Inside the Vault: Pearl Harbor

Originally broadcast on December 3, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Joe Welch, 2018 National History Teacher of the Year, and Kendyl Yokoyama from Hamilton join our curators in discussing these primary sources and how students can use them to discover history for themselves. We explore why the items were created, the bias of primary sources, and what we can learn from a close examination of these documents.

Click here to download the slides from the presentation.

Classroom-ready resources for the documents presented

• Gilder Lehrman resources mentioning Pearl Harbor
• Gilder Lehrman resources on Japanese internment
• The Attack on Pearl Harbor: A Map-based Exhibition

Use the timestamps below to jump to the documents you want to view

• Japanese report on the attack and Japanese photos of the attack: 4:56–37:49
• Moe Weiner’s V-mail to his wife Sylvia, December 7, 1944: 37:50–46:51
• Japanese internment broadside: 46:52–54:30