Morgen Young
Morgen Young is a historian in Portland, Oregon. She specializes in Pacific Northwest history, community history, oral history, exhibit development, and historic preservation. She is currently curating the traveling photography exhibit "Uprooted: Japanese American Farm Labor Camps During World War II." Her research of farm labor camps has been published in the Densho Encyclopedia and the Oregon Historical Quarterly.
Updated May 2014
Stories from This Author
Photographer Russell Lee
May 26, 2014 • Morgen Young , Denshō
Photographer Russell Lee (1903–86) is best recognized for his work with the Farm Security Administration (FSA). His photographic career extended from 1935 until his retirement in 1973. He worked for the largest federal documentary project in the history of the United States, and it was during this time that he documented several hundred images of the forced removal and confinement of Japanese Americans in the spring and summer of 1942. Early Life Russell Lee was born on July 21, 1903, …
Detention Facility at Nyssa, Oregon
May 14, 2014 • Morgen Young , Denshō
From May to November 1942, Nyssa [pronounced NISS-a], Oregon, served as the site of the first farm labor camp organized during the wartime Japanese American experience. Established as a result of the “Oregon Plan” for the forced removal and confinement of the state’s Nikkei residents, the camp held approximately three hundred fifty laborers at its peak. These workers provided critical agricultural labor in eastern Oregon’s Malheur County. By the summer of 1942, the camp became so well known that the …
Oregon Plan
May 6, 2014 • Morgen Young , Denshō
During the April 7, 1942 Salt Lake City governors’ meeting, George K. Aiken, executive secretary to Governor Charles Sprague of Oregon, presented the state’s plan for the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The so-called “Oregon Plan” was ultimately rejected by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) but led to the establishment of a Japanese American farm labor camp in Nyssa, Oregon, the first such labor camp organized during the war. Background and Development of the …
