The Daily Alaska Empire of Juneau, Alaska Territory, for Monday 8 December 1941 runs the banner "Declare War / United States, Japan in Fight" over headlines on the attack, the vote in Congress, a blackout, and censorship by the Army and Navy. Its headlines use the slur "Jap," as in "Heavy Toll Taken by Jap Planes."
Content note: headlines on this page use the ethnic slur "Jap." They are quoted as printed.
What the page prints
The FRAME record transcribes the masthead, the banner, and the headlines and decks; the body type is not transcribed. Read top to bottom, the headlines are a map of what one territorial paper knew and chose to stress on the first day.
DECLARE WAR
UNITED STATES, JAPAN IN FIGHT
BLACKOUT TONIGHT; PROCLAMATIONS ISSUED
HEAVY TOLL TAKEN BY JAP PLANES
WHITE HOUSE GIVES FACTS ON NEW WAR
QUICK ACT MADE BY CONGRESS
Vote for Declaration Is Unanimous in Senate—383 to 1 in House
MINUTE-MEN TO ENFORCE "BLACKOUT"
2 BATTLESHIPS OF U. S. SUNK, JAPAN CLAIMS
Censorship Instituted by Army, Navy
Strict Travel Rules Issued
Who published it
The Daily Alaska Empire was published in Juneau by the Empire Printing Company and was a member of the Associated Press. The scan comes from the Alaska State Library through the Library of Congress's Chronicling America project. FRAME notes that the House vote reads "383 to 1" in a headline and "388 to 1" in side text, and does not resolve the difference. Neither does this page.
How to read it
The events on this page happened. The attack, the declaration, and the vote are news, and the paper reported them fast. FRAME's technique tags, name-calling and card stacking, are about how the page frames them. The record notes that the Associated Press text on the page says "Japanese." The clipped slur is in the headlines. The reporting named a nation; the display type turned it into an insult.
The smaller headlines deserve as much attention as the banner. On day one there is already a blackout to be enforced by "minute-men," strict travel rules, and "Censorship Instituted by Army, Navy." A free press reported, in its own pages, that military censorship had begun. Readers in 1941 had good reason to accept wartime security. They also had reason, then as now, to watch how far it would reach. Less than four months later, posted instructions in San Francisco ordered Japanese persons, "both alien and non-alien," out of a designated area of the city. See anti-Japanese propaganda and internment propaganda. The Roosevelt administration essay covers the offices that followed Pearl Harbor, including the Office of Censorship created on 19 December 1941.
Sources
- FRAME object record, The Daily Alaska Empire, daily edition, front page, Juneau, Alaska Territory, 8 December 1941.
- Library of Congress, Chronicling America, The Daily Alaska Empire, 8 December 1941, p. 1 (LCCN sn83045499), Alaska State Library Historical Collections, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: no known restrictions; no copyright notice on page 1.
