Ivan Ira Esme Morris was a member of the Columbia faculty from 1960 until his death in 1976, serving as chairman of the East Asian Department from 1966-69. His field was Japanese literature and culture, but he was also very active in the human rights organization Amnesty International. A member of the group's executive committee in London, he co-founded an American section and served as section chairman from 1973-76. Morris's "Hiroshima Project" recorded the personal accounts of survivors of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb blast. Included with each account is a photograph of the person, bringing to life their deeply personal struggles to live with the pain of their experiences. These accounts also contain anecdotal documentation of the medical problems suffered by each interviewee as a result of the blast, as well as recording the exact distance that each person was from its epicenter.