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

Daniel Okrent traces the intersection of eugenics, scientific racism, and immigration policy that produced the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively shut the door to Southern and Eastern European immigrants for decades. He profiles the influential eugenicists, philanthropists, and politicians who framed immigration restriction as a matter of national genetic hygiene. The book shows how the intellectual prestige of eugenics gave bigotry the cover of science within elite American institutions.