EVENT CANCELLED

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, LancasterHistory is closed to the public until further notice. Therefore, the following lecture has been cancelled. LancasterHistory will do our best to work with the speaker to reschedule the lecture for future dates. Thank you, and take care!

On Thursday, May 14, 2020, University of Maryland’s Dr. Julie Greene will join LancasterHistory to discuss how anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid-18th, 19th, and 20th centuries show how powerful xenophobia has been on the lives and identities of Americans. For event details and how to register, please scroll to the bottom of this page.

In an influential pamphlet, Benjamin Franklin warned against allowing people of “swarthy complexion” to enter the United States. His worry focused particularly on Germans, believe those emigrating to the United States were “generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation.” Dr. Julie Greene will examine how notions such as Franklin’s shaped U.S. history and how anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid-18th, 19th, and 20th centuries show how powerful and influential xenophobia has been on the lives and identities of Americans.

Julie Greene, Ph.D. is a historian of United States labor, immigration, and empire, and teaches in the history department at the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching also engage with transnational and global approaches to history. She is the author of The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal (Penguin Press, 2009). Greene’s recent articles include “Movable Empire: Labor Migration, U.S. Global Power, and the Remaking of the Americas,” in Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2016) and “The Wages of Empire: Capitalism, Expansionism, and Working-Class Formation,” in Jana Lipman and Daniel Bender, eds., Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism (NYU, 2015). She is also author of Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881-1917 (Cambridge, 1998); co-editor, with Eric Arnesen and Bruce Laurie, of Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Diversity of the Working-Class Experience (Illinois, 1998); and associate editor, with Eileen Boris, John French, Joan Sangster, and Shelton Stromquist (with Leon Fink as editor), of Workers, the Nation-State, and Beyond: Essays in the Labor History of the Americas (Oxford University Press, 2011).

EVENT DETAILS & HOW TO REGISTER

A casual reception will begin at 4pm on Thursday, May 14 at LancasterHistory, 230 N. President Ave., Lancaster. The main presentation will begin at 4:30pm in Ryder Hall.

The program is free and open to the public but requires advance registration to guarantee a seat at the presentation. Register online by clicking “Get Tickets” below or by calling (717) 392-4633. Questions and accessibility requests may be directed to info@lancasterhistory.org or (717) 392-4633. Ticketholders should bring a paper printout of their tickets or be able to display their tickets on a cellphone or other internet-enabled device to check-in to the lecture.

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