When the U.S. government hired photographer Dorothea Lange in 1942, she thought she'd be documenting history for the world to see.
While she was personally opposed to internment, Lange accepted the government's offer in hopes that her work would provide a valuable record of events for future generations.
For more than 60 years, Lange's work sat in the National Archives, hidden from public view.
The decision to house Japanese-Americans in internment camps is largely looked back on as a scar on American history. In issuing Executive Order 9066 and authorizing the internment camps on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced the fear of the "other," a sentiment that directly opposed the famous line from his first inaugural address, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
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