In 1943, Ansel Adams was hired to photograph the Manzanar Relocation Center at the behest of Ralph Merritt, the camp’s director. The camp was home to over 10,000 Japanese-Americans who had been forcibly removed from their homes by the government after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Adams was staunchly against this incarceration of American citizens, and his photographs focus on the dignity of the camp’s residents and their resilience in the face of injustice. The resulting images were exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art and published in the book Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans in 1944.
