The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visits the Gila River relocation camp in Arizona, April 23, 1943. (The National Archives and Records Administration)
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Images of Internment: the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II
4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, New York 12538
Feb. 19, 2017 – Dec. 31, 2017
On February 19, 2017 -- the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 -- the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York opened a new photographic exhibition entitled, Images of Internment: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, with over 200 photographs including the work of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams.
The exhibit is on display in the Library's William J. Vanden Heuvel Gallery through December 31, 2017. Regular hours and admission apply.
Images of Internment, begins with a small document-focused display that briefly introduces the context behind FDR's decision to issue Executive Order 9066. It includes the role of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who disagreed with FDR's decision. In April 1943, the First Lady visited an internment camp.
Shortly after that the Japanese American Citizens League presented her with a painting of the Topaz camp by Chiura Obata (1885-1975), a Japanese American artist who was confined there. Mrs. Roosevelt displayed the painting in her New York City home until her death in 1962. It is included in the exhibition.
Visitors then enter the exhibition's main gallery where they will encounter over 200 photographs (including some reproduced in dramatically large formats) that provide a visual record of the forced removal of Japanese Americans and their lives inside the restricted world of the remote government camps operated by the War Relocation Authority.
For more information about the Images of Internment exhibition, visit https://fdrlibrary.org/exhibitions
