The Literacy Test

A Milestone Documents E-text
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The Literacy Test
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844551.book-part-013

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Abstract

In 1894 the Immigration Restriction League was founded in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a prime force behind a prolonged effort to lobby the U.S. Congress to require a literacy test for immigrants in their native language. The organization’s intentions were to slow the incoming wave of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, who the group believed to be socially inferior. Congress had been persuaded to pass a literacy bill in 1897 that was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland. At that time literacy tests were being used by many southern states as a way to restrict the voting privileges of African Americans. Most of these tests were designed in a complicated manner so as to confuse the test takers.

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