Photobook of Japanese American Farms, Shops, and Restaurants in Southern California

[Album Commemorating Peace: Representative Japanese Residents in Southern California] Heiwa kinen shashincho: Nanka zairyu daihyoteki nihonjin

Akashi, Kaoru (photographer)

Notes: A book collecting 500 or more halftone images of the Japanese American community in Southern California, assembled by a Japanese immigrant photographer with a studio in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo. The images are captioned in English and Japanese, with the names and addresses of those pictured. Families, farms, and shops, offices, and restaurants are included. The title is likely a reference to the Peace Commemorative Exposition being held in Tokyo at the time this book was printed in Los Angeles.

A number of similar photo albums were published of Japanese Americans, particularly on the West Coast. This one is distinctive for its heavy focus on agricultural pursuits, with many scenes of ranches, farms, crops, buildings, and equipment. Akashi presumably took many of the photographs, but a number of the rural scenes and probably other businesses were taken by different photographers, mostly also Japanese American, whose names are visible in the images.

The final images are a portrait of Akashi and of the Empire Printing Co. in Los Angeles, which manufactured this book. The latter image looks to include unfolded sheets from this very book. Akashi immigrated to the US around 1906. He operated the Paris Photo Studio for a number of years; he sold the business to Miyatake Toyoo (later Toyo) in 1923.

"Photographs of individuals, families, shops, businesses, farmlands, etc. in Southern California. Akashi Kaoru was a photographer and the owner of Paris Shashinkan in Little Tokyo."—Japanese American National Museum bibliography, no. 20.

Unpaginated, but about 400 pages. 11 by 8 inches.

OCLC: 1021010478 (Japan only)

Edition + Condition: First edition. Surface abrasion to the cloth covers; front endpaper with a long tear; generally very good. Original string binding missing and partially replaced; gilt edges scratched.

Publication: Los Angeles: Parisu Shashinkan [Paris Photo Studio], 1922 (Taisho 11).

Item No: #362521

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