Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Guide to the Flaherty Collection: Japanese Internment Records
MSS-2006-02
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Flaherty Collection: Japanese Internment Records
Date (bulk): 1921-1966, bulk 1942
Accession number: MSS-2006-02
Creator:
Fullerton, Colonel Hugh T.
United States. Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army.
United States. Wartime Civil Control Administration
United States. War Relocation Authority
United States. Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army.
United States. Wartime Civil Control Administration
United States. War Relocation Authority
Collector:
Flaherty, John Melvin
San José State College
San José State College
Collection Size:
1-3inch flat-box, 4 cartons, 2 oversized boxes
(11 linear feet)
Repository:
San José State University Library, Special Collections & Archives
San José, California 95192-0028
Abstract: The War Relocation Authority (WRA), together with the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), the Civil Affairs Division
(CAD) and the Office of the Commanding General (OFG) of the Western Defense Command (WDC) operated together to segregate and
house some 110,000 men women and children from 1942 to 1945. The collection contains documents and photographs relating to
the establishment and administrative workings of the (WDC), the (WRA) and the (WCCA) for the year 1942.
Physical location:
Vault 1, Range 20B
Vault 1, Range 20B
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection: English
Languages represented in the collection: English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives. All requests for
permission to publish or quote manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Special Collections. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of the Special Collections & Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files from or derived
from these collections is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Flaherty Collection: Japanese Internment Records, San José State University Library, Special Collections & Archives.
The bulk of this artificial collection was donated to the SJSU Special Collections by John Melvin Flaherty, Jr. The remainder
of the collection was compiled by SJSC library staff.
Processing and guide prepared by Russell Rader, reviewed by Danelle Moon. Guide encoded by Russell Rader, 2006
It appears that the bulk of Flaherty Collection was initially part of a larger group of documents collected and maintained
by Colonel Hugh T. Fullerton of the Western Defence Command. Colonel Fullerton gave the documents to John Melvin Flaherty,
Jr. with instructions to distribute the collection of material to the libraries of San José State College and Stanford University.
Biography / Administrative History
On February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 providing broad powers for the War Department to create
exclusion zones and to initiate an evacuation program for the Western Defense Command (WDC). Under the leadership of General
John Dewitt of the WDC, the Civil Affairs Division (CAD) and the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) were created
in order to provide for the transition of voluntary evacuees, enemy aliens and United States citizens alike, from exclusion
areas to other parts of the country. The failure of the voluntary evacuation plan led President Roosevelt to issue Executive
Order 9102, which established the civilian run War Relocation Authority (WRA). The WRA was mandated to institute enforced
evacuations. Due to the recalcitrance of states on the interior of the country to accept the Japanese evacuees or to provide
for their safety, the WRA also constructed internment centers in order to house the evacuees. Between 1942-1945 the WRA,
the
WCCA, the CAD and the Office of the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command segregated and housed approximately
110,000 Japanese-American men, women and children.
Though the initial exclusion plan put forth by General Dewitt included both German and Italian citizens, the Japanese Americans
bore the brunt of Executive Order 9066.
Bibliography and references cited
Baker, Lillian.
American and Japanese Relocation in World War II : Fact, Fiction, and Fallacy. (Medford, OR: Webb Research Group, 1990)
City of San José Commission on the Internment of Local Japanese Americans.
With Liberty and Justice for All: The Story of San José's Japanese Community. (San José, Calif. Distributed by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, 1985).
Flaherty, John Melvin, Jr.
The Decision to Evacuate and Intern the Japanese Residing on the Pacific Coast of the United States during World War II. (Unpublished masters thesis, California State University, San José, 1973)
Nishimoto, Richard S.
Inside an American Concentration Camp : Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (Ed.). (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995)
Smith, P.
Democracy on Trial: the Japanese American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II. (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1995)
United States War Department.
Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942 : Final Report/ United States Department of War. (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1978)
Weglyn, Michi.
Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. (New York: Morrow, 1976)
Norman Y. Mineta Papers, 1975-1996
Norman Y. Mineta Papers, 1975-1996 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, 1930-1974 (bulk 1942-1946) at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley.
Norman Y. Mineta Papers, 1975-1996 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, 1930-1974 (bulk 1942-1946) at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley.
Scope and Content of Collection
This artificial collection consists of documents and photographs relating to the establishment and administrative workings
of the Western Defense Command (WDC), the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and the Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA)
for the year 1942. It includes administrative policies, orders, manuals, correspondence, statistics, posters, photographs
and newspaper clippings. The bulk of this collection documents the activities of 1942 but materials in series IV cover other
time periods.
This collection is broken down into 5 series;
Series I: War Relocation Authority;
Series II: Wartime Civilian Control Administration;
Series III: Western Defense Command;
Series IV: Printed Matter and
Series V: Japanese Internment Photograph Album
Within each series, folders have been given titles that often use abbriviations in place of full organizational names.
- ATD
- Alaska Travel Division
- CAD
- Civil Affairs Division
- EOD
- Evacuation Operations Division
- OCG
- Office of the Commanding General
- SSB
- Special Services Branch
- WCCA
- Wartime Civilian Control Administration
- WDC
- Western Defense Command
- WRA
- War Relocation Authority
The following terms have been used to index similar items in the Library Of Congress
Subjects and Indexing Terms
United States. Army. Western Defense Command.
United States. Wartime Civil Control Administration
United States. War Relocation Authority
World War, 1939-1945 -- California
Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
World War, 1939-1945 -- Evacuation of civilians