Day of Infamy Interviews

What did ordinary Americans think and feel following the Japanese raids on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941? The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has made it possible for us to get an inkling thanks to a forward-thinking employee, Alex Lomax from the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). Mr. Lomax asked field workers in ten geographically diverse locations across the United States to collect "man-on-the-street" reactions to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and subsequent entry of the United States into World War II. Workers also conducted a second set of interviews in January and February 1942 to gage reactions once the initial fury died down. Both sets of interviews are available in the American Memory online collection, After the Day of Infamy.