Racial Comparisons in Literature
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson explains that eugenics was a popular topic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, often referred to by politicians in the discussion of American expansionism. Professor Jac...
Goddard, Race and Intelligence (Part One)
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about Henry Herbert Goddard, who believed that race was the key to discovering what people's potential was in the realm of intelligence. Goddard's work was used by nativists in Co...
Goddard, Race and Intelligence (Part Two)
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson explains that, while Henry Herbert Goddard and others like him are often viewed currently as, "...crackpots...out on the fringe somewhere with bizarre ideas that aren't really related t...
Franz Boas Takes On The Eugenicists
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about Jewish scholar and Columbia anthropology professor Franz Boas. Professor Jacobson explains that Boas was, "...one of the first scholars who really started to question what w...
Science, Race and Immigration
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about the ascendancy of science in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the use of science to classify people into racial types and racial hierarchies. This gave rise to...
Great Black Migration, The
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about "the great Black migration" from the rural south to the urban north, and credits this for the ultimate acceptance enjoyed by white immigrant groups.
1924 Immigration Act, The (Part One)
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about the inspiration Hitler and other prominent Nazis took from American science and the 1924 Immigration Act. "Hitler saw that law as a real inspiration for the way the state co...