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The
genesis of the Japanese American
Collection can be traced to a letter
Bird wrote to College Librarian
Elizabeth McCloy on August 18, 1942.
"Something tremendous is happening in our
times of which we are all aware," wrote
Bird, "I would like very much to keep as
full a record as possible of all the
documents and material dealing with this
particular phase. Will you please help
me?" McCloy and her staff honored this
request and from 1942 until 1947 the
Occidental College Library actively sought
records and documents related to the
Japanese American internment during World
War II.
Bird retired from Occidental College in
June 1945 and moved with his wife to
Monterey, California. Receiving McCloy's
report [published report] of the
collection, Bird wrote her in March 1946,
"The story of the collection at the
library on Japanese Americans is very
interesting ... How we have behaved toward
these people should be known and carefully
recorded for future reference." [Bird
letter]
About
100
letters of correspondence and documents in
the Letters and Papers of Remsen Bird
are related to collection development. The
bulk of these are in a folder labeled
"Background for Japanese Relocation
Collection" in Box 1. A representative
twenty-five items are in the online archive.
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