Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy

Katherine Benton-Cohen

Published by Harvard University Press 2018

Inventing the Immigration Problem

The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy

Katherine Benton-Cohen

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674985667

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Dillingham Commission—created by Congress in 1907 to collect data on a perceived immigration problem—remains the largest U.S. immigration study ever conducted. Katherine Benton-Cohen shows that its Progressive formulation and recommendations endure in almost every component of immigration policy, control, and enforcement a century later.

Author / Editor information

Benton-Cohen Katherine :

Katherine Benton-Cohen is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University.

Reviews

William D. Pederson:
In 1907, Congress authorized the largest study of immigrants in American history. Though many may not know of the Dillingham Commission, Benton-Cohen ably examines the bipartisan special committee and its abstract purpose…Benton-Cohen places the committee in its historical context, demonstrates the emergence of the social norms during the Progressive Era, and successfully relays how immigration policies of the early 1900s still resonate today.

Alan M. Kraut, author of Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace”:
The work of the Dillingham Commission opened wide a window on early-twentieth-century immigration. Benton-Cohen details the migration experience as well as the role of the social sciences employed to analyze the wealth of data collected. She also shows how Congress used the commission’s conclusions to expand federal control over America’s peopling. Immigration scholars will find her study indispensable, but this rich book offers insight to anyone wanting to comprehend immigration policy challenges past and present.

Judith Resnik, Yale Law School:
Historians have long understood that ‘immigrants were American history.’ This book is a timely reminder that immigrants are also America’s present and future. By locating the development of immigration rules in the global context of the early twentieth century and in domestic conflicts over race, ethnicity, and religion, Benton-Cohen demonstrates the mix of ‘simultaneous suspicion and celebration’ of migrants that remains at the core of today’s conflicts.

Donna R. Gabaccia, author of Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective:
An innovative interpretation of how the production of knowledge about immigration a century ago not only generated support for immigration restriction but also deepened the federal government’s reliance on social science research to support policymaking, thereby shaping views of immigration for the next century. I enthusiastically recommend this book.

Michael Kazin, author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918:
This is a landmark work about a critical turning point in the history of the ‘nation of immigrants.’ In graceful prose, Katherine Benton-Cohen tells how a powerful body of government investigators defined which newcomers were a ‘problem’ and which were not. This set forth policies that radically changed the demography and culture of America. In another era of intense conflict over immigration, there could be no more relevant or timely study.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Professor and the Commission Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. The Gentlemen’s Agreement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
3. Hebrew or Jewish Is Simply a Religion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
4. The Vanishing American Wage Earner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
5. Women’s Power and Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
6. The American Type Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
7. Not a Question of Too Many Immigrants Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
Dillingham Commission Members and Selected Staff Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Dillingham Commission Reports Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Illustration Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 330
Illustrations
- Other: 17 halftones

eBook

Published: May 7, 2018
ISBN: 9780674985667