September 11th Revisited: The Troubled History of Victim Compensation

This article explores some of the less obvious and even surprising repercussions of September 11th. To do so, it draws on an online archive of more than 12,000 emails sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in response to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Just eleven days after September...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inModern American history (Cambridge.) Vol. 6; no. 2; pp. 178 - 200
Main Author Meyerowitz, Joanne
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.07.2023
Subjects
Airlines
Attorneys general
Compensation
Digital archives
Fault lines
Historians
History
Inequality
Litigation
Lobbyists
Terrorism
United States > US
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Summary:This article explores some of the less obvious and even surprising repercussions of September 11th. To do so, it draws on an online archive of more than 12,000 emails sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in response to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Just eleven days after September 11th, Congress created the fund for the express purpose of preventing victims’ families from suing the airlines. After the act passed, the DOJ solicited public comments and posted them to its website, and from the start, the tone was combative. This essay focuses on two especially acrimonious issues: first, gay rights and the recognition of same-sex partnerships and, second, economic inequality and populist anti-elitism. Taken together, the emails showcase how September 11th precipitated fundamental and divisive debates on who deserved the nation's largesse.
ISSN:2515-0456
2397-1851
DOI:10.1017/mah.2023.15