Striving to fill voids in Hiroshima, Chugoku Shimbun and the press code — Series epilogue, Part 2: Materials subjected to censorship review should be kept in Japan
Sep. 11, 2024
by Kazuo Yabui, Appointed Senior Staff Writer
The U.S. University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange collection, which we surveyed to write this series of feature articles, has in its archives many printed materials published across Japan after the war. Many were the subject of censorship review conducted by the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ). They are the first materials to look at for any study of censorship during Japan’s occupation period.
When we sought advice from Taketoshi Yamamoto, professor emeritus of media history at Waseda University, as we embarked on our full-scale survey of such materials nearly two years ago, Mr. Yamamoto fired questions back at us.
“Some of the materials at the Prange collection are valuable assets created by Japanese people in the postwar period. With that in mind, is it really acceptable to permanently archive them in the U.S.? Shouldn’t they be moved back to Japan?” queried Mr. Yamamoto.
Many of those materials have been microfilmed and can be viewed at the National Diet Library of Japan. However, the original materials have impact that the microfilmed versions simply do not. The traces of the GHQ’s suppression of commentary made by Japanese people are more stark.
The Prange collection is named after Dr. Gordon Prange, who worked for the G2 Historical Section at the GHQ while keeping his appointment as professor at the University of Maryland. After the censorship period ended in October 1949, Mr. Prange moved the materials to his university in recognition of their historic significance. The total volume of the collection reportedly filled around 600 of the wooden boxes commonly used by the U.S. military at that time.
ong>Twenty percent of original documents kept in Japan ong>
Mr. Gordon’s materials seem to have been in dead storage for a long time but, in September 1978, the university formally named them the Gordon W. Prange collection and began to focus on their preservation. In 1992, as the deterioration of the paper materials grew more pronounced, the university and the National Diet Library worked jointly to microfilm the materials.
The materials in the collection include an enormous and diverse volume of magazines, books, pamphlets, and photographs. The collection’s newspapers alone make up 18,047 titles, with newspaper pages estimated to number 1.7 million and articles approximately 26 million. The number of magazine titles amount to an estimated 13,787.
Nevertheless, the National Diet Library has in its archives a mere 20 percent of the total of original materials. Unless one were to visit the United States, viewing the rest of the materials firsthand would be impossible.
ong>Witness to Japan’s democracy ong>
After the war, in many places around Japan, a country starting to move toward making a fresh start, youth groups and labor unions were established, publishing their own niche magazines and newsletters. Women’s magazines also came into being. Newspapers were launched across Japan in search of the course for a new Japan. The printed materials from that time archived in the Prange collection can truly be called, in Mr. Yamamoto’s own words, “a living witness to Japan’s post-war democracy.”
After continuing to delve into the nearly 30,000 documents in the collection over a period of around two years, we have come to believe that the Prange collection materials should be stored in Japan.
Given the situation at the University of Maryland, the return of the materials to Japan will not be easy. Making that a reality will likely not happen soon.
Even if returning the materials in their entirety proves difficult, it might be possible to hold a special exhibition of the materials at a number of locations around Japan in the form of a joint U.S.-Japan project. Core items displayed in the exhibition could be changed to suit the particular exhibition venue.
There is track record of that kind of project. About 600 items of the collection’s original materials were temporarily returned to Japan between December 1998 and August 1999. They were exhibited at Waseda University, Ritsumeikan University, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, in the city’s Naka Ward, drawing more than 70,000 visitors in total.
Next year marks 80 years since the end of the war. We want to have the chance to reflect on the fact that censorship was conducted by the GHQ and reconsider it from that perspective. We also want to take a closer look at the starting point of the post-war U.S.-Japan relationship. That would provide us with the opportunity to contemplate the nature of our precious democracy, which we must never relinquish.
---
In surveying the materials, we received cooperation from Luli van der Does, associate professor at the Hiroshima University Center for Peace who specializes in memory studies, social psychology, and discourse analysis.
(Originally published on September 11, 2024)
The U.S. University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange collection, which we surveyed to write this series of feature articles, has in its archives many printed materials published across Japan after the war. Many were the subject of censorship review conducted by the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ). They are the first materials to look at for any study of censorship during Japan’s occupation period.
When we sought advice from Taketoshi Yamamoto, professor emeritus of media history at Waseda University, as we embarked on our full-scale survey of such materials nearly two years ago, Mr. Yamamoto fired questions back at us.
“Some of the materials at the Prange collection are valuable assets created by Japanese people in the postwar period. With that in mind, is it really acceptable to permanently archive them in the U.S.? Shouldn’t they be moved back to Japan?” queried Mr. Yamamoto.
Many of those materials have been microfilmed and can be viewed at the National Diet Library of Japan. However, the original materials have impact that the microfilmed versions simply do not. The traces of the GHQ’s suppression of commentary made by Japanese people are more stark.
The Prange collection is named after Dr. Gordon Prange, who worked for the G2 Historical Section at the GHQ while keeping his appointment as professor at the University of Maryland. After the censorship period ended in October 1949, Mr. Prange moved the materials to his university in recognition of their historic significance. The total volume of the collection reportedly filled around 600 of the wooden boxes commonly used by the U.S. military at that time.
Mr. Gordon’s materials seem to have been in dead storage for a long time but, in September 1978, the university formally named them the Gordon W. Prange collection and began to focus on their preservation. In 1992, as the deterioration of the paper materials grew more pronounced, the university and the National Diet Library worked jointly to microfilm the materials.
The materials in the collection include an enormous and diverse volume of magazines, books, pamphlets, and photographs. The collection’s newspapers alone make up 18,047 titles, with newspaper pages estimated to number 1.7 million and articles approximately 26 million. The number of magazine titles amount to an estimated 13,787.
Nevertheless, the National Diet Library has in its archives a mere 20 percent of the total of original materials. Unless one were to visit the United States, viewing the rest of the materials firsthand would be impossible.
After the war, in many places around Japan, a country starting to move toward making a fresh start, youth groups and labor unions were established, publishing their own niche magazines and newsletters. Women’s magazines also came into being. Newspapers were launched across Japan in search of the course for a new Japan. The printed materials from that time archived in the Prange collection can truly be called, in Mr. Yamamoto’s own words, “a living witness to Japan’s post-war democracy.”
After continuing to delve into the nearly 30,000 documents in the collection over a period of around two years, we have come to believe that the Prange collection materials should be stored in Japan.
Given the situation at the University of Maryland, the return of the materials to Japan will not be easy. Making that a reality will likely not happen soon.
Even if returning the materials in their entirety proves difficult, it might be possible to hold a special exhibition of the materials at a number of locations around Japan in the form of a joint U.S.-Japan project. Core items displayed in the exhibition could be changed to suit the particular exhibition venue.
There is track record of that kind of project. About 600 items of the collection’s original materials were temporarily returned to Japan between December 1998 and August 1999. They were exhibited at Waseda University, Ritsumeikan University, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, in the city’s Naka Ward, drawing more than 70,000 visitors in total.
Next year marks 80 years since the end of the war. We want to have the chance to reflect on the fact that censorship was conducted by the GHQ and reconsider it from that perspective. We also want to take a closer look at the starting point of the post-war U.S.-Japan relationship. That would provide us with the opportunity to contemplate the nature of our precious democracy, which we must never relinquish.
---
In surveying the materials, we received cooperation from Luli van der Does, associate professor at the Hiroshima University Center for Peace who specializes in memory studies, social psychology, and discourse analysis.
(Originally published on September 11, 2024)
