Manzanar street scene, winter, Manzanar Relocation Cente
The establishment of Japanese internment camps is arguably one of the darkest moments in American history. Between 1942 and 1946, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated into these concentration camps. This was done out of unfounded suspicions that Japanese Americans might act as saboteurs or spies following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In 1943, celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams visited the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California, creating a timeless document of the daily life on this site.
The images deviated from Adams’ signature style—the renowned photographer was known for his landscape photography which had turned him into an advocate for natural conservation. Focusing less on landscape and more on documenting history, the over 200 images he took at Manzanar feature striking portraits of internees, eerie details of the facilities against the Californian mountains, scenes of people working, and peeks into their lives, often showing them finding solace in leisurely activities and in one another.
“The photographs do not show the horror [of] being uprooted and the pain these citizens went through. They show their lives, and how they coped,” says The Ansel Adams Gallery. “Not as some foreign culture, but as Americans—family life, working in the fields, fixing vehicles and equipment, raising livestock, reading the paper, playing baseball.”
When Adams presented these photographs in an exhibition titled Born Free and Equal at the Museum in Modern Art in 1945, the event sparked outrage. Seen by many as disloyal, given that America was still at war, the show was closed early, and copies of the book on the exhibition were destroyed.
In 1965, Adams offered these photographs to the Library of Congress, and explained his motivations in a letter: “The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment….All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use.”
The body of work, which has now been digitized, can be browsed on the Library of Congress website.
In 1943, celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams visited the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California.
Entrance to Manzanar, Manzanar Relocation Center
People leaving Buddhist church, winter, Manzanar Relocation Center, California
During his time there, he took over 200 images, creating a historic document of the daily lives of the people who were forcibly placed there.
Relocation: Packing up, Manzanar Relocation Center
Mess line, noon, Manzanar Relocation Center, California
The images deviated from Adams’ signature landscape photography, which had turned him into an advocate for natural conservation.
Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
Pictures and mementoes on phonograph top: Yonemitsu home, Manzanar Relocation Center
“The photographs do not show the horror [of] being uprooted and the pain these citizens went through. They show their lives, and how they coped,” says The Ansel Adams Gallery.
Cooperative store, Masako Suzuki, Manzanar Relocation Center
Mrs. Yaeko Nakamura and her two children, Joyce Yuki (right) and Louise Tami (left), standing on the step at the entrance of a dwelling, Manzanar Relocation Center
In 1965, Adams offered these photographs to the Library of Congress.
Tom Kobayashi, Landscape, Manzanar Relocation Center, California
Yonemitsu Family, son – Michael, sister – Lucy Toshiko, father – Francis, Manzanar Relocation Center
The body of work, which has now been digitized, can be browsed on the Library of Congress website.
Tojo Miatake [i.e., Tōyō Miyatake] Family, Manzanar Relocation Center
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Shimizu
Tojo Miatake [i.e. Tōyō Miyatake] Family, Manzanar Relocation Center
Sumiko Shigematsu, foreman of power sewing machine girls, Manzanar Relocation Center, California
Teruko Kiyomura
Harry Sumida, in hospital, Manzanar Relocation Center
Bert K. Miura and Toshiko Kadonada, bundling and shipping, Manzanar Relocation Center, California
Girl and volley ball
Birds on wire, evening, Manzanar Relocation Center
Sources: 200 Ansel Adams Photographs Expose the Rigors of Life in Japanese Internment Camps During WW II; Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II; Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar; Japanese-American Internment: Ansel Adams Exhibit Delayed 75 Years.
All images by Ansel Adams, via Library of Congress.
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