Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection

Special Display

Videos

We will be sharing videos of the online programs presented in conjunction with Contested Histories and more! Please check back for additional videos.

Contested Histories Talk: Episode 1—Clement Hanami

Learn about the origins and creation of Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection, from curator Clement Hanami, in this program and Q&A that was livestreamed on April 11, 2020.

Contested Histories Talk: Episode 2—Stories from the Road

Learn about what was involved in traveling Contested Histories from curator Clement Hanami in this program and Q&A that was livestreamed on April 30, 2020. He also shared the stories of some of the connections that he has made in tracking down more details about the artifacts in the collection.

Contested Histories Talk: Episode 3—Nancy Ukai

50 Objects/Stories Project Director Nancy Ukai joined Clement Hanami for a presentation and Q&A about the successful fight to stop the auction of the Eaton Collection and the efforts to preserve and learn more about the artifacts that are part of Contested Histories in this program and Q&A that was livestreamed on May 23, 2020. Ukai is a writer and researcher who helped lead the social media protest to stop the Rago auction of the Eaton Collection artifacts in 2015. She is co-administrator of the Facebook page Japanese American History: Not for Sale.

Building a Traveling Pop-Up Display

People often ask how do we travel delicate and fragile artifacts from the World War II incarceration experience around the country. In this short video, we show how we built the crates for the traveling pop-up display.

Connections in Little Rock, AR

Contested Histories traveled to the 2019 Jerome/Rowher Pilgrimage in Little Rock, Arkansas to engage Pilgrimage attendees. Organized by the Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages, the event took place from April 11-14. Sharon Ideta Fukushima recognized her father, Takashi Ideta, in one of the photographs in the collection where he is standing by a nameplate at the Jerome concentration camp. She and her family came to see the display, bringing the original nameplate, and shared what this family connection means to them.

JCCCNC

JANM was honored to have the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California as the first site to host the Contested Histories pop-up display on June 23–24, 2018.

Contested Histories: Nisei Veterans Committee Memorial Hall in Seattle, WA

JANM visited the Nisei Veterans Committee Memorial Hall on November 24–25, 2018, where they met with Kunio Homma and Kumiko Hasegawa who are descendants of Yorozu Homma, the maker of the iconic chair that is part of the Eaton collection.

Contested Histories travels to NYC

JANM brought Contested Histories to the Noguchi Foundation and Museum Garden in Long Island City, New York on April 8–10, 2022, where it was presented in conjunction with the exhibition, No Monument: In the Wake of the Japanese American Incarceration. Christina Hiromi Hobbs and Genji Amino, co-curators of No Monument, talked about the exhibitions.

Videos

Now Traveling!

Check the Venues page to see where the pop-up display is traveling.

Interested in booking this display? JANM is currently looking for locations in the central valley of California, San Diego county, and parts of Arizona. Download the Contested Histories travel fact sheet or email Clement Hanami at chanami@janm.org for more information.

Allen Hendershott Eaton’s historic 1952 book, Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, explored art and craft objects created by persons of Japanese descent while wrongfully incarcerated in the World War II American concentration camps. It was one of the first books to examine any aspect of the lives of the 120,000 inmates. In the course of conducting research for the book and a never-realized exhibition of camp artifacts, Eaton amassed a significant personal collection of such artifacts.

After many years of lying forgotten in storage, the collection was inherited by a family friend of Eaton’s, who in April 2015 attempted to put it up for auction. An outcry arose from Japanese American community leaders and activists, who rallied successfully to stop the insensitive sale of these important artifacts of Japanese American history. Ultimately, the collection was transferred to the Japanese American National Museum for safekeeping.

The display includes physical or digital representation of every item in the collection—more than 400 individual photographs, sculptures, paintings and watercolors, jewelry items, vases, beads, nameplates, and other items handmade by Japanese Americans while enduring incarceration in the WWII camps. In addition to providing the opportunity to see a collection that inspired strong emotions and decisive actions within the Japanese American community, Contested Histories is intended to help gather information about each individual object so that the museum’s efforts to preserve and catalog the collection can be as complete as possible. Camp survivors and their family members and friends will be encouraged to share with JANM information they know or remember about the objects, including who is depicted in the many photographs, most of which were shot by photographers working for the War Relocation Authority.

A pop-up version of Contested Histories is now traveling to other locations in the United States for additional viewing and information gathering. Workshops will be presented in conjunction with the display at some locations. Please check the Venues page for confirmed locations and dates.

Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection was on display at the Japanese American National Museum January 7 – April 8, 2018.

The material in this pop-up display is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

View pre-conservation photography of the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection on Flickr. Those with information about the origins of specific items are encouraged to share at this link.

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This project was funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program. Additional support was provided by George and Brad Takei, the Earle K. & Katherine F. (Muto) Moore Foundation, and Richard Sakai.

Media Sponsor:

#ContestedHistories

Videos

Now Traveling!

Check the Venues page to see where the pop-up display is traveling.

Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection was on display at the Japanese American National Museum January 7 – April 8, 2018.

View pre-conservation photography of the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection on Flickr. Those with information about the origins of specific items are encouraged to share at this link.

View Now

Media Sponsor:

#ContestedHistories

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