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Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records
BANC MSS 67/14 c
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
The Bancroft Library
Title: Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 67/14 c
Physical Description:
250.5 linear feet
(335 boxes, 84 cartons, 41 oversize volumes (folios), 7 oversize folders, 2 oversize boxes; 380 microfilm reels; 5,660 digital
objects)
Date (inclusive): 1930-1974
Date (bulk): 1942-1946
Abstract: The collections consists of surplus copies of the U.S. War Relocation Authority agency documents, including publications,
staff papers, reports, correspondences, press releases, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks and a few photographs. Included is
the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, University of California, Berkeley, 1942-1946, containing evacuee
diaries and letters and staff correspondence, reports and studies.
Language of Material: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
The collection is open for research with restrictions. Digital surrogates and/or microfilm are to be used instead of originals.
Use of originals is permitted only by written permission of the curator.
The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records are primarily comprised of two separate donations. The War Relocation
Authority (WRA) designated the University of California, Berkeley Library as the prime depository for WRA record materials
outside the National Archives on September 7, 1945. The records of the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study
(JERS) were deposited in the University Library by Dorothy Swaine Thomas in August 1948. In addition records were donated
by Alexander H. Leighton, author and director of the Bureau of Sociological Research at the Colorado River Relocation Center,
1942-1942; Rev. Galen M. Fisher donated his collection of correspondences and newspaper clippings; various public officials
in California including Governor Culbert Olson and Attorney General Earl Warren; and authors Jacobus tenBroek, Edward N. Barnhart,
and Floyd W. Matson donated their materials used in preparation for the book "Prejudice, War, and the Constitution" (1954).
Between 1954-1955, Edward N. Barnhart integrated the two collections and created an inventory; the resulting collection was
transferred to The Bancroft Library on July 3, 1963. Additions were made in October 1977 (by Conrad Taeuber, Director) and
in 1988 (by Ann R. Miller) of materials recovered after Dorothy Thomas's death, in 1977, from her office at the Center for
Population Research in Washington, D.C.
Alternative Form of Materials Available
Digital reproductions of selected material are available. The collection is also on 380 microfilm reels.
The records are arranged chronologically by subject, maintaining the original arrangement by Edward N. Barnhart in 1954-1955
and presented in "Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement: Catalog of Material in the General Library" (1958). Barnhart
created each series, classified as a Part that corresponds to the major phases of the evacuation. Each Part is divided into
Sections. The Part divisions were primarily event-related; Section divisions were subject or organization based. Folders within
each Section were assigned an arbitrary letter/number classification.
Before being transferred to the Bancroft Library, in 1966, the collection was in the Documents Department of the General
Library. A supplement to Barnhart's catalog was prepared by the Manuscripts Division, "Japanese American evacuation and resettlement
records 67/14 c, Report and Key to Arrangement." The supplement listed material not included in the Barnhart catalog, primary
form the incorporation of The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS) into the collection.
The finding aid created in 1996 supersedes the Barnhart catalog and supplement. The finding aid retained Barnhart's arrangement
of Parts and Sections, further dividing the contents of the Sections by subject. Additionally, JERS material was incorporated
into the Sections as applicable. Barnhart's arrangement and numbering system was retained to facilitate the transition from
his inventory of original material to the finding aid that linked to the microfilmed materials and was based on a reprocessed,
expanded, and rehoused collection. Beginning in 2011, as the material was digitized the digital objects were linked to the
corresponding record.
In general, documents are still located under their original Part and Section designations. However, identical material appearing
in more than one place in the collection was retained in the most appropriate Section or, if not readily apparent, in the
folder in which it first appears.
Letter/number designations, on folders, within the Sections may be significantly different from the Barnhart inventory. Folder
contents may have been split into two or more numbers to permit a more accurate description of material including office of
origination, name of author, title, and date of creation if the information is available. Multiple numbers for a single type
of material were often eliminated by using multiple folders under one number. Examples of these include minutes of a particular
organization, such as block managers meetings. Divisional closing reports have been pulled together and listed as "final reports,"
usually at the end of the WRA segment for each center.
Folder numbers eliminated (due to duplication of material) in processing have sometimes been reassigned to other material
and new numbers have been created in order to insert material at appropriate places. Part V (W's), which consists of material
received after Barnhart's inventory was created, has been arranged into Parts, Sections, and assigned arbitrary letter/number
designations to correspond with Barnhart's system. Within folders, material is arranged chronologically when appropriate.
Throughout the Container Listing, real names of individuals have been listed rather than the pseudonyms used extensively by
the Study, if available.
Although Bancroft's WRA records were originally thought to be duplicates of The National Archives' collection, Records of
the War Relocation Authority, 1942-1946: Field Basic Documentation, the two collections are not identical. The Bancroft Library
holds a copy of the National Archives (NARA) microfilm (cataloged as BANC FILM 1932). The materials in the Japanese American
Evacuation and Resettlement Records collection have been compared with the NARA film in order to prevent microfilm duplication
of documents. In cases where the National Archives film included materials in the Bancroft's collection, the container listing
notes their location on the NARA film inside bold square brackets [NARA Reel __, Folder __] following the item description.
Throughout the Container List, section titles with identifying letters are given first, followed by microfilm reel numbers,
followed by box and folder numbers of the original materials. Specific microfilm reel and frame numbers are provided at the
item level. If available, a digital reproduction of the material appears below the description. Appendix A contains a correlation
of box and file numbers of originals.
When the finding aid was created, in some instances, notable items within folders may have been described to increase their
discoverability. These appear as child records under a parent record. In the early phases of digitization TEI standards were
used. Notable items within folders may have been digitized rather than the content of the entire folder. In later phases of
digitization, FADGI standards were used and the content of the entire folder was digitized, usually as a PDF file. In instances
in which a TEI and PDF file was created, due to constraints, a duplicate record was created with [digital file of entire folder]
added at the end of the title. In these instances, there is a note: "contents originally digitized using TEI standards. Contents
re-digitized using FADGI standards available under. . ." or "contents re-digitized using FADGI standards available under.
. . ." Additionally, in many instances, when there are notable items described but no TEI file, there is a note: "folder contains:"
before the title to indicate that the contents are included in a PDF file. There are also instances where there is no addendum
in the title (a notable item was originally described but not digitized in the early phases), however the contents were digitized
in later phases and appear in the digital file of the parent record.
On February 19, 1942, two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9066, leading to the assembly, evacuation and relocation of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. From
March 1942-1946 the U.S War Relocation Authority (WRA) had jurisdiction over those evacuated from their homes in California,
Oregon, Washington and southern Arizona. During its existence from March 1942 to 1946, the WRA controlled the administration
of the relocation centers, administered an extensive resettlement program, and oversaw the details of the registration and
segregation programs.
Japanese and Japanese Americans were taken to assembly centers while awaiting reassignment to a relocation camp. The WRA
operated ten camps: Manzanar, California; Tule Lake in Newell, California; Topaz (Central Utah) in Delta, Utah; Gila River
in Rivers, Arizona; Poston (Colorado River) in Parker, Arizona; Granada in Amache, Colorado; Heart Mountain in Cody, Wyoming;
Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho; Jerome in Denson, Arkansas; and Rohwer in McGehee, Arkansas. The evacuees had to sell or abandon
their property, taking only what they could carry with them to the camps. The WRA sought to implemented educational programs,
recreation facilities, newspapers, and other elements of community life within the camps.
The WRA issued loyalty tests in 1943. Those who were designated "disloyal" were segregated to the Tule Lake camp and treated
as enemies of the State. In February, 1944, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9742 that officially terminated
the WRA and the government began to release individuals deemed "loyal" Americans. Several months later, in December, President
Roosevelt rescinded Executive Order 9066 and the WRA began releasing internees to resettlement facilities and temporary housing.
By 1945 the majority of evacuees were released. In 1945 Imperial Japan surrendered, ending World War II. The last camp operated
by WRA, Tule Lake, closed in 1946.
The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study
To study the effects of mass incarceration of Japanese Americans, in 1942, sociologist professor Dorothy Swaine Thomas at
University of California, Berkeley, organized the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS). The Study recruited
and placed UC Berkeley professors and Nisei social science students into selected WRA sites: assembly centers, camps and resettlement
communities. JERS ran until the end of the World War II.
[Identification of item], Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, BANC MSS 67/14 c, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.
Processed by E. Stephens, 1994-1996. Processing completed by project staff of the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement
Project.
May 6, 1997, this electronic finding aid was updated to current markup standards by Gabriela A. Montoya using a perl script.
Updates include: FPI's, EADHEADER, EADID, CUTSPEC, arrangement of DID elements and their labels, etc.
Revised January 8, 2005, EAD v1.0 finding aid converted to EAD 2002 using UC Berkeley's eadv1to2002.pl perl script. Revised
January 28, 2005, EAD v2002 finding aid upgraded to OAC BPG 2.0 using UC Berkeley's bpgifier.pl perl script. Significant changes
include: Replaced all instances of @entityref with @href Reordered many top-level elements for consistency, grouping several
into two new descgrp elements Changed many top-level element heads for consistency.
Revised 2019 by L. Hernandez with consultation by the Head of Archival Processing, L. Michels, under a NPS grant that included
revising the finding aid to better reflect the contents and arrangement of the collection, updating access restrictions and
locations, and linking digital objects to the records.
Title: Wayne M. Collins Papers
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 78/177 c
Title: Morton Grodzins, Political Aspects of the Japanese Evacuation
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 71/169 c
Title: Rosalie H. Wax Papers Regarding Tule Lake Relocation Center
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 83/115 c
Title: Culbert L. Olson Papers
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS C-B 442
Title: California Attorney General's Office
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS C-A 172
Title: Carey McWilliams Papers
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS C-H 46
Title: Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS C-A 171
Title: Galen Merriam Fisher Correspondence
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 86/179 c
Title: War Relocation Authority Photographs
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 1967.014
Title: Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1942-1946: Field Basic Documentation Located at the National Archives...[microform]
Identifier/Call Number: BANC FILM 1932
Scope and Content Note
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) records represent the official documentation of the United States agency created to
assume jurisdiction over the Japanese and Japanese Americans evacuated from the West Coast by the Western Defense Command,
the Fourth Army, and the Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA). Included in their records are administrative files,
official publications, reports and surveys, legal papers, correspondence, and occasionally, photographs and scrapbooks. Divisions
and offices represented encompass the Washington, D.C. head office, Western Field Office, district and area resettlement offices,
the ten relocation centers, Leupp isolation center, and the Bureau of Sociological Research. Also included are miscellaneous
materials from other Federal and State agencies involved with the internment, including the Western Defense Command and WCCA.
Part One covers the initial phase of the evacuation that included the exclusion of Japanese and Japanese Americans from the
West Coast by the Western Defense Command; the assembly centers operated by the Wartime Civilian Control Administration; transfers
to the relocation centers (camps) and the creation of the War Relocation Authority. Included with Part One are JERS material
including studies, reports, and analyses. Additional JERS material are found in Part Five.
Part Two contains the second phase of the evacuation during which individuals were held in the relocation centers and allowed
to resettle under supervision in the eastern states. Documentation from the Washington Office headquarters includes annual
reports, pamphlets, correspondences, and reports from administrative units. There is material from the district and field
offices or regional offices and documents from the relocation centers. The relocation center material consists of documents
from administrative officials and organization units relating to policy and operations; center administration dealing with
major events including registration, Selective Service, and disturbances such as strikes; studies on center evens, polices
and attitudes; diaries, correspondences and other personal writings by evacuees; and publications of the evacuees including
newspapers.
Part Three includes the third phase of the evacuation beginning with the lifting of the Army's mass-exclusion order in 1944;
the release of evacuees and the establishment of the Army's individual exclusion program that ended in 1946 when the last
relocation center closed.
Part Four comprised vital statistics and life records.
Part Five consists of material from JERS including staff working papers, correspondences, reports and tabulations.
Material format includes manuscripts, booklets, scrapbooks, images, construction documents, index cards, portfolios, posters,
maps and rosters. Additionally, the collection contains portfolios of Form WRA-26 in which personal descriptive information
on all individuals evacuated and relocated was captured. Data from the forms was transferred to punch cards. Information from
these forms is available in the National Archives Database of Japanese American Evacuees.
Scope and Content Note
The JERS material is concentrated on Tule Lake, Gila River, and Poston/Colorado River, with minor involvement at Topaz/Central
Utah, Manzanar, and Minidoka. Material was also gathered from temporary detention centers, primarily the Tanforan and Tulare
centers located in California.
Often extensive accounts of camp life come in the form of journals, diaries, and field reports. In addition, staff compiled
case histories, conducted interviews with evacuees and WRA staff, studied group behavior, and performed statistical surveys.
The JERS administrative records contain extensive correspondence with field workers, staff, evacuees, and others.
Throughout the collection are gatherings of primary and secondary research materials collected by Dorothy Swaine Thomas,
and her staff, particularly Rosalie Hankey Wax and Morton Grodzins. These include reports, surveys, theses, and other writings.
Correspondence indicates that at least two persons gave significant amounts of material to the Study. Galen M. Fisher sent
Dorothy Thomas material concerning his work with Japanese American student relocation and with organizations concerned about
the human rights issues surrounding internment; the Galen M. Fisher files comprise Part II, Section 13. Alexander H. Leighton
sent the Study his office files from the Bureau of Sociological Research at Poston in October of 1944; the Bureau's files
(formerly cataloged as BANC MSS 72/233) follow the JERS material in Part II, Section 5: Poston Relocation Center.
Several separately catalogued segments of the collection identified during initial processing and microfilming. They have
been reincorporated into the collection at appropriate places. Part II, Section 5: Poston includes a set of seven high school
scrapbooks (formerly BANC MSS C-A 195). Part V includes former BANC MSS 89/46 c, which contained the original typescript copies
of Rosalie Hankey Wax's field notes and miscellaneous reports done by Hankey for JERS; and, former BANC MSS 78/53 c consisting
of miscellaneous correspondence and research regarding the Study. Both collections were given to The Bancroft Library after
Dorothy Thomas's death in 1977.
War Relocation Authority photographs
The War Relocation Authority photographs were transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library and are cataloged
as: War Relocation Authority Photographs: Evacuation and Resettlement (BANC PIC 1967.014). The photographic collection contains
approximately 7000 photographs covering pre-evacuation, evacuation, assembly centers, relocation, life in the "relocation
centers," segregation, and the resettlement program. These photographs have been digitized and will be available online in
the Heller Reading Room of The Bancroft Library.
The Bancroft Library was awarded the first of several grants by the National Park Service's Japanese American Confinement
Sites Grant Program in 2011 to digitize nearly 250,000 primary source materials that focus on the Japanese American experience
during World War II. Since the initial grant, the collection has continued to be digitized from subsequent grants, awarded
from NPS, which are available on the Online Archive of California and Calisphere.
The first project (2011-2014) created the Japanese American Evacuation & Resettlement Study Digital Archive, digitizing nearly
100,000 records from JERS. The second project (2014-2017) developed Voices in Confinement: A Digital Archive of Japanese American
Internees, digitizing 150,000 items focusing on material created by Internees. Manuscripts and pictorial collections from
Yoshiko Uchida, Hisako Hibi, the Ikeda family, Rosalie Was, and Wayne Collins are included along with images from the War
Relocation Authority Photograph collection. The third project (2015-2018) produced Japanese American Internment Sites: A Digital
Archive, digitizing material from ten internment camps within the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records (BANC
MSS 67/14c). The collection represents the official documentation of the War Relocation Authority agency, 1942-1946. The fourth
phase of the project (2018-2020) continued to digitize nearly 150,000 items from the collection, focusing on the WRA records
and enhancing the finding aid.
- Printed materials have been transferred to the book collection of The Bancroft Library.
- Photographs have been transferred to Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library and cataloged as War Relocation Authority Photographs: Evacuation and Resettlement (BANC PIC 1967.014).
- Videotapes, sound recordings, and motion pictures have been transferred to the Microforms Collection of the Bancroft Library.
- Master 9 track tape (box 336 and box 337) were transferred to Digital collections BANC DIG.
- Maps have been transferred to the Map Room of the Main Library.
- Selected government documents may have been transferred to the Main Library.
Some materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction
of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions,
privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond
that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
For additional information about the University of California, Berkeley Library's permissions policy please see: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/permissions-policies.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Diaries
Scrapbooks
Photographs
School records
Sketchbooks
Pamphlets
Newsletters.
Case files
Federal government records.
Programs
Proclamations
Vital statistics records
Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
Japanese Americans--History--20th century
Japanese--United States--History--20th century
World War, 1939-1945--Japanese Americans
World War, 1939-1945--Evacuation of civilians--United States
Miyamoto, Shotaro Frank, 1912-
Leighton, Alexander H. (Alexander Hamilton), 1908-
Fisher, Galen Merriam, 1873-1955
Nishimoto, Richard S. (Richard Shigeaki), 1904-1956
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine Thomas, 1899-
University of California, Berkeley. Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement Study
United States. War Relocation Authority
Online Archive of California
Grodzins, Morton
Central Utah Relocation Center
Bureau of Sociological Research (Poston, Ariz.)
Kikuchi, Charles
Gila River Relocation Center
Poston Relocation Center (Poston, Ariz.)
Granada Relocation Center
Heart Mountain Relocation Center (Wyo.)
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Minidoka Relocation Center
Tule Lake Relocation Center
Leupp Isolation Center (Winslow, Ariz.)
Jerome Relocation Center (Denson, Ark.)
Rohwer Relocation Center (Rohwer, Ark.)