Archive Documents

About AJS Archive Documents

At America-Japan Society, various unprecedented archive documents on non-governmental bilateral exchange have been preserved. These documents well describe one hundred years history of the Society. They are invaluable documents having been preserved since the Society was founded in 1917 at a brick-built Mitsubishi building in Marunouchi area to date, having survived the disasters like the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Great Tokyo Air Raids in 1945.

The contents of the documents are; hundreds of lectures delivered at AJS by the prominent figures both from Japan and USA, dozens of albums containing sepia-colored pictures, letters, exchanged among the directors of the Society during pre and post WWII, tapes recording the real voices of the above mentioned lecturers, etc.

In order to avoid the deterioration of those documents, in our special project conducted in 2000, we digitalized 235 lectures, 181 invaluable letters 121 of related documents and the audiotapes were partially reproduced in the form of CD-s.

Furthermore, for the better public accessibility of those documents, we requested researchers and scholars of Japan-US relations to academically analyze and evaluate the contents of those lectures delivered since foundation till the end of the cold war period. Based on the research, they wrapped up the significance and role of AJS in the history of the Japan-US interchange in the private sector. The result of this research was published in the spring of 2012 under the title of “Another History of Japan-US Relations‐the 20th century observed via AJS archives-”

AJS has digitalized selected pictures among its historic archives which are available in our website. If you need higher resolution, please contact the society’s office.

Please note that some of these pictures may be protected by the copyright which you should obtain separate permission for your own use.