Archives West Finding Aid

This photo album was assembled by a Japanese Issei family in Portland, Oregon prior to World War II. Includes immigrants posing in front of the Arabia Maru steamship, which sailed between Portland, Seattle, and Nagasaki under the Osaka Shosen Kaishu line from 1920-1921; a small photo of the Royal Palm Hotel which was owned by Haruyo Yazawa (d. 1928) identified in pen as one of the family members, as well as many portraits of Suko, Sato, Hiro, and Kimiko Yazawa. There are photos of groups in front of what appears to be an early Buddhist Church in Portland, a woman in an old Japantown outdoor market, and other sites. In addition, there are many portraits dated in pen, with some identified such as George Kenaye, Mr. Koihe, Mr. Sata, Osa Furuya whose family owned the Portland branch of the Furuya Grocery based out of Seattle. In addition, there appear to be class pictures of Japanese Portland school children in front of the old Atkinson School located originally near 11th & Davis, as well as some in front of Shattuck School before it was incorporated into Portland State. Many of the photos are embossed with Rose City Photographers, SM Photographers, and M.N. Takaki, a Japanese Portland photographer from 1908 through 1920. In addition, there are a few marked Astoria, Oregon where some Japanese entered the Pacific Northwest prior to World War I. This photo album includes numerous photos of Issei Japanese men with Japanese wives in traditional dress that may have been picture brides, when there was a huge expansion of Japanese women being brought into marry between 1910 and 1920. There is an interesting copy photo of an original which carefully notes on the back that it was taken of Bishop Toyohiro Tsugi, of the Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters of America at Crown Point in the Columbia River Gorge in 1934, with his driver, aides, and some of the family members in the album. This album offers a photographic and historical record of the steady growth and expansion of the Japanese-American community before World War II in Portland, Oregon. See George Katagiri, Japanese Americans in Oregon.