Digital Archive Collections at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library

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Image, Digital Archive Collections at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library
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These 29 collections document the history of Hawaii and Micronesia from 1834 to the 1990s. "Annexation of Hawai'i," for example, contains thousands of pages of documents concerning the U.S. plan to annex Hawaii, realized in 1898. Materials include the 1,437-page Blount Report of 1894–95, initiated by President Grover Cleveland on the history of relations between the U.S. and Hawaii and the planned annexation; Congressional debates on the Hawaii Organic Act, passed in 1900 to establish a territorial government; and Hawaiian anti-annexation petitions and protest documents from 1897–98.

"Hawaii War Records" presents 880 photographs documenting the impact of World War II on Hawaii and its people. The "Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands" photo archive provides 52,000 photographs on programs in education, health, and political and economic development in the 2,100 islands of Micronesia administered by the U.S. from 1947 to 1994. The website also includes a collection of 16 Hawaiian-language newspapers.

Online Archive of California

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Photo, Joseph Sharp, 1849 gold miner of Sharp's Flats, Online Archive of CA
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This archive provides more than 81,000 images and 1,000 texts on the history and culture of California. Images may be searched by keyword or browsed according to six categories: history, nature, people, places, society, and technology. Topics include exploration, Native Americans, gold rushes, and California events.

Three collections of texts are also available. Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive furnishes 309 documents and 67 oral histories. Free Speech Movement: Student Protest, U.C. Berkeley, 1964–1965 provides 541 documents, including books, letters, press releases, oral histories, photographs, and trial transcripts.

UC Berkeley Regional Oral History Office offers full-text transcripts of 139 interviews organized into 14 topics including agriculture, arts, California government, society and family life, wine industry, disability rights, Earl Warren, Jewish community leaders, medicine (including AIDS), suffragists, and UC Black alumni.

Oral History Research Center

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Photo, "The Kim Sisters at a table in Reno"
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Established in 1905, Las Vegas, NV, officially became a city in 1911. Its growth and development over the course of the 20th century is documented through this diverse collection of oral histories. Eight oral histories, in video, audio, and transcript format, expose aspects of daily life in early Las Vegas from the 1930s to the 1960s. Las Vegas showgirls Anna Bailey, Carol Baker, Betty Bunch, Sook-ja, Ai-ja, Mia Kim, and Virginia James discuss working conditions on the Las Vegas strip in the 1960s and 70s as well as their involvement with prominent shows, the racial integration of showrooms, and the growth of the Las Vegas Korean community. Present-day Las Vegas comes to life through oral histories and videos of six women in their 70s and 80s who tap dance together several times a week at the West Las Vegas Arts Center. Segregation, integration, the Nevada Test Site, and local history in Las Vegas are the focus of the oral history roundtable with Rose Hamilton and four other women who grew up together in Las Vegas and remain friends to this day.

Japanese-American Internment

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Photo, Oakland Store, from the National Japanese American Historical Society
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In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the removal of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were U.S. Citizens, into internment camps. This site, created for a class project at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides a gateway to brief essays and samplings of primary sources about the internment period from 1942-1945, a time line, oral histories, and photographs. There are links to 34 electronic essays and roughly 50 websites. Some of the more useful links are to the the National Archives and Records Administration, which documents the rights of American Citizens and actions of the Federal Government; the War Relocations Authority Camps in Arizona; the Museum of the City of San Franciso; the Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project; and Heart Mountain Digital Preservation Project. The site also contains personal reminiscences of life in the camp. Though many links on this site are useful for research on Asian-American history and the history of the World War II home front, this site should be used carefully. Some of the information presented as "fact" is highly controversial, some links present hearsay or speculation as fact, and several of the links are broken or obsolete.

Japanese American National Museum Collections

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Drawing, Playing Go K5-BA, 8-24-42, George Hoshida, Japanese American Nat. Muse.
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This site provides access to the digitized resources of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Collections include more than 300 letters sent to Clara Breed, a San Diego librarian, by her former patrons after their relocation to internment camps; panoramic photos from Buddhist Churches of America events; artwork by Hideo Date, Hisako Hibi, Estelle Ishigo, Henry Sugomoto, and Benji Okubo; the diary of Stanley Hayami, a high school student during the internment years, later killed in combat at age 19; sketches and watercolors from the diary of George Hoshida; photographs of Manzanar and Tule Lake by Jack Iwata, as well as other photographs of daily life in the internment camps; a major collection of issei immigrant artifacts and plantation clothing; and photographs for the Rafu Shimpo, one of the oldest Japanese American newspapers in the U.S.

This is an excellent source for anyone seeking primary sources related to Japanese American experience in the U.S., particularly with an emphasis on the years of internment.

Gold Rush!

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Painting, Sunday Morning in the Mines, Charles Nahl
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In commemoration of the 1848 California Gold Rush, the Oakland Museum opened a series of exhibitions and created this online companion site. Sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, this virtual tour of the museum's exhibition offers an extensive (roughly 5,000-word) narrative of the Gold Rush and its history, illustrated with over 50 images of posters, photographs, artifacts, and art related to the Gold Rush. Three audio narratives discuss details of the discovery of gold and the resulting massive westward migration. Also included on the site are 28 images of artwork and 22 photographs of related subjects.

Site visitors can explore the experiences of Chinese, Latino/Californio, Native American, and African American peoples who participated in the Rush. Links to three curriculum sites and sample curriculum materials are available for grades 4, 5, 8, and 11; five curriculum units and 18 lesson plans can be purchased from the museum. The site is ideal for researching California history and westward expansion.

Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive

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Photo, Leah Hing, ca. 1934, Pilot and WWII instrument mechanic, c. 1934, WSU
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This site offers a large archive of selected documents, reports, records, maps, photographs, newspapers, artifacts, and oral history interviews. Items are searchable by ethnic group, keyword, archive, type of material, date, or subject. Brief historical overviews and bibliographies for each ethnic group profiled are also available in the archive section. Another section has lessons plans for teachers on African Americans, immigration and settlement, migration, and ethnic culture and identity, 1850-1950. It also offers tutorials on using the archive, using history databases on the web, interpreting photographs, interpreting documents, and interpreting oral history. Historical overviews are provided on the various ethnic groups that settled the Columbia River Basin.

A discussion forum offers a place to talk about discoveries in the archive or questions. Topics currently include ethnic groups, ethnicity and race, work and labor, immigration and migration, family life, religion, social conditions, discrimination, and civil rights. A very useful site for researching or teaching the social and cultural history of the Columbia River Basin.

Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar

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Photo, Tsutomu Fuhunago, Ansel Adams
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During World War II, the U.S. Government forced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and businesses, relocating them to internment camps from California to Arkansas. Well-known photographer Ansel Adams documented the lives of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California—from portraits to daily life, including agriculture and leisure.

This site presents 242 original negatives and 209 photographic prints, often displayed together to show Adams's developing and cropping techniques. His 1944 book on Manzanar, Born Free and Equal is also reproduced. Adams donated the collection to the Library of Congress in 1965, writing, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice . . . had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment."

A More Perfect Union

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Photo, Tule Lake renunciant, November 23, 1945
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Based on a 1987 Smithsonian exhibition, this site allows visitors to click and drag through sections of text, music, personal accounts, and images that tell stories of the forced—and ultimately determined to be unconstitutional—internment during World War II of 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Also provides searching capabilities to retrieve images of more than 800 artifacts relating to the lives of those interned.

Sections in the narrative cover immigration, removal, internment, loyalty, service, and justice. Provides a 5,000-word audio file of interview excerpts; 6,400-word accompanying text from the 1994 traveling exhibition; annotated timeline; 72-title bibliography; 20 links to related sites; and two classroom activities. Also invites visitors to share their responses and to read those of others. Of value to students of Asian American history, the homefront during World War II, and constitutional issues.