Masaru Akahori was a writer, businessman, and an active member of the Japanese American community. He worked for several different Japanese language newspapers both in Japan and in the United States. He was also involved in numerous business ventures, many of which ended in failure. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested on suspicion of being an enemy alien and incarcerated in various internment camps until March 1946. In the postwar years, he resettled his family in Los Angeles, and founded the "Town Crier," a Japanese language daily, in Little Tokyo. The collection consists of his diaries, memoirs, correspondence, business and financial records, and clippings from the many publications to which he contributed. It also includes diaries and letters written by his second wife Kiku, and various personal records relating to the Akahori family. Materials are in both English and Japanese.

Masaru Akahori was born in 1884 in Tokushima Prefecture. He arrived in the United States in 1904, and worked as a reporter for a Japanese language press in Northern California for several years until returning to Japan in 1919 to work as a reporter for the "Yomiuri Shimbun" in Tokyo. He returned to America three years later, and became involved in various business ventures, many of which proved unsuccessful. These ventures included a legal office, a commercial company, and an advertising agency. Following a particularly messy financial fallout, he moved to Seattle to work for a couple of Japanese language newspapers based in the Pacific Northwest region. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested by FBI agents as a suspect enemy alien, and thereafter moved from one internment camp to another until he was finally released in March 1946. Following the War, he and his family resettled in Los Angeles, California, and he began publishing the "Town Crier," a mimeographed Japanese language daily. Throughout his life, he went by various pen names and aliases such as: Meishu, Bennaishi, Bennosuke, Manako, and Hyoroku Oishi. He was known among his American friends as Ben. He married twice. He had two sons from his first marriage and a daughter, Tomoko Marjorie, from his second. Masaru Akahori (1884-). Writer, businessman, and newspaper publisher. A native of Tokushima Prefecture, he graduated from Tokushima Chugakko [characters] [Tokushima Middle School], at which Toyohiko Kagawa, a well-known Christian social reformer and labor leader, was his senior classmate. Masaru arrived in the United States in 1904, initially resided in the San Francisco Bay Area, and later worked in Sacramento and Placerville, California, as a reporter of a Japanese language press. In 1919 he went back to Japan to work as a reporter for the" Yomiuri Shimbun" [characters] in Tokyo. He returned to America in 1922, and was involved in various business ventures in Southern California, including the Akahori Horitsu Jimusho [characters] [Akahori Legal Office] and the American Oriental Advertising Company (AOC). Many of these ventures proved unsuccessful, and his financial entanglement with business partners of the AOC resulted in his abscondence from his Terminal Island community. Subsequently, he fled to Seattle, Washington, where he became Managing Editor of the Taihoku Nippo [characters] [The Great Northern Daily News], and also served as the Pacific Northwest region correspondent of the Nichibei Shimbun [characters] [The Japanese American News] of San Francisco, one of the largest and influential Japanese language newspapers in America, until World War II broke out. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was arrested by FBI agents as a suspected enemy alien, and was incarcerated in various internment camps, including Fort Missoula, Lordsburg, Santa Fe, and Crystal City. When he was finally released from the internment camp in March 1946, he and his family were resettled in Los Angeles. In the following month he began publishing the "Town Crier," a mimeographed Japanese language daily, in Little Tokyo. He married twice. He had two sons, Seikichi Julius and Sakuzo (both residing in Japan), from his first marriage to Mikie Miki, and a Nisei daughter, Tomoko Marjorie, from his second to Kiku Ishizuka. His pen names and aliases included: Meishu, Bennaishi, Bennosuke, Manako, and Hyroku Oishi. He was known as Ben M. Akahori among his American friends.

19.5 Linear Feet (39 boxes, 1 oversize box)

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