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- Description
- Once Mydans was freed from a Japanese internment camp, he went straight back to work. After writing a story for LIFE back in the United States, Mydans returned to the European front in time for an important Allied victory. Eight months after Italy had surrendered to Allied forces, Rome was liberated. Following months of battle in the area of Cassino, the U.S. Fifth Army made their way towards Rome. The capture of the city, although controversial, was significant since it was the first Axis capital to fall. There was little resistance from German forces once the Allies reached the outskirts of the city; German headquarters had ordered their troops to retreat. The men shown here were among the few Germans captured by the Allies. They are awaiting shipment to prison.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1944-06
- 1944
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.068
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.068
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- Description
- Migrant workers who led nomadic lifestyles, traveling from place to place as the seasons changed, were common across the United States in the early decades of the 20th century. In the 1930s, a combination of droughts, the Depression, and the increased mechanization of farming prompted a migration of small farmers and laborers from Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to the West.
- While working for the F.S.A., Mydans encountered these migrant workers walking alongside a road carrying all of their belongings. Due to the small wages being offered in these areas, this couple was headed to another work location: "Damned if we'll work for what they pay folks hereabouts."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1936
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.009
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.009
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- Description
- Carl Mydans' main projects for the Resettlement Administration dealt with photographing urban and residential development and the impoverished dwellings they were replacing. Mydans captured these two children outside their tenement somewhere amidst the shadows of the Capitol. Although new "greenbelt towns"—government-sponsored planned communities—were being developed in suburbs to relieve housing shortages, living conditions in most areas were below average.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1936-08
- 1936
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.004
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.004
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- Description
- In 1939 Carl Mydans was asked to cover the construction project of the Midtown Tunnel in New York City for LIFE magazine (April 3, 1939). He not only photographed the workers, or "sandhogs" at work, but also captured images of them in their downtime, whether before or after their shifts.
- When the sandhogs were not working down in the "hole," they spent their time up in the "hog house." This building provided a warm environment for the laborers to enjoy some hot coffee and playing cards during the break between shifts. Each shift had a game that started the day. By pay day, sandhogs would sometimes lose a week's wages.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.053
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.053
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- Description
- A prisoner of war between 1942 and 1943, Mydans continued photographing the events of World War II once he was released. After the Battle of Rome, Mydans went on to Marseilles to report on the progress of Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France. It began on August 15, 1944 and lasted till mid-September. The Third Infantry Division, seen here entering a village on a jeep, and two other divisions of the VI Corps were part of the assault troops that participated in the liberation of southern France.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1944-08
- 1944
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.066
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.066
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- Description
- After the Italian campaign of 1944, Mydans decided to cover the landing of Allied troops in Saint Tropez with a French division, the Third DIA under General Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert. The Allied invasion of southern France, code-name Operation Dragoon, originally envisioned a mixture of Free French and American troops taking over Toulon and later Marseille, with subsequent revisions encompassing Saint Tropez. It took the Allies about a month to complete their mission. Here, surrendering German soldiers taken by French forces during the assault are marched through a village.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1944
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.067
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.067
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- Description
- By September 1945, World War II had come to an end. After Japan's unconditional surrender, Gen. Douglas MacArthur issued orders for the arrest of the first forty alleged war criminals, including Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. When American military police surrounded his house on September 8, 1945, they heard a muffled shot from inside. Tojo had shot himself, but despite shooting directly through a charcoal mark on his chest, the bullet missed his heart. A few minutes later, disarmed and with blood spreading on his shirt, Tojo began to talk.
- In his book, Photojournalist, Mydans reports the following: When Tojo saw General Robert Eichelberger standing at his bedside, Tojo told him he was sorry for all the trouble he was causing. Eichelberger said to the interpreter, "Ask if he means the trouble tonight, or the last four years?" Two Japanese reporters recorded Tojo's words: "I am very sorry it is taking me so long to die. The Greater East Asia War was justified and righteous. I am very sorry for the nation and all the races of the Greater Asiatic powers. I wait for the righteous judgment of history. I wished to commit suicide but sometimes that fails." Hideki Tojo was sentenced to death for war crimes and executed by hanging on December 23, 1948, after accepting full responsibility for his actions in World War II and, in the end, advocating peace.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.083
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.083
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- Description
- In 1938 photographer Carl Mydans set off on his travels around the United States once more, making stops in Alabama, Maryland, Virginia, and Texas. He captured images of farmers and cowboys, as well as passersby on sidewalks and women in department stores shopping for the latest fashions. This time, he was on assignment for LIFE magazine, instead of the Resettlement Administration.
- In this photograph, Mydans accentuates the sharp contrast between the rural and urban lifestyles during the late 1930s in Dallas, Texas. In the background, high-rise buildings, billboard advertisements, and factories remind the viewer of progressive industrialization and how mechanized labor was replacing manual labor. Workers and farmers, such as Lucius Washington, faced hard times during this decade.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.047
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.047
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- Description
- During 1937 and 1938, Mydans led a nomadic life a situation shared with most of his subjects living in hotel rooms as his assignments took him to Georgia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York , Vermont, California, Texas, and elsewhere.
- In one of his New York stops, he took this picture of a "chain gang." Like a chain gang of prisoners, the four officers coming out of the Stock Exchange are handcuffed to their briefcases. Each day their task is to safeguard the contents of the briefcases while transporting them to the bank for deposit.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- Spring 1937
- 1937
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.039
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.039
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- Description
- In 1939 LIFE magazine sent Mydans to the East River in New York City to document the progress of the Midtown Tunnel construction. His photo essay (April 3, 1939) gives us a glimpse of the dangerous working conditions underground and the men who endured this undertaking.
- Sandhogs worked in tunnels 100 feet below the surface of a river, where compressed air doubled or tripled the atmospheric pressure on their bodies and where the noise of drilling and blasting was multiplied as it bounced back from the iron tunnel walls.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.054
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.054
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- Description
- Carl Mydans covered the Korean War for almost a year between 1950 and 1951. During that period, Seoul changed hands four times. By March of 1951, the city was in ruins, mostly destroyed in vicious street battles. Its prewar population dropping from 1.5 million inhabitants to a mere 200,000 plagued by massive food shortages. Throughout the war, Mydans witnessed how millions of Koreans were uprooted from their homes by bombing, shelling, or fear, and recorded their attempts to flee to safety.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1951
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.142
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.142
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- Description
- Just a few months before World War II broke out, Mydans was in California. A decade of economic crises had men like 54-year-old engineer Maurice J. Shannon searching for jobs wherever they could find them. Although the economy was recovering to the levels of the late 1920s, unemployment maintained a high, steady number throughout the following decade.
- Despite California's effort in the 1930s to create jobs and stabilize the state's economy by building massive structures such as the Hoover Dam, the Coit Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge people still faced hardships.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939-07
- 1939
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.055
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.055
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- Description
- Once Mydans was pulled from the European theater in late 1944, he reunited with Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific. After the landing at Luzon, MacArthur's troops made their way into Bataan. Almost three years after Gen. Edward King surrendered Bataan to the Japanese, American troops and Filipino guerrillas recaptured the peninsula. According to LIFE, after many days of battle, General MacArthur surveyed the Japanese dead and issued a communique: So far as can be found, no living Japanese soldier is now on the peninsula (LIFE, Mar 5, 1945).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945-03
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.073
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.073
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- Description
- General MacArthur's famous old and battered corn cob pipe was a familar fixture. MacArthur smoked this pipe in less formal occasions, usually outdoors while chatting with the troops on the front lines. He is standing most likely on the deck of his flagship moments before going ashore at Lingayen Gulf in Luzon. In an inscription on the back of the picture, Mydans wrote: "Where are his hands? They're in his back pocket. It's his usual position."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.074
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.074
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- Description
- Carl Mydans was coming to the end of his assignment as TIME-LIFE bureau chief in Tokyo when North Korea decided to invade South Korea. During the first few weeks of the Korean War, the fighting was referred to as nothing more than a "police action." Once casualties began to increase, the conflict became a war.
- Undermanned American forces were sent to quell the situation and the consequences can be seen in images such as this. On assignment for LIFE, Mydans followed a fresh battalion of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division in its mission to strengthen the American defense line near Yong Dong. The effort was futile because some of the units had been cut off or infiltrated by greater numbers of North Korean forces, leading to retreat.
- Back at the medical station, the wounded slowly began arriving. Eventually, the bodies of the dead were buried in an impersonal grave a few miles from where they died. In this photograph, Chaplain John G. Burkhalter reads a prayer while the shrouded bodies of 21 men are lowered and placed side by side in this grave near Kumch'on.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1950
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.130
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.130
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- Description
- Months after the conclusion of the Second World War, 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." Because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, Bikini was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the U.S. government.
- No one really knew what would happen to Bikini after the atomic testing was completed. The one thing that officials did know was that little would remain on the island. A bomb similar to that used against Nagasaki would explode several hundred feet over a "ghost fleet" of 97 ships anchored in a small lagoon of Bikini 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).
- Over the next eleven years, American soldiers participated in 23 tests at Bikini, during which hundreds of bombs were detonated. On March 1, 1954, the military released its largest bomb to date, a hydrogen bomb called Bravo. This blast was seen as one of the worst incidents of fallout exposures in all the U.S. testing programs.
- The image shows an explosion in shallow water while native onlookers sit on boats still on shore.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1946
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.093
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.093
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- Description
- While traveling through Texas capturing images for his photo essay, Mydans focused not only on the prosperous cowboys on the range, but also on the displaced population that was still struggling to find jobs amidst a national economic crisis.
- Migrant workers like this man, whom Mydans found living with his family by the side of the road near Raymondville, Texas, were called "brush-hogs." It was estimated that this type of permanent migrant worker, without a home, voting privileges, or union representation, numbered more than 3 million during the 1930s. These laborers traveled from place to place, harvesting crops that needed to be picked as soon as they ripened, hoping to earn enough money to get by.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1937
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.038
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.038
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- Description
- After covering the Italian and French campaigns of 1944, Mydans was sent back to the Pacific that November. Although he photographed some of the Leyte campaign, he missed General MacArthur's famous return to the Philippines. On January 9, 1945, Mydans photographed MacArthur as he landed in Luzon. According to Mydans, MacArthur did not believe in posed pictures: No one I have ever known in public life had a better understanding of the drama and power of a picture.
- When the time came, Mydans jumped out of the boat unto the pontoon walkway set up for MacArthur's arrival only to see the craft reverse its engines and back away. Mydans quickly ran across the beach and waited for the boat to come to him. Once the ramp dropped, he photographed MacArthur knee-deep in the water as he waded ashore, thus creating one of his most memorable shots. The image was taken just five hours after the first wave assault on the beach. Mydans was the only still photographer to accompany General MacArthur on the U.S.S. Boise, his command ship, during the invasion of Luzon. Many years after that landing, Mydans shared an intimate moment with MacArthur upon their return to Luzon. After standing on Lingayen Beach in front of a plaque commemorating the event, MacArthur walked over to Mydans and said, "This is the highlight of it all, isn't it? For you and me." (LIFE, July 14, 1961).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945-01-09
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.069
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.069
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- Description
- To sign the surrender that would officially end World War II, a small delegation of Japanese diplomats and military personnel appeared promptly at 8:55 a.m. on Sunday, September 2, 1945. Their faces expressionless, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu stood side by side.
- Shigemitsu leaned heavily on his cane in order to support the artificial leg, the result of a bomb that had been thrown at him years before in Shanghai. Shigemitsu awkwardly sat down and took off his hat and a glove before signing his name and signing for Emperor Hirohito.
- General Umezu followed, but unlike the rest, he signed standing up. With their signatures, both men bound Japan to accept the Potsdam Declaration: to surrender all forces unconditionally, free all military prisoners, and make all Japanese officials, including the Emperor, subservient to General MacArthur.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1945
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.085
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.085
-
- Description
- Carl Mydans was coming to the end of his assignment as TIME-LIFE bureau chief in Tokyo when North Korea decided to invade South Korea. After he returned home to the United States, LIFE quickly sent him back to Asia to cover the conflict. Mydans followed a battalion of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division in its mission to strenghten the American defense line near Yong Dong.
- In this image, communist prisoners, stripped down to their underwear, are marched to the rear by Marine guards after a battle. The prisoners are marched through the fields, while some of the guards walk on the road above them.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1950
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.135
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.135
