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World War II repositories



You wrote

I'm compiling a list of repository holdings on the social history of
World War II, i.e. personal papers, letters, dairies, manuscripts, and
photos of the period from military service personnel, nurses, defense
and other Home Front workers, volunteers with the USO, Red Cross,
Civilian Defense, OSS personnel, Merchant Marines, WASPs, etc.

Military history and documents of unit campaigns are not of primary
interest, but will be welcomed.

Would you kindly give me the following:

1) name and address of repository

2) web page if available

3) brief description of holdings OR whom to
contact for more information.

Thank you for your assistance with this project!
-----

Two separate holding repositories at the University of Hawaii will hold
materials in which you have interest.

The University Archives holds records of the Romanzo Adams Social Research
Laboratory (RASRL), an agency which functioned as a part of the Department
of Sociology of the University from about 1922 until 1963.  For the area
during the war, the laboratory worked closely with the military government
in Hawaii, helping with morale and other social issues.  As a result the
RASRL group holds files on ethnic groups in Hawaii, including Japanese and
Japanese Americans, Filipinos and Filipino Americans and Chinese and
Chinese Americans.  The Sociology department faculty were among the
leaders in the defense of Japanese inhabitants, helping to establish the
loyalty of the population to the United States.  Several Americans of
Japanese Ancestry soldiers wrote to professors in the department which
letters are also in the files.

The second is the Hawaii War Records Depository.  This agency was created
by the Territorial Legislature in 1943, in the first legislative session
permitted after the military took over the government of Hawaii.  The
legislature stipulated that the repository would be housed at the
University of Hawaii.  They asked that this repository document the impact
of the war upon the life of Hawaii residents.  Thus the repository holds
little if anything on the war in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor and the
only documentation of the war in Europe are materials on the 100th
Infantry Bn and the 442nd Regimental Combat Group.  This agency does hold
materials such as diaries, letters, personal histories, etc. of people
living in Hawaii who participated in some way or another in World War II.

The web sites are:  http://www.hawaii.edu/speccoll/arch/ for University
Archives; click on "cataloged."  The web address for HWRD, recently moved
to larger server to handle scanned images as part of an IMLS grant, is
http://128.171.57.100/hwrd/HWRD_html/HWRD_welcome.htm   Regretably, the
web sites do not hold records of much of the material.  Other finding
aids, including the card catalog for HWRD are available on site.

Contact person is yours truly.  We encourage people to contact us before
showing up on site.  The two repositories are in different library
buildings across campus from each other.  My schedule various from day to
day because of appointments with patrons, reference desk assignments, etc.
Moreover, we require a minimum of twenty-four weekday hours between a
patron's turning in an official request form and our having the materials
ready for use.  Materials are not available on weekends.

James Cartwright
University Archives
University of Hawaii at Manoa           <jimc@hawaii.edu>

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