Katherine Benton-Cohen. Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its
Legacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018. 342 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-674-97644-3.
Reviewed by Yuki Oda
Published on H-Diplo (April, 2019)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)The belief that migration of people can or

the belief that the US government, above all, theshould be managed is deeply rooted in current

federal government, was both responsible for andpolitical and popular discourse. Few argue today

capable of providing solutions.

for a laissez-faire approach and instead speak of
the “designing” of immigration policy or “selec‐tion” of immigrants. Critics often explain diver‐gence from their ideal as policy failure either inits design or in its application or enforcement,
and more important as a problem of governance.
How did these ideas take shape? What do people
expect of the government, which branch and levelof the government, and in what aspects of immi‐
gration and immigrant lives? By definition, inter‐national migration transcends the nation-state,
but why is it mostly considered in the context ofdomestic politics?
Katherine Benton-Cohen’s Inventing the Im‐
migration Problem: The Dillingham Commission
and Its Legacy looks into the crucial turning peri‐
od at the early twentieth century when immigra‐
tion regulation and restriction was about to be‐come the norm in the United States. The book ex‐amines the role that the Dillingham Commission
played in decisively pushing this dynamic by con‐structing immigration as a “problem” in several
ways. First, the view that immigration was a prob‐
lem that needed to be fixed was prevalent. The
second related idea was that there were actual so‐lutions to this problem. And most important was

The Dillingham Commission should be famil‐
iar to scholars of US immigration history. The
commission’s invention and distinction of “old im‐
migration” from “new immigration” has shaped
how historians talk about the histories of immi‐
gration. In terms of policy outcomes, the commis‐
sion had enormous success, as many of its policy
recommendations listed in its first volume, suchas the literacy test, became law. Its forty-one-vol‐ume report has been a rich source for both con‐temporaries and later scholars of various disci‐plines. Scholars today still refer to the reports tostudy immigrant lives in the early twentieth cen‐tury.
Yet Benton-Cohen’s book makes us realize
how little we know about the commission. Sur‐prisingly, with the exception of Robert Zeidel’s Im‐
migrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics:
The Dillingham Commission, 1900-1927 (2004),
this is only the second book on the commission.
Scholars of immigration have written about how
the commission’s conclusions led to a restrictive
immigration policy and what became of the find‐ings. Benton-Cohen’s examination of the internal
workings of the commission is different and sig‐
nificant in that the book tells us about the little-

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known aspect of how the commission produced

University professor. Finding information about

its findings in the first place. The commission wasthese individuals demonstrates the depth of Ben‐a product of the Progressive Era, and it was novel

ton-Cohen’s research, which deserves recognition.

for Congress to conduct social-science-based re‐

The federal archives do not hold the organization‐

search rather than hold hearings. Thus, at one lev‐

al records of the commission. Benton-Cohen has

el, the book tells a story of the rise of immigration

created a database of all the staff, many of whom

experts and their use of the federal government’s

were previously unknown, and through exploring

power to pursue their research interests, to en‐some thirty manuscript collections, she has recon‐

hance the status of their discipline, to promote

structed the stories of people surrounding thewhat they believed was a just social cause, and tocommission.

build their own careers. At the same time, it is

The book begins with two chapters on the Pa‐

also about the failure of experts, the clash of al‐cific and the Pacific coastal states and ends with alegedly scientific and objective knowledge, andchapter on southern plantations along the Missis‐

the influence of political interests. The commis‐

sippi delta. This geographical framework offers

sioners’ final recommendations contradicted andhistorians a new view of the commission, whichsimplified many of the published findings. Ben‐

previous literature has most associated with re‐

ton-Cohen illustrates how political pressure sup‐strictions placed on transatlantic immigrationpressed some of the important findings from evenfrom southern and eastern Europe. In fact, aside

making it onto the pages. More important, immi‐

from a volume on the Greek padrones system, thegrants themselves often resisted encroachment ofJapanese were the only people who were singled

the “experts” and the government into their daily

out as a “race” in the title of the reports (volumes

lives and negotiated in their own ways to have

22 to 25). The commission was established intheir voices heard.

1907, the same year as the United States andIn addition to an introduction and a brief epi‐

Japan reached the Gentlemen’s Agreement to cur‐logue, the book consists of seven chapters. Adding

tail Japanese immigration. The two opening chap‐color to the narrative, each chapter revolves

ters are significant not only because they point toaround a few individuals, chosen from among theanother origin of the commission but also be‐nine commissioners and over three hundred staff.

cause they place the commission in a transitional

Benton-Cohen’s selection of the protagonists isperiod from a bilateral framework or diplomaticbalanced and provides a more wholesome picture

approach to a unilateral approach to immigrationof the commission while drawing our attention topolicy.

its diversity and internal contradictions. Some

The first chapter centers on Jeremiah Jenks, amembers were powerful and prominent, such asCornell University economics professor, who en‐

the economist Jeremiah Jenks (chapter 1), Senator

tered the field of immigration through his early

LeRoy Percy (chapter 7), or the famed anthropolo‐interests in colonialism in the Pacific. Jenks be‐gist Franz Boas (chapter 6). Others exercised influ‐

lieved that “the federal government had a right—

ence disproportionate to their academic standing,even an obligation”—to regulate and restrict im‐

as in the case of W. Jett Lauck, the agent in charge

migration (p. 35). Chapter 2 proceeds to discuss inof the industrial series (chapter 4). Others partici‐

detail the commission’s studies on Japanese immi‐

pated in an essential but less recognized role,

grants and Ichihashi, a first-generation Japanesesuch as Anna Herkner and Mary Mark (chapter 5),immigrant who served as a research assistant and

who investigated the “white slave” trade as un‐interpreter. When US-Japan relations were rapid‐

dercover agents, or Yamato Ichihashi (chapter 2),

ly deteriorating, with Japanese immigrants in‐an undergraduate assistant and a future Stanford

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creasingly being problematized, Ichihashi and thetheir children’s bodies changed in the US. The au‐

Japanese workers he interviewed offered an alter‐

thor clarifies how Boas both differed from and re‐native view of Japanese immigrants as good citi‐

sembled the eugenicists. Although he refuted thezens. By focusing on Jenks, a top commissioner,

eugenicist argument that racial characteristics

and Ichihashi, a student interpreter, the two chap‐

were immutable, Boas and the eugenicists sharedters shed light on opposing visions of Asian immi‐

the methodology of measuring bodies and moregration within the commission, with the former

fundamentally the conviction that scientists andeventually suppressing the latter.

the government were entitled to intrude the mostintimate sphere. But measuring bodies, especiallyThroughout the book, Benton-Cohen makes

those of children, was met with strong opposition

the point that scholarship on the Dillingham Com‐

from parents and immigrant communities. Ben‐mission has overemphasized the influence of eu‐

ton-Cohen is attentive to how ordinary immi‐

genics, and one of her purposes of focusing on

grants suspected and detested intrusion of experts

Jenks in the first chapter is to point to the central

and the federal government.

role of economists. But this is not to say that thebook discounts race. In fact, racial categorization

While most of the forty-one volumes credit

was central to the commission’s study. As Lauck

such men as Boas, Benton-Cohen also calls atten‐

wrote, the main purpose of the industry series hetion to the neglected fact that more than half ofadministered was to determine “the races which

the staff who undertook actual research were

and the races which do not lower the standard ofwomen. The commission provided one of the lim‐

living” (p. 125). In addition, as Benton-Cohen

ited opportunities for college-educated and gradu‐

points out, the commission measured its data pri‐ate school-trained women to bring their expertisemarily by race. What the book reveals is how ex‐

to the service of the federal government. Benton-tensively race permeated a wide range of academ‐

Cohen illustrates how these women combined

ic disciplines, including economics, and Benton-

their class and gender values with social science

Cohen seeks to carefully sort out biological deter‐in their investigation and deployed the power ofminism of eugenics from other forms of racial

the federal government for their causes. Chapters

thinking that were so prevalent. While the com‐

5 and 7 describe contrasting outcomes of women’smission borrowed its racial classification from theinvolvement in the federal investigation of immi‐

bureau of immigration, neither simply reflected

grant conditions. Chapter 5 sheds light on women

racial thinking. Chapter 3 discusses the controver‐

who worked, sometimes anonymously, for thesy over the classification of “Hebrew” as “race”

commission, such as Anna Herkner, Mary Mark,that cut across nationalities, protests by Jewish or‐

and Mary Philbrook, on a campaign against

ganizations, such prominent Jewish leaders as Si‐“white slavery,” which successfully paved the way

mon Wolfe and Max Kohler, and divisions among

for the Mann Act. Chapter 7 tells a different story

Jews. Research design determines the frameworkof Mary Grace Quackenbos, a lawyer at the De‐

by which data gathered is interpreted, and thepartment of Justice, and her investigation of peon‐

book shows the contested process of constructing

age conditions of Italian immigrants on a south‐

race as a framework of understanding.

ern plantation. Peonage investigation largely fal‐
tered in the face of strong local and political oppo‐

Organized lobbying was just one of the vari‐sition. In fact, commissioners from the South pres‐ous responses to expanding power of the federal

sured the Dillingham Commission to produce agovernment, and Benton-Cohen describes daily

study that would discredit the Department of Jus‐

resistance of ordinary immigrants. An example istice’s version. The two chapters show how federal

chapter 6 on Boas’s study of how immigrants’ and3

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agencies offered competing versions of “objectiveMaking of Modern America (2004) to be publishedfact.”by Hakusuisha Press in 2020 and a co-edited col‐Ultimately,

theDillingham

lection of essays Introduction to History and Cul‐

Commission’sture of the United States (forthcoming in 2021).

study of immigrants boiled down to the questionof Americanness. The most extensive and influen‐
tial sixteen-volume industrial series called for theprotection of the “American worker” defined as“old immigration.” The industrial series marked asharp contrast with reports on the South advocat‐
ing for more immigrants, which placed African
Americans outside the sphere of “American work‐ers.” Focusing on Lauck, now a little-known fig‐ure, Benton-Cohen explains the commission’s de‐velopment of an economic argument for immi‐
grant restriction in order to protect the “Americanstandard of living.” At one level, as Benton-Cohenemphasizes, Lauck’s reasoning significantly dif‐fered from more essentialist grounds for restric‐tion in the 1920s, with its emphasis on innate bio‐
logical difference. At another level, the overarch‐ing emphasis on the American worker signaled
transition to immigration policy that prioritizeddomestic interests over international relations, aunilateral over a multilateral framework of ap‐
proaching immigration.
With thorough research and compelling evi‐
dence, Benton-Cohen’s book is not only an essen‐tial read for immigration historians but also an in‐valuable addition to a growing literature on theProgressive Era. As questions about the “immigra‐
tion problem” are intensely debated in the US to‐day, this book will help us reflect on its origins.
Yuki Oda is an associate professor at the Fac‐
ulty of Commerce, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan.
He specializes in immigration history, particular‐
ly the development of US immigration policy inthe twentieth century. He has contributed chap‐ters to Nicholas Syrett and Corinne T. Fields’s Agein America: Colonial Era to the Present (2015) andRichard Marback’s Generations: Rethinking Ageand Citizenship (2015). Some of his current
projects include a Japanese translation of Mae
Ngai's Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and4

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Citation: Yuki Oda. Review of Benton-Cohen, Katherine. Inventing the Immigration Problem: The
Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. April, 2019.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53247

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No
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