Person

Daniel Okrent

Bylines

A Journalist on How Anti-Immigrant Fervor Built in the Early Twentieth Century

A century ago, the invocation of science was key to making Americans believe that newcomers were inferior.

by Daniel Okrent, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 16, 2019

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America

Viewing 1–4 of 4

New York, 1929, men pointing to a sign reading "No Booze Sold Here"

Freedom From Liquor

Ken Burns’ account of prohibition tells a popular story of booze in America. The historical record is far more sobering.

by Mark Lawrence Schrad via Aeon on September 6, 2022

A Eugenic and Health Exhibit in the 1920s.

American Immigration: A Century of Racism

Discussions of eugenics and other fascistic ideas in American history tend to provoke the defense that they never took root. So why do they keep flowering?

by Sarah Churchwell via New York Review of Books on September 12, 2019

Coast Guardsmen with two truckloads of liquor seized on April 14, 1931.

Enforcing Prohibition with a New Federal Force of Poorly Trained Agents Didn’t Go Well in the 1920s

Both Prohibition and current mass deportation efforts were hastily built, staffed by people permitted to use force, and had difficult objectives to achieve.

by Richard F. Hamm via The Conversation on February 20, 2026

Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation Spent the Last Decade of Her Life Violently Destroying Bars. She Had Her Reasons.

Nobody was listening, so she brought some rocks.

by Mark Lawrence Schrad via Slate on September 7, 2021

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