You all know photographer Dorothea Lange. If not Dorothea herself, you’ll recognize her famous candid photos taken during the 1930s highlighting the struggles of Americans suffering during the Great Depression. Her iconic Migrant Mother and the series of photos around that image depict the desperation many felt during the period.

Later in 1942, she was hired by the US government to capture images of the relocation of Japanese-Americans affected by President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. Thousands of American citizens were being stripped of their civil liberties, their businesses, and their homes before being placed in internment camps scattered around the country.

Lange was originally opposed to the idea but accepted the task because she thought “a true record of the evacuation would be valuable in the future.” But after reviewing her photographs and their portrayal of the Japanese American experience, the military became concerned how the images of the internment program would be received by the public.

So government leaders seized the photos for the duration of World War II and deposited them in the National Archives, making them unavailable for viewing. Not until 2006 were the censored pictures finally released.

This week is the 75th anniversary of Roosevelt’s February 1942 decision to sign an executive order creating restricted areas and sending over 120,000 people to internment camps.

Lange’s photographs and other documents from the period provide a powerful tool for training students to think historically and to connect past events with contemporary issues. Ansel Adams and other photographers also documented the internment process. Many of the photos taken by Lange and Adams are now available online as well as articles and resources that can be used to create engaging and powerful learning activities.

Start with several online resources highlighting Lange’s images and oral histories:

• Once-Censored Photos of the WWII Japanese Internment Camps Are Finally Revealed
  My Modern Met
• Executive Order 9066 – which sent my family to a concentration camp – turns 75
  SFGate
• Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange’s photos of camps where Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in WW2
  International Business Times
• Dorothea Lange Photos Lead Historians to Japanese Camp Survivors
  KQED Arts

Browse a variety of resources telling the story:

• When Japanese Americans Were Caged: 75 Years After Executive Order 9066
  NBC News
• 75 Years Ago, the Secretary of the Navy Falsely Blamed Japanese-Americans for Pearl Harbor
  Smithsonian Magazine
• States in US West mark 75th anniversary of internment order
  Fox News
• A look at Japanese internment camps in Arkansas on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066
  St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Find teaching tools and lesson plans:

• Class Kits
  National Japanese American Historical Society
• Japanese Relocation During World War II
  National Archives
• Japanese American Internment Source Set / Teacher’s Guide
  Library of Congress
• Home was a Horse Stall Oral History / Home was a Horse Stall Lesson Activity
  Teaching Tolerance