"Whether these flowers are rare or common they all have delicate languages and create vivid moods. I try to recreate these moods in my photographs." - Jun Fujita
Jun Fujita was one of the earliest Japanese-Americans to achieve prominence in the Midwest. He was an eminent photographer in the region, working in news, commercial, and artistic photography. He also had noteworthy success as a poet. Fujita built and used the cabin on an island in Rainy Lake in today's Voyageurs National Park from ca. 1928 until ca. 1941 for recreation and as a base for commercial photography. It is likely that the rugged setting of the cabin provided inspiration for Fujita's artistic work, which was dominated by portrayals of flowers, forests, and landscapes. The remote location of the cabin probably also provided an atmosphere conducive to reflection. He also had a second cabin built in the forests of the Indiana Dunes, drawn to the seclusion and the artists colony at Furnessville. However, for a Japanese-American in Fujita's era experiencing legal discrimination against Asians, even meditative solitude and rugged recreation required unusual measures.
Fujita was born in Hiroshima, Japan on Dec. 18, 1888 and immigrated to Canada as a teenager, later finding his way to the United States. Fujita's obituary in the Chicago Tribune says that he went to Canada at age 18 on a commission to photograph Canadian lumbering for a Japanese publication where his uncle was an editor. Fujita's surviving friends remember his accounts of his early work as a photographer in Canada.
Fujita moved to Chicago some time before 1915. Japanese immigration to the United States was restricted in 1908, but a working photographer could have entered the U.S. legally until Japanese immigration was completely banned in 1924. Fujita was working in Chicago for the Evening Post by 1915; it is not known whether he spent time elsewhere in the United States before moving to Chicago. Fujita's Daily News obituary says that he finished high school in Chicago, which would probably place his arrival there somewhat earlier than 1915. Fujita could not be found in Illinois in the 1910 census, but neither the census indexing nor the enumeration itself is completely reliable for this period; in fact, he was also not found in the census of 1920, when he certainly was living in Chicago. At this time, Jun was not seen as an immigrant, but as an "alien;" by law, Japanese individuals could not become citizens.
Despite this, Jun was known to "stand tall even though he was a short man." He was a well-dressed, very confident young man that people wanted to get to know. Both obituaries state that Fujita studied mathematics and physics at the Armour Institute in Chicago. Fujita worked for the Evening Post until at least 1929, and probably a few years longer. Few of the Post's photos were attributed to particular photographers in Fujita's time, but photos by Fujita related to the sinking of the USS Eastland in the Chicago River in 1915 and the 1929 St. Valentine's Day massacre have been located.
Some other famous photographs by Jun include the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, which captured a stoning, considered one of the first images of a murder in real time. He also took portraits of Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg, and Al Capone. In fact, Al Capone is said to have appreciated how Jun could handle a knife, and offered him a job (that he refused.)
After this fifteen-year career in news photography, Fujita turned to commercial and artistic work. In the 1930s, he established a private photography studio in Chicago, which he ran until his death in 1963. He was very successful in his commercial photography, doing work for the manufacturers of Johnson motors, and for Stark nurseries, Sears Roebuck, and the federal government. His friends remember that he photographed the Hoover Dam before the outbreak of World War II, because of a standing joke among them about the potential consequences if he had been seen there with a camera during the war. The settings for some of the photography Fujita completed for Johnson motors were on Rainy Lake.
In addition to his commercial and news photography, Fujita produced artistic work in several different media. In all of these media, his favorite subjects were flowers and landscapes. He made this observation in a photoessay in Allstate Insurance's magazine Home and Highway in 1957:
We had been scouting around different parts of the country for many years-a busman's holiday; I would be looking for wild flowers to photograph. Whether these flowers are rare or common they all have delicate languages and create vivid moods. I try to recreate these moods in my photographs.
The Art Institute of Chicago has a collection of Fujita's color photos of flowers. Some of these were done with very early color equipment, but the color is remarkably natural and the lighting very dramatic. Fujita wrote poetry in English using a minimalistic Japanese form called tanka. A friend of Fujita's who is an amateur poet remembers his writing haiku also. Many of his tanka were published in the 1920's in Poetry magazine as well as other periodicals. Poetry is one of the country's most prestigious literary serials, and during Fujita's era it also published the works of such major figures as T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Robert Frost, and carried a regular column of criticism by Ezra Pound. Fujita also published several reviews of Japanese-American poetry in the same venue. A 1923 collection of Fujita's tanka was privately published and received a favorable review in Poetry. Fujita's poetry was highly unusual in that it applied the rules of Japanese poetic genres to poetry written in English well before the vogue of English haiku. Perhaps this is why he named his collection Tanka: Poems in Exile, implying that the poems themselves were in exile.
Fujita had a long-term relationship with Florence Carr, a Euro-American woman who was about six years younger than he. Carr was a secretary and later a social worker, and she studied at the University of Chicago. The two met at a Poetry Foundation art show and became an immediate item. She and Fujita lived together from the early or mid 1920s until his death. It was illegal for mixed race couples to marry when they began to see each other, and did not marry until 1940.
In the early 1930s, Fujita and Carr lived in the 57th Street Artists' Colony in one of the old Columbian Exposition buildings, at 5644 Harper Street. When Fujita established his studio, they moved into an apartment above the business. Poetry magazine opened a writer's universe to Jun. He was good friends with Carl Sandburg and had exchanged inscribed books. Jun seemed to know everyone; he even had inscribed one of his poetry books for Jean Harlow. Jun and Florence entertained dinner parties, where Jun was known to do the cooking. They were friends with news people, authors, university scientists, artists, and thinkers. Jun loved classical music and attending the Chicago Symphony.
Fujita and Carr had another vacation cabin in present-day Indiana Dunes National Park, located on land they bought in 1938, near the houses of artist friends.
The cabin at the Indiana Dunes was known as "the kite" because of its diamond shape. Jun had some assistance from an architect friend in Chicago, but had made the general layout himself. They lived in the community known as Furnessville, which had become a thriving Artist Colony itself. Neither Jun nor Florence had drivers licenses; so they often traveled to the Indiana Dunes via train.
Although Carr was the owner of the Minnesota property, local informants do not remember her. Fujita, the only Japanese person ever seen in the area at that time, is well remembered, but informants say he used the cabin alone. Similarly, the Indiana Dunes property deed listed Carr's name first, although Fujita was also listed.
Friends say Carr owned their property in her name because of fear that it could be confiscated from Fujita under state laws restricting land ownership by aliens, and particularly by Asian aliens. The provisions of these laws varied over time and between the three states where Fujita and Carr had property. Minnesota's legislature passed a law in 1945 that limited ownership of land over 90,000 square feet (slightly over 2 acres) by aliens who had not declared intent to become US citizens, although the law contained several significant exceptions and grandfathered in already-existing holdings. Asian aliens could not become U.S. citizens at this time, except under very extraordinary circumstances, so the discriminatory effect of this law fell most heavily on them. Illinois allowed aliens to hold land for up to six years. Although Indiana was a notoriously unfriendly place for ethnic minorities in this period, its state government allowed aliens who had not declared intention to become citizens to own holdings of not more than 320 acres.
Fujita and Carr were married in 1940. Friends say that Fujita and Carr married to protect their property from confiscation related to his Japanese citizenship. However, concern for their property should have discouraged them from marrying. Although the Cable Act of 1922, which nullified the citizenship of American citizens who married Asian immigrants, had been overturned, a revival of some form of this policy must have seemed possible in the anti-Japanese atmosphere of the war years. The Cable Act's primary purpose was to prevent men who were Asian immigrants from avoiding state-imposed property holding restrictions by marrying the U.S.-born daughters of other Asian immigrants, but the added complication of a racially mixed marriage might well have provoked extra vigilance on the part of enforcing authorities. In the event of a revival of some form of this policy, marriage would jeopardize Carr's property without protecting any held by Fujita in his own name. Obviously, loss of citizenship could also cause various other problems for Carr.
Fujita was granted U.S. citizenship by a private Congressional bill in 1954. Fujita died on July 12, 1963, apparently of cancer. Carr died in New York City a few years later.
Fujita's success as a photographer working for a mainstream newspaper and for major commercial corporations was extremely unusual among Japanese-Americans in his time, and especially among the Japanese-born population. Most Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States as farm laborers. Most of those who escaped agricultural wage labor did so by becoming sharecroppers or, with luck, independent small farmers. Even the considerable number of second-generation Japanese-Americans who experienced upward social mobility consisted mainly of professionals serving segregated Japanese-American communities.
Fujita was also one of the earliest Japanese residents of the American Midwest; as late as 1940, less than 5% of the 285,115 Japanese-Americans lived outside of Hawaii and the West Coast states. An lowan who remembered Fujita well from her summer visits to Rainy Lake pointed out that, "I suppose he was the first Japanese person I ever knew-and probably my parents [had also never previously met a Japanese person]."
Fujita established his vacation cabin at a time when a growing number of people were coming to the rugged Voyageurs area to enjoy outdoor recreation in a wilderness setting.
Fujita clearly sought and found solitude on the island. In addition to the remoteness of the border lakes area in Fujita's time, the island is 30 miles from Ranier, the nearest town. Despite Fujita's isolation on the island, however, several long-time area residents were able to share their memories of Fujita's activities in the area. These informants say Fujita used the cabin primarily for recreational purposes but also for commercial photography. It is not known whether Fujita produced any of his artistic work at the cabin, but the rugged surroundings certainly suggest the subject matter of his poetry, artistic photos, and paintings. Fujita's quest for solitude was complicated by discrimination that led him to keep the property in Carry's name and prevented him from using the island after 1941.
A longtime seasonal visitor to the lake who visited Fujita's island a number of times during the 1930s reported that Fujita spent a great deal of time reading and meditating on the island. She commented that he "loved the silence, the quiet of the island...The rocks, the lake, the sound of the water, was in his soul." Although many people stopped by the island, "nobody stayed a long time" because no one wished to intrude on Fujita's solitude.
A more visible recreational activity Fujita pursued on Rainy Lake was his use of racing boats at a time when powerboats of any kind were still unusual in the area. Fujita also fished on Rainy Lake. The great majority of visitors to the lake do some fishing there, but Fujita was unusual in that he used the catch to prepare Japanese raw fish dishes at the cabin.
Longtime residents say Fujita also used the cabin as a base for his commercial photography for the manufacturers of Johnson boat motors, in which he photographed local people, boats, and Johnson motors. Since many Rainy Lake people remember Fujita's photography for Johnson, it is likely that it was relatively extensive.
The constraints put upon Japanese-Americans during Fujita's era affected both the manner of his acquiring the cabin, as discussed above, and the time of his abandoning it. Fujita used the island from about the time of Carr's purchase in 1928 until shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Due to his residency in Chicago, Fujita avoided wartime internment. However, his commercial photography business had its assets frozen at the bank and his cameras were confiscated. He apparently never returned to the Minnesota cabin after the beginning of the war, vacationing instead at the Indiana Dunes cabin, which is little more than an hour's travel from Chicago. Friends of Fujita's and Rainy Lake informants assume that Fujita did not wish to travel the long distance to northern Minnesota during the war era because of the prevalence of anti-Japanese hostility. One informant reports it was rumored that Fujita was threatened by a local person at Rainy Lake at this time. It is indicative of the conspicuousness of Fujita's background that the island was popularly known as "Jap Island."
Fujita's Cabin at Voyageur's National Park
The Fujita cabin is a modest, one-story cabin located on a small, remote island near the Canadian border on Rainy Lake in Voyageurs National Park in northeastern Minnesota. The simply constructed cabin presents an impression of deliberate rusticity and deference to the natural landscape. Chicago photographer and poet Jun Fujita is believed to have commissioned or performed the initial construction of the cabin soon after 1928, and to have made two additions before 1941.
Constructed on the eastern tip of a four-acre island, the cabin is located approximately 30 miles east of Ranier, the closest permanent settlement. The island scenery is dramatic, characterized by immense crevice-riddled boulders, rocky shorelines, and steep bluffs rising above the lake. The cabin has the appearance of requiring no modifications to the landscape and is thoughtfully integrated into the wilderness setting. Pine trees tower above the cabin on the north, east, and west sides. Tucked against a massive glacial erratic to the south, the cabin also takes advantage of a gentle rock ledge that provides easy access to the lake on the east.
The high degree of historical integrity and good physical condition that the Fujita cabin exhibits is distinctive for the area. The cabin is in its original location, where the setting and feeling have changed little since Fujita's time. The property maintains a high degree of integrity of design, materials, and workmanship. The harsh local climate has caused minimal deterioration to the cabin beyond the usual settling inherent to log construction.
The property exhibits qualities influenced by Japanese tradition-qualities imported by a teenage Fujita arriving in North America from a country that had experienced minimal exposure to Western ideas. As a Japanese immigrant, Fujita faced prejudices directed against all Asians after World War I. He had to make extraordinary efforts to acquire recreational property in the northwoods and was compelled to abandon the cabin with the beginning of World War II and renewed anti-Japanese hostilities. This civil rights factor underscores the significance of this particular recreational cabin and contributes to our understanding of discrimination against immigrants and Asians.
Florence Carr, friend and eventually Fujita's wife, bought the island for Fujita's use in 1928. The cabin was probably constructed shortly after Carr bought the property.
The original 13x16 frame cabin is covered with drop siding, initially painted a mustard yellow color and nailed directly to the pole studs. Multi-light casement windows are found throughout the cabin. The front door, which faces north, is flanked by vertical, 6-light casement windows which reach nearly from floor to ceiling. A large, rustic chimney built of native rubble is centered on the west facade. The fireplace and chimney were built by local grocer and jack-of-all-trades Harry Erickson, Sr., who built several other stone chimneys on Rainy Lake.
Nowhere is there evidence of the efficient orthogonal site organization typical of northern Minnesota lake cabin sites. Typical of Japanese houses, the cabin has a moderate pitch to the roof. The picturesque appearance is substantially a result of the assemblage of various roof forms. The additions are deferential and supplemental to the main roof. Across the front extends the essential veranda. Characteristic of Japanese residential construction, the cabin has no foundation other than simple dry-laid stones.
The use of natural materials, simple lines, light construction, little decoration, subdued colors, create a certain daintiness or grace in the construction that is suggestive of Japanese architecture. While the core cabin uses a simple post and beam system to carry the roof, this is typical both of Japanese and local cabin building tradition, it is the additions that emphasize the Japanese character. Fujita took unusual care to obtain and place uniform appearing cedar logs for the additions. More care was given to produce a precise rhythm to the naturals material than to assembly for durability. It is conspicuous and unusual that the additions are more rustic than the original construction and largely disguise the simplicity of the original form.
Fujita allowed Fred and Edythe Sackett of Rapid City, owners of nearby Norway Island, to use his Rainy Lake cabin from the early 1940s. The Sacketts sought to buy the property, but Fujita and Carr refused to sell it to them until 1956. The Sacketts added a bedroom on the south side of the cabin about I960. The bedroom addition is of frame construction and runs the entire width of the cabin.
Indiana Dunes National Park, Voyageurs National Park
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service