Sociology Program, Historical Studies Program, and American and Indigenous Studies Program Present
Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Progressive-Era America
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Olin Humanities, Room 101
4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Katherine Benton-Cohen
Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University
Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University
“Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Progressive-Era America,” examines the enormous impact of the largest study of immigrants in US History. From 1907 to 1911, a staff of 300—over half of them women--compiled 41 volumes of reports and a potent set of recommendations that shaped immigration policy for generations to come. The talk will discuss the Commission’s surprising origins in US-Asia relations, its enthusiasm for distributing immigrants throughout the United States, and its long-term effect not just on federal policy, but on how Americans think about immigration in general.
Katherine Benton-Cohen is associate professor of history at Georgetown University. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
She is the author of Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands (Harvard University Press, 2009), as well as her forthcoming book on the history of the Dillingham Commission.
She is the author of Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands (Harvard University Press, 2009), as well as her forthcoming book on the history of the Dillingham Commission.
For more information, call 845-758-7667, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Olin Humanities, Room 101