Ansel Adams's Book Born Free and Equal

This special presentation reproduces the book Born Free and Equal, a selection of Ansel Adams's photographs of the Manzanar internment camp which was published in 1944 by U.S. Camera along with a text by Adams. The digital images were made from the 112-page copy held by the Prints and Photographs Division. In a letter to his friend Nancy Newhall, the wife of Beaumont Newhall, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, Adams wrote: "Through the pictures the reader will be introduced to perhaps twenty individuals . . . loyal American citizens who are anxious to get back into the stream of life and contribute to our victory." The book received positive reviews and made the San Francisco Chronicle's bestseller list for March and April of 1945. A hardcover edition of Born Free and Equal (Bishop, CA: Spotted Dog Press, 2001) is available which corrects surname and chronological errors found in the original and includes essays by former internees Archie Miyatake and Sue Kunitomi Embrey.