Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1617

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.1 linear feet ((1 box))

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Korean War soldier's photograph album, circa 1950-1953, Ms. Coll. 1617, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

circa 1950-1953, 1983 (inclusive)

Abstract:

This album contains 119 photographs from what appears to be a Korean War-era U.S. Marine Corps training camp. The album's creator is unknown, but most of the photographs depict Black soldiers and the camp appears to be desegregated.

The creator of this album is unknown but may have been an African American U.S. Marine Corps corporal named Freddie.

The Korean War was a conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). In 1950, North Korea invaded the south with the help of the Soviet Union. As a result, the United Nations, led by the United States, entered the war on the side of South Korea. The People's Republic of China also joined on behalf of North Korea. The war ended in July of 1953 with both sides having suffered over a million casualties. Korea was divided into two states and the front line has remained the border between the two states until the present.

This album depicts what appears to be a desegregated U.S. Marine Corps training camp or regiment. The United States military was only formally desegregated after World War II when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981. The various branches of the military responded differently to Truman's executive order. The Air Force, for example, strongly supported integration and became the first fully integrated branch of the military. The Marine Corps, on the other hand, defended segregation at the time of the executive order and integrated slowly. Marine Corps training began integrating in 1949 and, in 1952, began integrating its units due to Korean War losses.

Sources:

"Executive Order 9981, Desegregating the Military (U.S. National Park Service)." National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/articles/000/executive-order-9981.htm#:~:text=On%20July%2026%2C%201948%2C%20President,desegregation%20of%20the%20U.S.%20military. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.

Millett, Allan. "Korean War." Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 20 Oct. 2024, www.britannica.com/event/Korean-War.

This album contains 119 photographs from what appears to be a Korean War-era U.S. Marine Corps training camp. The album's creator is unknown, but most of the photographs depict Black soldiers and the camp appears to be desegregated and is possibly stateside.

The album is bound in brown faux leather and "photographs" is embossed on the front cover. The photographs of the soldiers are printed on Kodak Velox paper. The latter portion of the volume is blank (p. 48-76).

The photographs are mostly portraits and candid photographs of individuals at the camp and many of the same individuals appear throughout the album. There are very few captions, but those that do exist identify a possible creator, "Freddie," an African American corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps.

This volume does not identify the name of the camp, the dates of the photographs, or the identities of those pictured, but there are some visual clues that indicate this is a Korean War-era album. Those clues include the integrated Marine Corps, Quonset huts, an Oldsmobile car with a grill dating to 1949 at the earliest (p. 5, 9), a Chrysler convertible model that appears to be early 1950s (p. 9), Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars (p. 17), and an edition of Modern Screen magazine from September of 1953 (p. 19). The Quonset huts and Converse shoes could date to World War II, but the integrated Marine Corps, cars, and magazine indicate that these photographs are from the early 1950s.

Most of the photographs are of African American soldiers posing in the lawns in front of their Quonset housing, but there are also photographs of the soldiers with cars, playing sports and participating in leisure activities, at social events and dances, training in and posing with large machinery and tank, posing with guns, and visiting the beach.

There is an envelope attached to the end of this volume that contains 4 photographs that date around the 1980s. There is a headshot that may be of an older Freddie; a portrait of a woman shot at Murray Studio in Brooklyn, NY; a portrait of three young children with the caption, "to Michael from Ebony, Shelden, and Cedric 1983 with love"; and a portrait of a young girl. There is a print of a hula dancer laid in at the end of the volume and a clipping of a Christmas-themed pinup model taped into the end that has been partially torn out.