About the Photograph

Dorothea Lange’s Original Caption:

Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at [8th] and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority, National Archives Identifier 210-G-A35

About the Artist

Photographer Dorothea Lange was hired by the War Relocation Authority to create a photographic record of the “evacuation” and “relocation” of Japanese-Americans in 1942. Her photographs were impounded by the government for the duration of World War II, and quietly deposited into the National Archives. Read more about the history of these photographs on the Anchor Editions Blog.

About the Print

• Each print is hand-numbered on the bottom-left, and bears an Anchor Editions stamp on verso
• Dimensions indicate the size of the paper. Actual image size is slightly less, allowing for a suitable margin for hand-numbering and framing
• Printed to museum-grade specifications using archival pigment ink
• 11 × 14 prints: Printed on Harman by Hahnemühle Gloss Baryta, a heavyweight, 100% alpha-cellulose paper, with a smooth, subtly-glossy surface
• Larger prints: Printed on Moab Juniper Baryta Rag, a heavyweight, 100% cotton rag paper with traditional baryta coating, free of optical brightening agents. Using the same archival materials and processes as the best fibre-based darkroom printing papers, this paper has a lustre-textured surface reminiscent of traditional fibre-based silver prints