Selected Documents on Japanese American Incarceration, 1935-2005 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum

This "artificial" collection is arranged in four series, each reflecting the original archival collection from which the documents draw: FDR Papers as President - Official File (OF); FDR Papers as President - President's Personal File (PPF); FDR Papers as President - President's Secretary's File (PSF); and Materials from Other Collections. The Box/Folder Listing uses folder titles from the source collections verbatim, but researchers should be aware that in most cases only specific component items from each folder were selected for inclusion.

Archivists of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

This "artifical" collection was assembled in response to public interest in the issue of Japanese American incarceration [also referred to as internment] during World War II. While the FDR Library staff has endeavored to make this research collection as comprehensive as possible, this collection does not represent the entirety of materials in the Library documenting the forcible relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans following the issuance of Executive Order 9066.

Researchers should approach this finding aid and documents in this collection it represents as a guide, not as a a complete inventory of all relevant materials. Papers which may contain a greater amount of records pertaining to Japanese American internment include but are not limited to the President's Personal Files (PPF), the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, and the Morgenthau Diaries. The diaries of Harold Ickes and Henry L. Stimson, while not at the Library, have been microfilmed, and the Library owns copies of the microfilm.

The work of Library intern Jenny Swadosh in researching, selecting, and arranging the documents, and in preparing the ffinding aid, is gratefully acknowledged.