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Tokyo and Bloody May Day Riots photograph album
MS.M.063  
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Collection Details
 
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  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Collection Scope and Content Summary

  • Contributing Institution: Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
    Title: Tokyo and Bloody May Day Riots photograph album
    Identifier/Call Number: MS.M.063
    Physical Description: 0.8 Linear Feet (1 flat box)
    Date (inclusive): circa 1950-1953
    Abstract: Photograph album created by an unidentified U.S. servicemember who was stationed in Tokyo during the U.S. Occupation of Japan. Includes images of Tokyo scenery and daily life, as well as 11 images of the Bloody May Day Riots of May 1, 1952.
    Condition Description: Very good, although some photo mounting corners have come loose. Photographs that were received loose are housed in separate envelope inside flat box.
    Language of Material: English .

    Access

    The collection is open for research.

    Publication Rights

    Property rights reside with the University of California. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where the UC Regents do not hold the copyright. For information on use, copyright, and attribution, please visit: http://special.lib.uci.edu/using/publishing.html

    Preferred Citation

    Tokyo and Bloody May Day Riots photograph album. MS.M.063. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.

    Acquisition Information

    Purchased from Division Leap.

    Collection Scope and Content Summary

    Photograph album created by an unidentified U.S. servicemember who resided in Japan between 1950 and 1953. Note on verso of photograph of a ship indicates that the creator (named "David") traveled to Seattle to Tokyo on December 8, 1950.
    The album contains images depicting Tokyo people and points of interest including the Shrines and Temples of Nikko, the Dai-Ichi Seimei Building (where Douglass MacArthur held his headquarters during the U.S. Occupation), Doolittle Field and Ueno Park, as well as many candid images of street scenes and pedestrians. Also included are some images of Mount Aso, the Aso Kanko Hotel, Gamagori, Hiroshima and the 1951 new years celebrations outside the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
    Most notable are a series of 11 images of the Bloody May Day Riots of May 1, 1952 in which a faction of demonstrators belonging to the Japanese Communist Party clashed with police in front of the Tokyo Imperial Palace following the implementation of the Treaty of San Francisco on April 28, 1952. Includes images of protestors carrying signs and banners, car fires and overturned vehicles, police deploying tear gas and using truncheons to subdue crowds, and demonstrators laying on the ground, suffering the effects of tear gas.
    Oblong quarto, string-bound album with an embroidered U.S. General Headquarters (GHQ) patch pasted on the cover. Album contains 96 corner-mounted black and white prints. Also includes an envelope filled with 12 additional loose photographs (one of which is a duplicate print of an image in the album) and 1 small painting of a mother and her children.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952