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Guide to the Kruska Japanese Internment Collection
H.Mss.1047
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Table of contents
Title: Kruska Japanese Internment collection
Dates: 1905-2013
Collection number: H.Mss.1047
Creator:
Kruska, Dennis G.
Extent:
2 linear feet
(1.5 document boxes + 2 flat storage boxes +1 oversized folder)
Repository:
Claremont Colleges. Library. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library. Claremont, CA 91711.
Abstract: Dennis G. “Denny” Kruska, a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, Hughes Aircraft physicist, venture capitalist
researcher, printing consultant, historical author and bibliographer and collector of Yosemite and Sierra Nevada materials
amassed this collection of Japanese American internment items. The collection covers a wide variety of materials, ranging
from 1905 to 2013 which are arranged into six series, with like materials being grouped together, including newspapers and
clippings, photographs, postal materials, printed matter, realia, and research materials.
This collection is open for research.
All requests for permission to reproduce or to publish must be submitted in writing to Special Collections.
[Identification of item], Kruska Japanese Internment collection (H.Mss 1047). Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library, Claremont
University Consortium.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Collection was partially gifted by and purchased from Dennis Kruska in May 2013.
No additions to the collection is anticipated.
Processed by Phoebe Huth in 2014 in the Claremont Center for Engagement with Primary Sources (CCEPS), with assistance from
Lisa Crane. Overall, the collection is in good condition. Newspaper clippings were photocopied onto acid free paper and the
original discarded; however entire newspapers were kept in their original format. Photographs were placed in mylar sleeves.
The collector, Dennis Kruska, did not arrange the collection prior to it being received by the Honnold/Mudd Library Special
Collections; the arrangement was created by the processor. Monograph items were removed from the collection, added to Special
Collections' monograph collection and cataloged in Blais, the online catalog for the Claremont Colleges Library. These items
can be located in Blais using the keyword search term “Kruska Japanese Internment Collection”.
Biography/Administrative History
Dennis G. “Denny” Kruska was trained as a cloud physicist at UCLA and worked for Hughes Aircraft for 25 years. He has also
been known as a venture capitalist researcher, a printing consultant, historical author and bibliographer who has published
a number of works mostly on the high Sierra and Yosemite. These works include
Sierra Nevada big trees: history of the exhibitions, 1850-1903 (Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1985),
Bibliography of Yosemite, the central and the southern High Sierra, and the Big Trees, 1839-1900 in collaboration with L.
W. Currey
(Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1992),
Twenty-five letters from Norman Clyde, 1923-1964 in collaboration with Chester Versteeg and Clyde Norman (Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1998),
A celebration of Clifton F. Smith's life, 1920-1999 : a Santa Barbara native son in collaboration with Clifton F. Smith (Sherman Oaks, Cal.: the author, 1999) and others.
As a collector, Kruska’s main collecting focus has always been Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. However, through stories told
by his mother about a friend’s “disappearance” following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, later contacts with Japanese American
co-workers at Hughes Aircraft and close family friends, Kruska developed a curiosity about the Japanese American internment
experience. He began collecting material dealing with “America's injustice to the Japanese people during WWII, especially
Manzanar material, since it is on the border of the Sierra Nevada, my main collecting interest.” (Kruska, 2014).
Scope and Contents of Collection
The collection covers a wide variety of materials, including newspapers and clippings, photographs, postal materials, printed
matter, realia, and research materials regarding Japanese American internment during World War II. Newspaper clippings about
the beginning of the process of exclusion of Japanese Americans and memorialization throughout the century are included. Photographs
ranging from evacuation of Japanese Americans to relocation centers to life in internment camps are also included. Postal
covers, a postcard and letters, various forms of propaganda, including anti-Japanese and pro-Japanese propaganda, pamphlets,
brochures, and newsletters from as recently as 2010 are also some of the materials in the collection. Artifacts are from Japanese
internment camps and relocation centers, ranging from authentic materials, like a wooden "laundry" sign, to tourism souveniers,
like a tea towel. Documents used by Dennis Kruska for background to the collection are also included, such as short articles,
website pages, and correspondence with people donating items to Kruska.
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
Series 1: Newspapers and clippings, 1905-2013 and undated
Series 2: Photographs, 1942-2000 and undated
Series 3: Postal materials, 1913-1991 and undated
Series 4: Printed matter, 1942-2010 and undated
Series 5: Realia, 1945 and undated
Series 6: Research materials, 1917-2013 and undated
Within each series, materials are arranged alphabetically.
Some artifacts from this collection were donated by Kruska to the Eastern California Museum (Independence, California) in
2002.
Related materials providing information on Japanese American relocation and internment may be found in the following collections
in the Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections:
•H.Mss.0926 War Relocation Authority Records
•H.Mss.1048 Kenzo Robert Koike Papers
•H.Mss.1049 Yamano Japanese Internment Collection
•H.Mss.1052 Ken Tamura Papers
The following monograph items can be found in the online catalog, Blais, using the keyword search term “Kruska Japanese Internment
Collection”:
Abkhazi, Peggy.
Enemy subject : life in a Japanese internment camp, 1943-45. Stroud, Gloucestershire : A. Sutton, 1995. Call no: D805.C6 A355 1995.
Baker, Lillian.
American and Japanese relocation in World War II : fact, fiction & fallacy. Imprint Medford, OR : Webb Research Group, c1990. Call no: D769.8.A6 B33 1990.
Bosworth, Allan R. (Allan Rucker).
America's concentration camps. New York, Norton [1967]. Call no: D805.U5 B6 1967.
Bunting, Eve.
So far from the sea. [New York] : Scholastic Inc., 2000. Call no: PZ7.B91527 So 2000.
Edmiston, James.
Home again. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1955. Call no: PS3509.D52 H6.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as fiscal agent of the United States on its operations in connection with
evacuation operations in Military Areas no. 1 and no. 2 during 1942
. [San Francisco, 1943?]. Call no: D769.8.A6 F4.
Hannon, James J.
Nasakenai = We are forsaken. [San Diego] : Grossmont Press, c1977. Call no: PS3558.A4794 H36 1977.
Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo.
Japanese American resettlement through the lens : Hikaru Carl Iwasaki and the WRA's Photographic Section, 1943-1945. Boulder, Colo. : University Press of Colorado, c2009. Call no: D769.8.A6 H578 2009.
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki.
Farewell to Manzanar; a true story of Japanese American experience during and after the World War II internment. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1973. Call no: E184.J3 H63 1973.
Internment of Japanese Americans. Dubuque, Iowa : Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., [1991?]. Call no: D769.8.A6 I67 1991.
Manzanar National Historic Site, California : general management plan & environmental impact statement. [Independence, Calif.?] : U.S. National Park Service, Pacific West Field Area, [1996]. Call no: F868.M36 M35 1996.
Our world, 1943-1944, Manzanar High . [Logan, Utah : Herff Jones Yearbook Co., 1998.]. Call no: D769.8.A6 O77 1998.
Stevens, Frederic H.
Santo Tomas Internment Camp : 1942-1945. {New York] : F.H. Stevens, c1946. Call no: D805.P6 S8.
The View from within : Japanese American art from the internment camps, 1942-1945 : Wight Art Gallery October 13 through December
6, 1992
. [Los Angeles, Calif.] : Japanese American National Museum, c1992. Call no: N6538.J3 V54 1992x.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library’s online public access catalog.
Japanese Americans
Japanese Americans -- Archives
Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
World War, 1939-1945--Japanese Americans
Artifacts
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Newspapers
Pamphlets
Photographs