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- Description
- Early Sunday morning on September 2, 1945, aboard the new 45,000-ton battleship U.S.S. Missouri and before representatives of nine Allied nations, the Japanese signed their surrender. At the ceremonies, General MacArthur stated that the Japanese and their conquerors did not meet "in a spirit of mistrust, malice or hatred but rather, it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve."
- Despite these words, none of the Japanese delegates were saluted by any of the high-ranking officers. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz later revealed that U.S. planes had been ready with bombs to halt any last-minute treacherous act on the part of the Japanese. Seeing a deckful of high Allied officers on the U.S.S. Missouri might have presented a tempting target for a final suicide attack.
- In this image, Mydans captured Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff, signing the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. Watching from across the table are Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Representatives of the Allied Powers stand behind General MacArthur.
- When asked how he attained such a good shooting position at the surrender, Mydans answered that "being in combat, knowing the generals, covering the war over a long time helped a lot." The first outfit to head out of Okinawa was the 11th Airborne, commanded by Gen. Joe Swing. Since Mydans had been alongside Swing during some of the fighting, he was lucky enough to be chosen by the general to get on that first plane.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.086
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.086
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- Description
- During one of his first assignments for LIFE magazine, Mydans was asked to capture images of life in Texas. His main focus was the oil boom town of Freer (Jan 17 1938).
- The town received its name in 1925, when the government granted permission to have a post office built. Six families had established homesteads there only a decade earlier. By the mid-thirties, the population of Freer was estimated to be somewhere between five and eight thousand.
- The first oil boom occurred in 1928, but the Great Depression and the discovery of oil in East Texas in 1930 put an end to it. During the spring of 1932, a second, even bigger, boom occurred. By 1933, Freer had become the second-largest oilfield in the United States and had attracted a flood of settlers from Oklahoma, Kansas, and other midwestern states. According to LIFE, most of the settlers were parasites, people who brought trouble, with them rather than productivity. This child, however, presents a contrast to this idea.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1937
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.035
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.035
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- Description
- In 1959 Mydans photographed Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on his visit to the United States. During his stay, Khrushchev visited the Twentieth Century Fox studios during the filming of the movie Can-Can. Khrushchev came on the set with his wife, bodyguards, politicians, U.S. officials, and studio heads who ordered the dancers to perform an entire can-can number for the elite guests.
- The film, starring Shirley MacLaine, received worldwide publicity because of Khrushchev's visit. The next day's newspapers carried an interesting quote from him. When asked what he thought of Can-Can, he replied, "The face of humanity is prettier than its backside."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1959
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.154
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.154
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- Description
- In July 1946, a joint U.S. Army-Navy operation to test the effect of atom bombs on naval vessels was set in motion: the fourth atom bomb explosion of all time took place in a remote atoll in the Pacific. In order to clear the way for the operation Crossroads, the test site, Bikini Island, needed to be evacuated, its 167 natives relocated. Mydans was sent to the area to document the exodus of the people of Bikini. The story was published by LIFE (Mar 25, 1946).
- Natives of Bikini were required to cart all of their possessions to the U.S. Navy landing craft before being relocated to their new homes on Rongerik Atoll. These canoes were the natives' main mode of transportation.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1946
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.113
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.113
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- Description
- Early in 1939 Carl Mydans traveled 100 feet underground to document the building of the Midtown Tunnel in New York City, which runs under the East River all the way from 42nd Street in Manhattan to Queens. His photographs were published in LIFE magazine (April 3, 1939) and earned Mydans a Grand Prize by U.S. Camera [n.d.].
- At the moment this picture was taken, hydraulic jacks from the shield a criss-cross structure of heavy girders ringed in steel plate is pushing against the last laid iron section. As the shield pushes ahead into the river bed, the "shove" is called out. Afterwards, sections are plugged to avoid any air leaks. In good ground, the shield makes one shove every five hours; in bad ground, it can take up to twenty-four hours.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.051
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.051
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- Description
- The 1960s found Carl Mydans back in the Philippines with MacArthur, as well as other locations in the Pacific. In 1968, Mydans returned to Bikini with a team of experts who were conducting tests on the now-abandoned island. While the islanders had struggled to cope with their exile, Bikini had been destroyed.
- In 1954, the Air Force and Army began preparations for a new series of testing that would include the first air-deliverable hydrogen bomb (codename: Bravo) ever detonated by the United States Operation Castle. In its aftermath, islanders and Americans alike were exposed to ash that caused illnesses symptomatic of radiation poisoning, such as skin lesions, hair loss, and the eventual development of cancer.
- Twenty-two years after Operation Crossroads was set in motion, President Lyndon B. Johnson promised the Bikini natives, by then living in Kili, that they could return to their islands. In an effort to assure the islanders that its clean-up efforts were successful, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issued a statement that said: "There's virtually no radiation left and we can find no discernible effect on either plant or animal life." By 1978, however, the people of Bikini were once again evacuated because of high levels of radioactive cesium and strontium in the water and in the soil.
- Though Bikini is not available for the natives to live on, it has not been abandoned. The lagoon of the Bikini Atoll, where the wrecks of over 90 American and Japanese warships lie under about 100 feet of water, has become an exclusive diving spot for tourists from the United States and Japan since 1992. After much planning and construction, Bikini Atoll opened to visitors in June 1996 to provide an economic base for a possible future resettlement of Bikini.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1968
- maker
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.161
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.161
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- Description
- The Resettlement Administration was created in an effort to curb rural poverty among farmers. It purchased small, economically unviable farms and set up government-monitored cooperative homestead communities. These farm families received educational aid along with supervision. A community called Skyline Farms was set up in the Cumberland Mountains region as one such effort of a cooperative farmstead. In this image, Mydans captures some of the children playing in the yard outside the multigrade school.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1936-06
- 1936
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.013
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.013
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- Description
- On August 6, 1945, a B-29 plane, the Enola Gay, dropped a uranium atomic bomb, code named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan. In minutes, half of the city vanished. According to U.S. estimates, 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing; 140,000 were injured; and many more were made homeless as a result of the bomb. In the blast, thousands died instantly. Nagasaki faced the same fate three days later.
- Surveys disclosed that severe radiation injury occurred to all those exposed within a radius of one kilometer. Serious to moderate radiation injury occurred between one and two kilometers. Individuals within two to four kilometers suffered slight radiation effects. The scars on this boy's body could have been the result of flash burns during the heat waves or a residential fire caused by the blast. He is being measured as part of a continuous testing process in an attempt to understand the after-effects of radiation exposure. Mydans was the TIME-LIFE bureau chief in Tokyo at the time the picture was taken.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1949
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.129
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.129
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- Description
- When the Korean War broke out, Mydans was coming to the end of his assignment in Tokyo as TIME-LIFE bureau chief. He was in New York doing a radio program on Korea when, right before going on the air, a reporter told him that North Korea had invaded South Korea. As soon as he got the news, Mydans made a call to his supervisor at LIFE and was told to prepare to return to Asia as soon as he finished the interview.
- David Douglas Duncan was working in Japan at the time and flew to Korea. Once General MacArthur flew in from Tokyo, Duncan introduced himself explaining that he was with LIFE magazine and that he would be replacing Carl there. MacArthur replied that he was welcome there, but he was not replacing Mydans since he was already on his way back from New York.
- In an interview by Philip B. Kunhardt Jr., Mydans was asked which photographers he admired most. Among the photojournalists, Duncan was his number-one choice. The reasons are as follow: Duncan is a good photographer, a photojournalist of the first order, a storyteller, a compassionate man, a courageous man. In Carl's own words, "My years have been spent as a photojournalist, and a photojournalist is a storyteller—that is what I am, a storyteller. And David is a storyteller."
- David Douglas Duncan was a World War II Marine veteran. From July 1950 to January 1951, he covered the Korean War for LIFE magazine, focusing mainly on the Marine Corps. Most of the images can be found in his book, This Is War! A Photo-Narrative in Three Parts (1951).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1950
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.138
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.138
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- Description
- Carl Mydans was part of Roy Stryker's photographic staff at the Resettlement Administration from late in 1935 until 1936. Between his assignments in the southeastern states to document cotton production and his travels farther north in New England, Mydans spent time in the nation's capital and photographed the Capitol from a different, less familiar point of view. During the 1930s, most neighborhoods surrounding the Capitol were poor shantytowns of tenements and shacks.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1935-09
- 1935
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.003
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.003
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- Description
- By the end of 1944, Mydans had been pulled from the European theater to cover the war in the Pacific. He went to Leyte to meet with General MacArthur's forces, whom he accompanied on his return to Luzon island. On February 3, 1945, twenty-six days after U.S. troops landed in Luzon, they entered Manila. After a week-long battle to push back the Japanese forces, the Americans secured their position. With this victory, 3,500 Americans who had been prisoners of war at Santo Tomás University were set free, an event of personal significance to Mydans who had been interned there three years before.
- The Battle for Manila, however, raged on for a month, causing the destruction of valuable historical landmarks and the death of approximately 100,000 Philippine civilians. The city's debris became obstacles that soldiers had to maneuver through. This battle, the bloodiest and most desctructive stage of urban fighting in the Pacific theater during World War II, marked a key victory for General MacArthur as he regained control of the Philippines.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.072
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.072
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- Description
- By the fall of 1963, President Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign. Although he had not formally announced his candidacy, it was clear that Kennedy was going to run for office and he seemed confident about his chances for reelection. On November 22, riding in a motorcade procession through downtown Dallas, Kennedy was shot.
- According to the New York Times obituary of Mydans, Carl was one of the last photographers to reach LIFE magazine's offices after Kennedy's assassination. Since he was not awarded a clear assignment, Mydans wandered over to Grand Central Station and, on a whim, boarded a train north, headed to Stamford, Connecticut. The emotional intensity of the moment captured in this picture helped make it one of his most memorable images from all his years with LIFE.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1963
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.158
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.158
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- Description
- After World War II, President Truman issued a directive for a joint U.S. Army-Navy test that would determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships. Bikini Atoll was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for operation Crossroads because of its location away from regular air and sea routes. Mydans was sent to the island to document the exodus of the people of Bikini. The story was published by LIFE (Mar 25, 1946).
- On March 7, 1946, the island natives were relocated to Rongerik, the first of various temporary sites during their long exile from Bikini. The landing craft made a 100-mile trip overnight to the uninhabited, sparsely vegetated Rongerik Island. Shortly after arriving, the Bikini Islanders realized that they could not make a life on that island. Although the administration left food for several weeks, the natives soon discovered that the coconut trees and other local food crops produced few fruits, and the fish in the lagoon were inedible. Within two months, they began to beg U.S. officials to move them back to Bikini. Within two years, they were starving and needed to be relocated once more.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1946-03
- 1946
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.116
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.116
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- Description
- During his time with the F.S.A., Mydans was sent to the southeastern and south central states primarily to document the production of cotton in those regions. While on assignment in Arkansas, he took this picture of men sitting on the "Loafer's Wall." The "wall" was located in front of City Hall and served as a meeting place for the community.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1936-06
- 1936
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.012
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.012
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- Description
- After their capture in Manila by Japanese forces in January 1942 and 16 months in internment camps, Carl and Shelly Mydans finally touched American soil in late 1943. Mydans' first assignment for LIFE magazine after his repatriation was a story on Japanese internment camps on the U.S. West Coast.
- Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were removed from their homes and relocated to isolated inland areas in California and other western states. This man was one of 155 "pressure boys," men loyal to Japan who had been involved in various riots in November the previous year. Mydans reported that the boy was singing Home on the Range as he entered the barracks. "He sang it like an American. There was no Japanese accent. He looked at me the same way I guess I looked at a Japanese official when he came to check on me at Camp Santo Tomás in Manila. At the back of my mind was the thought, 'Come on, get it over and get out. Leave me alone.' This boy felt the same way. He was just waiting, killing time" (LIFE, March 20, 1944, p.31).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1944
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.065
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.065
-
- Description
- After the conclusion of World War II, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials stating that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships."
- Bikini was chosen to be the new nuclear testing ground for the U.S. government because of its location away from regular air and sea routes. In order for the project to get underway, the natives needed to be relocated to a different island. Mydans was sent to the island to document the exodus of the people of Bikini to the nearby island of Rongerik in March of 1946. The story was published by LIFE (Mar 25, 1946).
- Outrigger canoes, like the one pictured here, were the Island people's main mode of transportation. The calm waters eventually became the stage for atom bombs testing on target ships. Before the evacuation, U.S. sailors helped the natives paint canoes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1946
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.098
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.098
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- Description
- Soon after the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships."
- Bikini Island was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the U.S. government because of its location away from regular air and sea routes. In order for testing to get underway, the natives were removed from the island. Mydans was sent to the island to document the exodus of the people of Bikini. The story was published by LIFE (Mar 25, 1946).
- Bikini's population numbered only 160 people from 11 families before it was evacuated. It was governed by a paramount chief (whom U.S. sailors began calling "king") and alaps or family heads. In this picture, Chief Juda sits with his family. Clothes were optional for children but adults were taught by missionaries to wear them despite the hot weather.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1946
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.096
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.096
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- Description
- When World War II broke out in 1939, LIFE magazine sent Carl Mydans and his wife Shelley overseas to document the unfolding events as a photographer/reporter team. The two began by covering the siege in London. They then moved on to Finland where Mydans was first exposed to combat. After a short stay in Italy, they traveled to France where they witnessed its fall to Nazi Germany.
- Mydans' words describe the scene: "Each war begins where the last one left off." French soldiers in May 1940 could be mistaken for the poilus or infantrymen of 1914 as they straggle past a shelled village near Verdun after the German breakthrough at Sedan.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1940-05
- 1940
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.059
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.059
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- Description
- When the American occupation began in 1945, the goal was to attempt to transplant Western democracy to Japan. The Americans would occupy the country; Japan would be monitored, demilitarized, and rehabilitated. Carl Mydans, having been named TIME-LIFE bureau chief in Tokyo, had a prime viewing spot for the changes that were taking place in the Pacific.
- When the Korean War broke out nearly five years after the end of World War II, Japan's importance as a military base became clear. In this image, ancient and modern Japan stand in contrast: American jet fighter planes fly over a torii, the gateway to a Shinto shrine, as they return after a reconnaissance mission over the Pacific to an airbase on the island of Honshu.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1949
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.082
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.082
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- Description
- In 1968, Carl Mydans, then in his sixties, continued traveling the globe and documenting history as it developed. That year, it meant going to Vietnam and covering yet another war.
- Sometimes people have asked me why I devoted so much of my life to covering these terrible scenes, these disasters, these wars. And there is an important reason. When I began as a photojournalist I was interested in the history that was developing around me and war is one of those stories.
- I want to make it clear it is not because I liked war. They were awful periods. I have often been in places where it was so terrible, where I was so frightened, where I could criticize myself for being there by saying what are you doing, why are you here? The answer has always been that what I am doing is important, and that's why I am here. I am making a record of historic times.
- Carl Mydans
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1968
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.163
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.163
