In P&P Online Catalog:

This collection documents Americans at home, at work, and at play between 1935-1945, 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 which 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 via American Memory as America from the Great Depression to World War II .)

In the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The "open files" of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection contain most of the photographs shown in the American Memory site, 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. However, 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 than the keyword access offered through the online presentation.

LOT 10617 These 14 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 photos concentrate on California and Arizona while the assembly center photos are from California, Oregon, and Washington. Of particular interest are photos of evacuees voting in California state elections, registering for the draft, and the stables at the Santa Anita Race Track being converted into housing.

Japanese merchant posts sale sign in preparation for evacuation as small son looks on

LOT 1801 This group of over 200 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 photos 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, CA and Parker, AZ. The photos show evacuation to and arrival at assembly centers as well as living conditions and recreational activities.

San Pedro, Calif. Apr. 1942--Residents of Japanese ancestry being moved from Los Angeles harbor before their eventual resettlement in war relocation authority centers

These 44 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.

These 24 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.

These 23 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

The Library of Congress does not maintain these sites. Users should direct concerns about these links to their respective site administrators or webmasters.

Ansel Adams

Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 http://www.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/education/guides/aaguide/aainguid.htm

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, which includes his photographs, negatives, correspondence, and cameras. Approximately 140 photographs from his Manzanar Relocation Camp project are held by the Center.

The Sierra Club, San Francisco, CA
http://www.sierraclub.org/ansel_adams/about.asp

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
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od9066t.html

Text of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War to place Japanese Americans in relocation camps.

An extensive bibliography of books, videorecordings and internet sites related to Japanese American evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945.

Manzanar National Historic Site
http://www.nps.gov/manz

The former Manzanar War Relocation Center was designated a national historic site on March 3, 1992.

This site features on online book, Confinement and Ethnicity which details what remains at the internment sites. Also included is a history of Japanese-American relocation.

"Further and Further Away: The Relocation of San Diego's Nikkei Community - 1942" by Donald H. and Matthew T. Estesn article detailing the relocation of the San Diego Japanese-American community

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

University of California, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5j49n8kh
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, Collection number: BANC MSS 67/14c

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.

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 7,000 photographs and 317 Kodachrome slides arranged into 18 series. Dorothea Lange's work as a WRA photographer is included in this collection.

The collection includes approximately 170 photographs from Ansel Adams's work at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Additional photographic materials include more than 400 negatives of Manzanar documenting the construction of the camp through its closing, as well as photographs documenting Japanese internees after they left the camp.

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
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japanese_internment/index.html

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.

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.

This online exhibit tells the story of the relocation of Seattle's Japanese American community through photographs, a camp newsletter, and sketches done by an internee.