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European Immigration Restriction, 1882-1924, Frank Defina

History ETDs

This thesis is a study and evaluation on the premises and charges underlying the National Origins and related quota systems which restricted the so-called "new" immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Nativists charged that these new immigrants were racially and culturally inferior to the "old" type immigrants from northern and western Europe--the Anglo-Saxons, Teutons or Aryans--and therefore harmful to economic, social and other factors of American culture. Concomitant with these broad premises were more specific charges or theories of harm such as "lower intelligence quotients," and "higher crime rates," which convinced Americans and their congress in the early 1920's of …