Guide to Barbara Curtis Adachi Hands of Japan Collection, 1942-2003

Biographical Note

Barbara Curtis Adachi (1924-2004) was born in Harbin, China, in 1924, to American parents. While her father headed Citibank’s operation in Japan and China, she moved back and forth between Japan and the United States, attending an American school in Tokyo and Chatham Hall in Virginia, and graduated from Smith College in 1945. She then returned to Japan to work as a civilian with the Allied Occupation Forces in 1946 and married an American attorney of Japanese descent in 1949. Adachi lived in Tokyo until 1986 when she moved back to the United States, but often visited Japan for the rest of her life. She was a columnist for two Tokyo newspapers, Asahi Evening News and Mainichi Daily News. In the latter newspaper, she wrote a series of half-page feature articles called “Hands of Japan” from 1971 to 1981, based on her interviews with Japanese craftsmen and performing artists. Her book, The Living Treasures of Japan, published in 1973, also treated Japanese craftsmanship, in which fourteen Living National Treasures (holders of Intangible Cultural Properties) were portrayed. She regularly wrote newspaper reviews on Bunraku and kabuki performances, museums and traditional craft exhibits. Her professional knowledge of Bunraku was especially well known and represented in two of her publications The Voices and Hands of Bunraku ( 1978 ) and Backstage at Bunraku ( 1985 ).

Adachi was a member of many organizations including the Japan-America Women’s Club, the Asiatic Society of Japan, Nadeshiko Kai, food organizations and writers’ associations. She served as president and was a member of the College Women’s Association of Japan (CWAJ) and gave lectures on Bunraku and Japanese handicrafts at its annual lecture series as well as at other organizations such as the Tokyo American Club.

Scope and Content

This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, notes, slides, audio and video cassettes, negatives, transparencies, articles, books, ephemera, postcards and realia objects.

Materials created and collected for the "Hands of Japan" newspaper columns (1971-1981) and The Living Treasures of Japan (1973) in Series 1 include recorded interviews on audio tapes, slides, photographs, negatives, notes and printed materials. These audiovisual materials were created by Barbara Curtis Adachi unless noted otherwise (some photographs and slides were produced by Harri Peccinotti, a photographer for Adachi's Living Treasures of Japan). Realia objects were created by artists/craftsmen and given to or collected by Adachi. The areas of Japanese arts, handicrafts and performing arts covered in this series include: bamboo crafts, basket weaving, brooms, brushes, calligraphy, carpentry, combs, embroidery, fans, furniture, gardening, homespun, kabuki theater, kettles, kites, knives, lacquers, netsuke carving, papermaking, confectioneries, pottery, puppet theaters, scissors, sieves, tatamis, textiles, umbrellas, and woodblock prints (ukiyoe).

Manuscripts in Series 2 include Adachi's published works, such as The Living Treasures of Japan, the "Hands of Japan" series, and other newspaper articles, as well as non-published works, such as lecture notes and book proposals. Printed materials in Series 4 are from kabuki performances held at Kabuki-za, the National Theatre of Japan, and other theaters and include Japanese and English programs, fliers, and synopses, dated 1971-1995.

Related Materials

Materials related to Bunraku puppet theater are included in the Barbara Curtis Adachi Bunraku Collection, 1964-2003 . Monographs and journals without any extensive writings by Adachi were also separated from the collection and individually catalogued in the Columbia University Libraries' Online Catalog.

Bibliography

Adachi, Barbara C. The Living Treasures of Japan . Tokyo; New York: Kodansha International, [c1973].