Manzanar Guayule Project
The Manzanar Guayule Project began in April 1942, in the Manzanar internment camp. The objective of the project was to produce a domestic source of rubber after the Axis powers had gained control of areas that supplied rubber from Hevea braziliensis. The project was operated by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists and led by Robert Emerson. Japanese Americans made up the primary workforce and were responsible for the successes and achievements of the project. Several scientific articles on guayule were published as a result. The project was ended by government order towards the end of World War II along with other similar projects like the Salinas project. Project Background Because of the Axis powers gaining control of areas that supplied rubber from Hevea braziliensis, there was a nationwide rubber shortage and a need for more rubber from an alternative source. Guayule was seen as a potential way to eventually solve the rubber shortage of the country. In response to this crisis, the US government created the Emergency Rubber Project (ERP) which then planted seventy-five thousand acres of guayule and obtained all US assets of the Intercontinental Rubber Company. Caltech scientists had previous contracts with the Intercontinental Rubber Company but these dissolved after the creation of the ERP. This caused Caltech scientists to begin their own project independent of the ERP, Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), and the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Caltech scientist Robert Emerson, wanted the assistance of Japanese Americans so that their talents would not go to waste in the camps and so that they could help prove their loyalty to the USA. Japanese-American Involvement The involvement of Japanese Americans in the Manzanar Guayule Project is one of its main reasons behind its success. While the Department of Agriculture's main operation for mass producing guayule rubber was centered in Salinas, California; a collective of Japanese American scientists, in partnership with Cal Tech professor Robert Emerson, formed a separate rsearch team at Manzanar with the intent of genetically engineering new strands of the plant to improve the yields and quantity of rubber produced with each batch. Despite little initial government support, with most government funding and support going to the project in Salinas, the Manzanar team developed a source of rubber that produced a higher yield than that of tree rubber or the rubber plants that resulted from the Salinas Project. This rubber the Manzanar team developed also had a tensile strength stronger than that of tree rubber and Salinas-developed rubber with Manzanar-developed rubber being 1,450 pounds per square inch (PSI) stronger than Salinas-developed rubber and 750 PSI stronger than tree rubber. Japanese-American scientists who participated in the project included Shimpe "Morganlander" Nishimura, a physicist and Emerson collaborator; geneticist Masuo Kodani; and chemist Kenzie Nozaki. A number of talented nurserymen, such as Frank Kageyama (brother of Mary Kageyama Nomura , the famed "songbird of Manzanar"), helped with the everyday operations of the lab. Another friend of Robert Emerson's, Hugh Anderson, frequented the lab and provided materials for the