An extensive photograph collection recently donated to Cornell University Library documents little-known and somewhat controversial aspects of the U.S. Army's Africa campaign during World War II. Its highlights include images depicting camp life in one of the first racially integrated units, customs of Liberians, Army-sponsored brothels and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's visit to the troops.

When George "Doc" Abraham '39 enlisted in the army, he was handed a camera and the assignment to document life in Liberia during the war. Much of Abraham's work never came to public light until his children, Leanna Landsmann and Darryl Abraham, recently donated his collection to the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC).

The collection sheds new light on the lives of 2,100 African-American soldiers and 76 whites in one of the Army's first racially integrated units that was assigned to Liberia during the war in part to guard the Firestone rubber plantations, the source of allied rubber during the war. White soldiers assigned to the unit had to pass a psychological test to determine their ability to get along with people, and the photos show the troops working and relaxing side-by-side.

"This collection will enhance Cornell's holdings of Africana materials and will showcase previously unknown details on the integration of African-American soldiers in the U.S. Army," said Eric Kofi Acree, director of Cornell's John Henrik Clarke Africana Library. "Photos have a way of telling a story that the printed text cannot."

The archive also contains photographs and descriptions about brothels for the soldiers that were staffed with "comfort women" who were routinely offered medical care by Army doctors to combat sexually transmitted diseases. Abraham's photos of two brothels were featured on the History Channel's series, "Sex in World War II," as well as in his 2000 book, "The Belles of Shangri-La and Other Stories of Sex, Snakes and Survival from World War II." Abraham and a colleague also took explicit photos of the ritual of female circumcision that he shared long afterward with policy-makers in hopes of ending the practice.

"Photo documentation of West Africa from the 1940s is scarce," said Brenda Marston, historian and curator of RMC's Human Sexuality Collection. "These materials will serve as a rich, new resource for researchers."

Abraham and his wife, Katherine (Katy) Mehlenbacher Abraham '43, were "The Green Thumb" duo for six decades on radio and TV and in a syndicated newspaper column. The family's donation to Cornell includes more than 1,000 photos, 24 hours of film and hundreds of negatives from World War II, along with the couple's Green Thumb horticultural collection. Both collections will be available in 2008.

On Veterans Day, a preview of the collection will be available on LibeCast at http://libecast.library.cornell.edu. For more information, contact Brenda Marston, curator, at (607) 255-3530 or bjm4@cornell.edu.

Ellen Marsh is director of library communications.