This collection contains negatives, prints, directories, programs, correspondence, business material, and studio ephemera from the Ninomiya Studio that was located in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, California. The negatives and prints document Japanese American communities in the aftermath of World War II. Some of the images in the collection include photograps of architecture in Los Angeles and Little Tokyo, Nisei Week parades, community and religious groups, family and individual portraits, and photographs taken at weddings and memorials. Some of the photographs in the collection have been digitized and are available online.

Born on October 19, 1894, in Hiroshima Ken, Japan, Kinso Beach Ninomiya immigrated to the United States on May 27, 1913. His wife, Kiyo Ninomiya (nèe Kodani), was born on February 16, 1907, in Tokyo, Japan, and immigrated with her family to the United States on January 5, 1915. The two married in Los Angeles, California, on October 7, 1928, and had four children: Elwin Ichiro (born February 23, 1929), Terry Terumi (born September 1, 1931), Clyde Kunio (born November 11, 1937), and Letty Hisako (born February 17, 1940). In the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, Kinso Ninomiya owned and operated the successful Ninomiya Studio starting in 1922 and its satellite location on Terminal Island until its closure in the face of subsequent mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in the United States following the U.S. entrance into World War II. The Ninomiya family was forcibly removed to the Poston incarceration camp in Arizona on May 27, 1942, and remained there until 1945; Kinso Ninomiya was the first of his family to be released from Poston on February 6, 1945. The eldest Ninomiya children, Elwin and Terry, were respectively released from Poston on March 14 and September 23 of 1945. Kiyo and the two youngest children, Clyde and Letty, were all released on October 20, 1945.

288 boxes

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Archives and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

There are no access restrictions on this collection.