Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Library and Archives at the Autry
Title: Toshio Yatsushiro Papers
Creator:
Yatsushiro, Lily
Creator:
Yatsushiro, Toshio
Creator:
Graburn, Nelson H. H.
Identifier/Call Number: MS.212
Physical Description:
2 Linear Feet
(3 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1957-1962
Abstract: Dr. Toshio Yatsushiro (born 1917) is an anthropologist born in the United States to Japanese parents. Yatsushiro started advising
and doing research for the federal government when he and his family were incarcerated in the Poston War Relocation Authority
Camp during World War II. After the war, Yatsushiro taught at universities in the U.S. and Canada. While teaching at McGill
University in Canada, the Canadian government hired Yatsushiro to do field studies on the Inuit settlement in Frobisher Bay,
now Iqaluit, in Nunavut territory from 1958-1959. This collection, which spans from 1957-1962, includes Yatsushiro's research
notes during the Inuit study and his manuscript for an unpublished book based on his findings.
Language of Material:
English
.
Container: 1-3
Toshio Yatsushiro was born on May 5, 1917, in the United States and was raised by his Japanese-born parents in Hawaii. After
finishing high school, he received a scholarship to the University of Redlands and began studying sociology in 1939. When
World War II began during his senior year of college, Yatsushiro and his family from the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los
Angeles were all sent to the Colorado River War Relocation Authority camp, also known as Poston, in Arizona. Poston was located
on the Colorado River Indian Reservation and was therefore operated by the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA), now the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, until 1943.
Dr. Alexander Leighton, head of the Bureau of Sociological Research at Poston, recruited Yatsushiro to assist in advising
the OIA in managing their inmates. Leighton continued to recruit Yatsushiro to assist in advisory and research positions
for the United States federal government until 1946, including research for Leighton's 1945 publication
The Governing of Men, advisory council to senior Pentagon officials regarding Japanese military and culture, and work on the U.S. Strategic Bombing
Survey.
Yatsushiro completed another research project for the United States government after the war, contributing to Robert Cullum's
1947 book
People in Motion. Between 1947 and 1962, Yatsushiro held various research and teaching positions for such institutions as Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cornell University, University of Kansas, and McGill University in Canada.
While teaching at McGill, the Canadian government commissioned Yatsushiro to do field studies on Inuit Eskimo residents of
Frobisher Bay, now known as Iqaluit, in the Northwest Territory Nunavut to see how they were dealing with Canadian settlements
between 1958 and 1959. Yatsushiro attended an international conference in 1959 and presented a preliminary report on his
findings, which was critical of the government's handling of the Inuit people of Baffin Island. The Canadian government terminated
the contract, and Yatsushiro's manuscript was never published.
Yatshushiro completed his dissertation,
Political and socio-cultural issues at Poston and Manzanar Relocation Centers; a themal analysis, at Cornell in 1953, and continued to publish articles and books until 1987. Yatsushiro retired from working as a professor
at the University of Hawaii in 1980 and continued to live in Hawaii until his death in 2015.
Resource:
Densho Encyclopedia contributors, "Toshio Yatsushiro,"
Densho Encyclopedia http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Toshio%20Yatsushiro/ (accessed 2022 January 9).
Donation from Rex Arrowsmith, 1978 February 17.
Toshio Yatsushiro Manuscript and Papers, 1957-1962, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; MS.212; [folder number] [folder title][date].
Copyright has not been assigned to the Autry Museum of the American West. All requests for permission to publish or quote
from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Research Services and Archives. Permission for publication is
given on behalf of the Autry Museum of the American West as the custodian 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.
Appointments to view materials are required. To make an appointment please visit
https://theautry.org/research-collections/library-and-archives and fill out the Researcher Application Form.
Materials are arranged by material type, then chronologically. Manuscript chapters start with Chapter 2 and go up to Chapter
11.
Initial processing and inventory by Braun Library Staff and Anna Liza Posas. Finding aid completed by Holly Rose Larson, NHPRC
Processing Archivist, August 9, 2012, made possible through grant funding from the National Historical Publications and Records
Commissions (NHPRC).
Processing of collection and publication of finding aid made possible by a grant from the National Historical Publications
and Records Commission (NHPRC).
This collection of papers includes the manuscript for a book titled
The Changing Eskimo and research material relating to Inuit ethnology, archaeology, and anthropology from 1957-1962.
Yatsushiro's research materials included in this collection are from his work in Frobisher Bay from 1958-1959. Papers include
field notes, field expenses, questionnaires, and transcripts of interviews. This collection also includes both business and
personal correspondence, some of which includes correspondence to Yatsushiro's wife Lily while she stayed with him in Frobisher
Bay. Other papers in this collection include a bibliography on "Copper Eskimos," notes on linguistics and orthography, government
licenses, newsletters, newspaper clippings, examples of research proposals, and one of Yatsushiro's student's papers.
There is no evidence of
The Changing Eskimo being published as a monograph, though there are notes that certain of the chapters were given as papers before some Anthropological
meetings.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Transcripts
Frobisher Bay (Nunavut : Bay)
Questionnaires
Iqaluit (Nunavut)
Bibliography
Inuit -- Ethnology
Newsletters
Field notes
Inuit -- Social life and customs
Clippings
Japanese Americans
Correspondence
Orthography and spelling
Changing Eskimo
Copper Inuit
Licenses
Inuit language -- Orthography and spelling
Linguistics
Arctic peoples