Manuscripts

Ken Okumura photograph album

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Description: Photograph album compiled by Sargent Ken Okumura of California. The album contains multiple images of Okumura in his U.S. Army uniform at Camp Roberts. It also contains photos of Japanese American families, presumably Okumura's family and friends, hiking, picnicking, attending various social events, and taking road trips to Yosemite and Lake Tahoe, as well as posing in front of their homes, some in traditional Japanese kimonos. Toward the end of the album is a series of images of Japanese Americans preparing to leave for the Topaz Internment Camp in 1942; the Topaz camp, now known as the Central Utah Relocation Center, is shown in a few photographs.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1930-1942.
Call number: mssHM 83859
Creator: Okumura, Ken(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Purchased from Margolis & Moss, December 2019.

Kawakami family photograph album

Visual Materials

A photograph album depicting a Japanese American family in California in the pre-internment period, along with portraits of Japanese family members. There isn't any writing in the album, but one photograph is inscribed "To Mr. S. Kawakami," who may be the compiler. The album begins with formal portraits of family groups in traditional Japanese dress that were most likely taken in Japan. A photograph of a young child laid into the album has Japanese printing on it, and there are a few pressed flowers in the album. Other images show Japanese Americans in California, including the University of California, Berkeley campus; a large group in front of the Berkeley Buddhist Temple on Channing Way, Berkeley; Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica; downtown Los Angeles; Santa Barbara Mission; and San Francisco. Three images depict a sumo wrestling match that may have taken place in California.

photCL 648

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Charles Kenneth Lawyer photograph album

Visual Materials

An album of photographs with detailed captions compiled by American educator Charles Kenneth Lawyer documenting his time teaching at the Himeji Middle School near Osaka, Japan from 1923 to 1925. The album is partly a travelogue of Lawyer's experience living and working in Japan, as it contains typed, detailed captions pasted into the pages next to mostly original photographs. The photographs show Lawyer with both Japanese and American friends and colleagues, his Japanese students, housekeeper, and other residents in everyday activities. Images include women laundering kimonos, rural farmers harvesting and planting crops, street scenes, and tourist sites throughout Japan. There are 15 photographs showing the damage and destruction caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, including ruined business and residential areas, burned streetcars, and Japanese residents whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake. The album also includes a loose 1924 letter from the American Refugee Relief Committee's Earthquake Relief Fund.

photCL 639

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Alice S. Arikawa photograph album

Visual Materials

A photograph and scrapbook album compiled by Alice S. Arikawa, a young Japanese American woman in Los Angeles, California, that chronicles her youth from 1934 to 1942, just before the Japanese American internment during World War II. Snapshot photographs are pasted on black paper pages, with captions by Arikawa written in white pencil. Images depict Arikawa and friends at Lafayette Junior High School, then Jefferson High School (both in central Los Angeles), and participating in a wide range of social and school activities in and around the Los Angeles area. She and a diverse group of friends are seen on beach outings, going to Santa Anita Park, the Huntington Library gardens (four images), attending a formal dance, and horseback riding. Other subjects are her family, a business correspondence class in 1936, and activities with the Kalifans, a Y.W.C.A. social group. The album's last images are dated March 1942, just before Arikawa's incarceration at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. The album contains a graduation class portrait taken inside Manzanar, but it does not appear that Arikawa is part of this group (she graduated from high school in 1937). Ephemeral items include school programs, and an identification card belonging to Arikawa's brother, John, age 15.

photCL 637

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Leimomi Fujimoto photograph album, (bulk 1943-1948)

Visual Materials

A personal photograph album compiled by Japanese American teenager Leimomi Fujimoto, documenting her junior high and high school years in Hawaii during the World War II era. The album begins in 1943, when she is in the eighth grade, and continues through her years at St. Anthony High School, a Catholic school in Wailuku, Maui. She and her friends are seen enjoying activities such as football games, birthday parties, and beach outings, and there are many portraits of Fujimoto and her school friends. Some snapshots were taken on visits to natural landmarks and downtown buildings in the Kahului area of Maui. Throughout the album are Fujimoto's expressive handwritten captions, which include many names of people and places. There are also photographs of her family, teachers, and her future husband, Vincent "Buzz" Sills, who is named as Fujimoto's groom in a wedding announcement clipping laid in the album. Other clippings highlight Fujimoto's many social activities, such as being a song leader in high school, attending the junior prom (where she was a member of the royal court), completing a Hula dancing course, and serving as maid of honor in a wedding. The album ends around 1948, after her high school graduation, but several laid-in photographs are dated later, depicting Fujimoto's marriage and her children. Notably, the album demonstrates Fujimoto's relative freedom living under the martial law imposed on the Hawaiian Islands during World War II, in contrast to the internment of Japanese Americans in the Western United States.

photCL 643

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Photograph albums and travel diary of the Philippines by sailor aboard the USS Pocomoke (AV-9)

Visual Materials

Two photograph albums, one containing a 60-page travel diary, by U.S. Navy crew member W. A. (William Arthur) Isaminger, documenting his experiences in the Philippines during and after World War II. His travel log titled "Navy Life" begins in March 1944 when he joined the navy, then describes his time stationed in the Philippines through February 1946, when he returns home to Seattle, Washington. He was aboard the USS Pocomoke (AV-9), an aircraft carrier that operated primarily in the Pacific theatre during the war and serviced military seaplanes. Along with the diary are handwritten entries on mileage between various locations on his travels from Seattle to the Philippines and back, addresses of acquaintances and family, and a few pieces of ephemera. There are 173 photographs in the two albums, all with handwritten captions. The images include sailors and local residents, village scenes, churches and civic buildings, the statue of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal, a sunken Japanese ship in Manila harbor, and a Japanese internment camp and prisoners. There are also several images of partially nude native women and children, two scenes of cockfighting, a man with elephantitus, and a man holding the decapitated head of a Japanese man. The album also features images of activities on board the ship, various seaplanes, and a series of photographs documenting examples of "nose art": female pinups painted on airplane fuselage. Also includes a printed menu in honor of Victory Day, dated August 15, 1945. Locations include Zamboanga, Mindanao, Luzon, Puerto Princesa, Calicoan Island, Samar Island, Taclogan, and Tawitawi Island.

photCL 677

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Photograph album of China, Korea, and Japan

Visual Materials

A photograph album containing 263 photographs of China, Korea, and Japan, dating from the time of the Boxer Uprising in China to the Russo-Japanese War, 1901 to 1905. The photographs are primarily unique images, along with some commercial photographs and foldout panoramas, and many have handwritten captions. The album's inside cover is inscribed: "John Rory Macey / H.M.S. Blenheim / China Station / Vol. II / Jan 1st 1901 - July 18th, 1905"; Macey was a naval engineer in the British Admiralty and most likely took some of the photographs, particularly naval-related scenes, and images of British servicemen. Photographic subjects in China include navy ships in the port of Weihaiwei, street scenes in Peking (Beijing) and other cities, Chinese residents, monuments (including the Forbidden Palace under foreign occupation), palaces, gardens, and temples. A number of photographs focus on the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising, including ruined buildings. The second portion of the album depicts scenes in Korea during the Russo-Japanese War; these include Korean people in daily activities, street scenes, commercial images of Chemulpo, and the palace grounds in Seoul. The third portion of the album contains amateur and commercial photographs of Japan, including the port cities of Maizuru and Yokohama, Japanese residents, tea ceremonies, the hot spring resort of Tonosawa, and panoramic images of the Osaka Exhibition of 1903. At the back of the album are 17 large, hand-colored photographs of Japan, including images of landscapes, street vendors, and Japanese women in genre scenes.

photCL 632

Ken Okumura photograph album

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Kawakami family photograph album

Charles Kenneth Lawyer photograph album

Alice S. Arikawa photograph album

Leimomi Fujimoto photograph album, (bulk 1943-1948)

Photograph albums and travel diary of the Philippines by sailor aboard the USS Pocomoke (AV-9)

Photograph album of China, Korea, and Japan