The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 brought to bear many issues of representation and response that have recently been in the media’s eye in the wake of the tragedies in Haiti and Chile.

William Dana Reynolds, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, documented his experience after arriving in Yokohama Bay on September 9, 1923. His ship survived the earthquakes resulting tsunami and entered the Bay badly damaged. Eight of the male passengers decided to leave the ship and enter the city; Dana Reynolds was among them. For the next few hours, and upon his return several days after the initial quake, he recorded a series of compelling images of the horror and devastation.

The album containing the photographic record of Dana Reynold’s encounter with the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake was donated to Brown University Library in 2005 and includes some of the earliest photographs of the destruction. The digital collection features historical perspectives of the quake in the form of essays and newspaper clippings (which describe what the Reynolds witnessed in great detail, being transcribed from letters written home from Mrs. Reynolds herself), biographies and photographic portraits of the Reynolds family, and travel ephemera.