Guide to the Tokyo and Bloody May Day Riots photograph album MS.M.063
Finding aid prepared by Ree Clark, 2017; inventory added by Zoe MacLeod,
2020
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine
Libraries
(cc) 2017
The UCI Libraries
P.O. Box 19557
University of California, Irvine
Irvine 92623-9557
spcoll@uci.edu
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 .
The collection is open for research.
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
Tokyo and Bloody May Day Riots photograph album. MS.M.063. Special Collections and
Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.
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
box 1
Box 1 circa 1950-1953