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American Friends Service Committee Collection
94.122
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Title: American Friends Service Committee collection
Dates: 1942-1947
Collection number: 94.122
Collection Size:
0.42 linear feet (1 box)
Repository:
Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Los Angeles, California 90012
Abstract: This collection contains materials the American Friends Service Committee produced and collected pertaining to their activities
and the experience of Japanese Americans during and after World War II.
Physical location: Japanese American National Museum. 100 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
By appointment only. Please contact the Collections Management and Access Unit (collections@janm.org). Advanced notice is
required.
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Collections
Management and Access Unit at the Japanese American National Museum (collections@janm.org).
[Identification of item], American Friends Service Committee Collection. 94.122, Japanese American National Museum. Los Angeles,
CA.
Gift of the American Friends Service Committee.
This collection was processed by staff at an earlier date. The finding aid was written in 2018 by Mariah Sander.
Founded in 1917, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a social justice organization established by the Religious
Society of Friends (Quakers), that aims to end discrimination, build interracial peace, and fight for civil rights. During
WWII, they were one of the few organizations that actively opposed Japanese incarceration and made concerted efforts to help
the community. Members visited concentration camps to provide moral support and bring food and other necessities. The AFSC
established hostels during the resettlement period to provide short-term housing, help secure employment, and aid the transition
out of camp. They also assumed leadership of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council (NJASRC) to resettle
more than 4,000 Japanese American students into universities nationwide. In 1947, the organization received the Nobel Peace
Prize for their efforts.
This collection contains correspondence, bulletins, newsletters, reports, newspaper clippings, newspapers, transcripts of
sermons prior to evacuation, promotional fliers, booklets, one journal containing the Evergreen Hostel inventory, and other
notes pertaining to the wartime and post-war activities of the American Friends Service Committee, Japanese internees, and
the United States government. Many of the documents cover the Friends’ aid to those incarcerated, conditions in the concentration
camps, first person accounts of camp life, resettlement, hostels, Nisei servicemen, discrimination, public opinion of Japanese
Americans, and the federal government’s response to Japanese incarceration.
The museum holds other collections, individual documents, and objects related to Reverend Nicholson and other members of the
AFSC.
Original arrangement was preserved when possible. Items cataloged with letters were combined into one folder.
American Friends Service Committee (Pasadena, Calif.)
Japanese American evacuation and resettlement
United States. War Relocation Authority
Tulare Assembly Center (Tulare, Calif.)
Manzanar War Relocation Center
National Opinion Research Center
Boyle Heights (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945.
Social justice--United States
Japanese Americans
Japanese American college students
Japanese American clergy
Japanese American families
Japanese American soldiers
Concentration camps
Quakers