Primary Theme – Remembering: The memorial at the Flight 93 site provides a focus to commemorate a seminal event in American history, a place to remember and celebrate the passengers and crew on the flight.

Research Finding – Visitors were eager to hear the story of the events of September 11, 2001, and particularly, the stories of Flight 93 passengers and crew.

Supporting Description - Consistent with recent scholarship describing how people use the past, Flight 93 Memorial visitors are anxious to hear about the timeline of events as well as the stories of Flight 93 passengers and crew. Visitors are not as interested in over-arching narrative or cause and effect interpretation. Rather, visitors seek to connect their experience with those who were closest to the events. These visitors seek immediacy and authenticity and want to come to their own conclusions about the meaning of events. Visitors want personal stories so they can imagine themselves in similar situations and connect with actual participants.

Sample Supporting Interpretive Theme Statement - One of the things that makes the Flight 93 National Memorial so powerful is the way the landscape invites the eye, the mind, and the heart to replay the Flight’s sequence in an attempt to comprehend the magnitude of what happened.

Illustrative Quotes -

“More personal stories and that’s something there. When I come in, you know, you see the angels and each of the names and what not. You need to put a face to that name and make it personal and actually see the face of the people that were on that plane. That was a big thing. I was glad to see she had that notebook that she had pictures of the people and that puts a name to a face and a face to the name and that meant a lot. [Were there particular details that really jumped out at either of you?] The conversations that they had with their family members in those last minutes” [Visitors, July 2008, Conversation Circle]

“I think the angels are very touching. You know that they have an angel for each person as a way you know of remembering them each individually not just as a collective group of Flight 93 but actually breaking it down to individual people….And the benches are really nice too. You know just to sit there and look out there you know and kind of reflect on you know on what they must have been feeling. Just, I couldn’t imagine knowing that this is the end and… [What kinds of things were you reflecting on when you were sitting on those benches?] I was trying to feel for the people. Just how scared you know they must have felt. You know scared, just anxious. You know how they could possibly feel. Are they all praying at one time? Are they all trying to call like you said to say their good byes? Um you know just how that would have felt that this is it-this is the end of my life-um what they were thinking…”   [Visitors, July 2008, Conversation Circle]

“[Maybe one last question would be, for yourselves, you found a connection here. What do you think some of the ways that other people might see this place? How would other people besides yourself talk about the meaning?] A lot of it’s curiosity. I don’t think people really care…That’s unfortunate, but that’s how I feel too. Most of it is a curiosity thing and when you get here… I don’t know though. There are people standing out there right now and I’m watching them and they’re getting something from it. They’re not just walking around, but they’re actually getting something from it. Where normally it is just basically curiosity. [You have a grandchild… what would you tell them?] The entire story…That’s what I would do. I would start from the beginning and work all the way through it. And then your conclusions.”  [Visitors, October 2008, Conversation Circle]

“I think they should have pictures of the passengers with a brief history of who they were and then go more in depth of like the first responders and who showed up here and what was their role.”  [Visitors, July 2008, Conversation Circle]

“Different people on a plane—can’t imagine how to trust the person sitting next to you. I say are you with me and hopefully they are on your side. All these people spread out all over the plane. How did they communicate and make decisions without the terrorists knowing what they were doing and saying? The terrorists didn’t take their phones. I think that a “power” comes over you in a situation like that.” [Visitors, July 2008, Conversation Circle]

“I’d like to know how the passengers and the crew felt. What were they feeling nano-seconds before they hit? Were they scared, were they proud of themselves, were they feeling that they had done the right thing? You know, what kind of things were going through their head?…I’d like to know what spurred them to do it? What made forty people come together. Because they said, we’re rushing the cockpit, we are. And I suspect that it was forty people doing something. Why? What…”  [Visitors, October 2008, Conversation Circle]