Government Documents - Department of the Interior: War Relocation Authority

The War Relocation Authority was originally established under the Office for Emergency Management by Executive Order 9102 dated March 18, 1942. It was transferred to the Department of The Interior in 1944. The purpose of the WRA was to manage the internment camps to which persons of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry were sent following President Roosevelt's executive order 9066, which ordered evacuations from coastal areas to the interior of the U.S.

Most WRA publications have been scanned and are available in various online repositories. Use WorldCat to locate online publications.

Government Documents has a small collection of WRA publications. Some of our copies were previously owned by Katherine Luomala, who worked in the Community Analysis Section of WRA and later was a faculty member at UHM. Our holdings are all listed in the Voyager online catalog. The Library also has a microfilm collection entitled War relocation documents. The microfilm contains copies of U.S. government publications, pamphlets produced by community groups, and periodical articles that were formerly housed in the Government Documents Collection, but the printed documents were unfortunately destroyed in a flood in 2004, leaving us with only the microfilm. A finding aid for the microfilm is available -- please ask a librarian for assistance.