Toward the Day of Infamy: Public Opinion and American-Japanese Relations, 1941

This paper examines the general course of American-Japanese relations as formed and interpreted within the United States throughout 1941.

For the purposes of this paper, my approach has been to attempt to re-create, as far as possible, the atmosphere of 1941 by reading the key periodicals circulated during the year, Secretary of State Cordell Hull's thoughts and reflections during this trying period, and the seminal secondary analyses of America's entry into the war. For daily newspaper coverage, I relied heavily upon The New York Times, which I read in its entirety for 1941. The New York Times is probably the most comprehensive American paper in its reports on foreign relations, and therefore provided the best day-to-day account of the issues and occurrences pertaining to the Far East, that were presented to the American people.

Digitization of this thesis was made possible by a generous grant from the Jefferson Trust, 2015.