On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. Many lives were lost that day as the Japanese destroyed American military planes and ships. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and enter World War II. That moment served as one of the turning points of the war. In 1962, the government built a memorial to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor. Named after one of the ships destroyed during the attack, the USS Arizona Memorial is visited by many people each year wanting to learn more and pay respects. When people visit memorials, they think about the event and their feelings. Their thoughts then add to the ever-growing remembrance and scholarship of the memorialized event. The digital public history project will focus on this remembrance and thoughts about a historical event commemorated by the USS Arizona Memorial. The project hopes to answer how people who visit the USS Arizona Memorial feel and think about the event, what happened afterward, and how that affects and changes how they remember it. With this in mind, the project will include sources and items from different points of view. It will include commentary from visitors on their thoughts and a way for them to contribute to the project. There will also be historical background sources for people who have not visited the memorial, giving them the opportunity and accessibility to contribute to the project.

            The presentation of the project will be through an Omeka website with the contribution plugin installed to allow users to share their thoughts on the memorial and the event. Other plugins include CSV Import, Docs Viewer, Embed Codes, Exhibit Builder, and Simple Pages. The website will also have different forms of media to increase accessibility, including documents, photos, audio recordings, and videos. These items will provide information about the memorial and remembrance, including historical background about the event and World War II. For example, one of the items is a video of Japanese Americans sharing their experience after the attack and during the war, providing both background on remembrance and history. Another source showcases a transcript of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech, providing historical background and serving as a way for people to garner their own ideas and thoughts about the event and memorial. Those contributions will be added to scholarship about the event and the memorial as people contribute.

            The project will focus on two groups, one primary and the other secondary. The primary audience is those contributing to the project with their thoughts on the attack, the events afterward, and the memorial. The project’s main purpose is to discover how memorials serve as a way for people to remember an event in history and how people remember both the main event and the events that happened afterward. The material provided also helps those who have not visited the memorial learn and think about the memorial and the events. The hope is that they, too, can provide their own understanding of the history and the memorial even though they cannot visit the historical site or have not. The secondary audience is historians or those interested in the event’s history or the war. The website also provides historical background while including sources that focus on the memorial and remembrance. The project will also include scholarship sources for further research. Historians can use the project as a research tool, and those interested in the history can use it to learn more about the events. While the project’s primary purpose is for people to contribute, it will also provide historical background for other users interested in the event and memorial.