Call number: TR140.A3A4 1988 [P&P]
Armor, John. Manzanar. New York: Times Books, 1988.
Call number: D769.8.A6A69 1988 [P&P]
Newhall, Nancy. Ansel Adams: The Eloquent Light. New York: Aperture, 1980.
Call number: TR140.A55N48 1980 x-copy [P&P]
Spaulding, Jonathan. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography. Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1995.
Call number: TR140.A3 S63 1995
Szarkowski, John. Ansel Adams at 100. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2001.
Call number: TR647.A236 2001
Japanese-American Internment Camps
Danovitch, Sylvia E. "The Past Recaptured? The Photographic Record of the Internment of Japanese-Americans." Prologue 12, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 91-103.
Call number: CD3020 .P75
Garrett, Jessie A., and Ronald C. Larson, eds. Camp and Community: Manzanar and the Owens Valley. Fullerton: California State University, 1977.
Call number: D769.8.A6 C23
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, and James D. Houston. Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience during and after World War II Internment. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973.
Call number: E184.J3 H63
Inada, Lawson Fusao. Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2000.
Call number: D769.8.A6 O55 2000
Inouye, Mamoru. The Heart Mountain Story: Photographs by Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel of the World War II Internment of Japanese Americans. [Los Gatos, Calif.]: M. Inouye, 1997.
Call number: D769.8.A6 I56 1997
Murray, Alice Yang, and Roger Daniels. What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.
Call number: D769.8.A6 W53 2000
Okihiro, Gary Y. Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996. Includes photographs of ten Japanese relocation camps by Joan Myers.
Call number: D769.8.A6 O36 1996
Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Call number: D769.8.A6 R63 2001
Tateishi, John. And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
Call number: D769.8.A6 A67 1999
Unrau, Harlan D. The Evacuation and Relocation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry during World War II: A Historical Study of Manzanar War Relocation Center. [Denver, Colo.?]: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1996.
Call number: D769.8.A6 U57 1996