Kruska Japanese Internment collection
Scope and Contents of Collection
The collection covers a wide variety of materials, including newspapers and clippings, photographs, postal materials, printed matter, realia, and research materials regarding Japanese American internment during World War II. Newspaper clippings about the beginning of the process of exclusion of Japanese Americans and memorialization throughout the century are included. Photographs ranging from evacuation of Japanese Americans to relocation centers to life in internment camps are also included. Postal covers, a postcard and letters, various forms of propaganda, including anti-Japanese and pro-Japanese propaganda, pamphlets, brochures, and newsletters from as recently as 2010 are also some of the materials in the collection. Artifacts are from Japanese internment camps and relocation centers, ranging from authentic materials, like a wooden "laundry" sign, to tourism souveniers, like a tea towel. Documents used by Dennis Kruska for background to the collection are also included, such as short articles, website pages, and correspondence with people donating items to Kruska.
Dates
- Creation: 1905-2013
Creator
- Kruska, Dennis G. (Creator, Person)
Language of materials
Languages represented in the collection: English and Japanese.
Access
This collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
All requests for permission to reproduce or to publish must be submitted in writing to Special Collections.
Biography/Administrative History
Dennis G. “Denny” Kruska was trained as a cloud physicist at UCLA and worked for Hughes Aircraft for 25 years. He has also been known as a venture capitalist researcher, a printing consultant, historical author and bibliographer who has published a number of works mostly on the high Sierra and Yosemite. These works include Sierra Nevada big trees: history of the exhibitions, 1850-1903 (Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1985), Bibliography of Yosemite, the central and the southern High Sierra, and the Big Trees, 1839-1900 in collaboration with L. W. Currey (Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1992), Twenty-five letters from Norman Clyde, 1923-1964 in collaboration with Chester Versteeg and Clyde Norman (Los Angeles, Calif.: Dawson's Book Shop, 1998), A celebration of Clifton F. Smith's life, 1920-1999 : a Santa Barbara native son in collaboration with Clifton F. Smith (Sherman Oaks, Cal.: the author, 1999) and others.
As a collector, Kruska’s main collecting focus has always been Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. However, through stories told by his mother about a friend’s “disappearance” following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, later contacts with Japanese American co-workers at Hughes Aircraft and close family friends, Kruska developed a curiosity about the Japanese American internment experience. He began collecting material dealing with “America's injustice to the Japanese people during WWII, especially Manzanar material, since it is on the border of the Sierra Nevada, my main collecting interest.” (Kruska, 2014).
Extent
2 Linear Feet (1.5 document boxes + 2 flat storage boxes +1 oversized folder)
Abstract
Dennis G. “Denny” Kruska, a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, Hughes Aircraft physicist, venture capitalist researcher, printing consultant, historical author and bibliographer and collector of Yosemite and Sierra Nevada materials amassed this collection of Japanese American internment items. The collection covers a wide variety of materials, ranging from 1905 to 2013 which are arranged into six series, with like materials being grouped together, including newspapers and clippings, photographs, postal materials, printed matter, realia, and research materials.
Organization and Arrangement
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
Series 1: Newspapers and clippings, 1906-2013 and undated
Series 2: Photographs, 1942-2000 and undated
Series 3: Postal materials, 1913-1991 and undated
Series 4: Printed matter, 1942-2010 and undated
Series 5: Realia, 1945 and undated
Series 6: Research materials, 1917-2013 and undated
Within each series, materials are arranged alphabetically.
Physical location
Please consult repository.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Collection was partially gifted by and purchased from Dennis Kruska in May 2013.
Seperated Materials
The following monograph items can be found in the online catalog, Blais, using the keyword search term “Kruska Japanese Internment Collection”:
Abkhazi, Peggy. Enemy subject : life in a Japanese internment camp, 1943-45. Stroud, Gloucestershire : A. Sutton, 1995. Call no: D805.C6 A355 1995.
Baker, Lillian. American and Japanese relocation in World War II : fact, fiction & fallacy. Imprint Medford, OR : Webb Research Group, c1990. Call no: D769.8.A6 B33 1990.
Bosworth, Allan R. (Allan Rucker). America's concentration camps. New York, Norton [1967]. Call no: D805.U5 B6 1967.
Bunting, Eve. So far from the sea. [New York] : Scholastic Inc., 2000. Call no: PZ7.B91527 So 2000.
Edmiston, James. Home again. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1955. Call no: PS3509.D52 H6.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as fiscal agent of the United States on its operations in connection with evacuation operations in Military Areas no. 1 and no. 2 during 1942. [San Francisco, 1943?]. Call no: D769.8.A6 F4.
Hannon, James J. Nasakenai = We are forsaken. [San Diego] : Grossmont Press, c1977. Call no: PS3558.A4794 H36 1977.
Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo. Japanese American resettlement through the lens : Hikaru Carl Iwasaki and the WRA's Photographic Section, 1943-1945. Boulder, Colo. : University Press of Colorado, c2009. Call no: D769.8.A6 H578 2009.
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki. Farewell to Manzanar; a true story of Japanese American experience during and after the World War II internment. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1973. Call no: E184.J3 H63 1973.
Internment of Japanese Americans. Dubuque, Iowa : Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., [1991?]. Call no: D769.8.A6 I67 1991.
Manzanar National Historic Site, California : general management plan & environmental impact statement. [Independence, Calif.?] : U.S. National Park Service, Pacific West Field Area, [1996]. Call no: F868.M36 M35 1996.
Our world, 1943-1944, Manzanar High . [Logan, Utah : Herff Jones Yearbook Co., 1998.]. Call no: D769.8.A6 O77 1998.
Stevens, Frederic H. Santo Tomas Internment Camp : 1942-1945. {New York] : F.H. Stevens, c1946. Call no: D805.P6 S8.
The View from within : Japanese American art from the internment camps, 1942-1945 : Wight Art Gallery October 13 through December 6, 1992. [Los Angeles, Calif.] : Japanese American National Museum, c1992. Call no: N6538.J3 V54 1992x.
Processing Information
Processed by Phoebe Huth in 2014 in the Claremont Center for Engagement with Primary Sources (CCEPS), with assistance from Lisa Crane. Overall, the collection is in good condition. Newspaper clippings were photocopied onto acid free paper and the original discarded; however entire newspapers were kept in their original format. Photographs were placed in mylar sleeves. The collector, Dennis Kruska, did not arrange the collection prior to it being received by the Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections; the arrangement was created by the processor. Monograph items were removed from the collection, added to Special Collections' monograph collection and cataloged in Blais, the online catalog for the Claremont Colleges Library. These items can be located in Blais using the keyword search term “Kruska Japanese Internment Collection”.
- Title
- Guide to the Kruska Japanese Internment Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Phoebe Huth, CCEPS Fellow, Fall 2014
- Date
- © 2015
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the 01 - Special Collections & Archives, The Claremont Colleges Library Repository
800 North Dartmouth Ave
Claremont CA 91711 United States
Email: specialcollections@claremont.edu