Lunch and Learn: Connecticut Political Figures and the Chinese Exclusion Act

Join us for a virtual presentation by Judge Henry Cohn as he discusses his research on the opposition to the Chinese Exclusion Acts by two Connecticut Senators and one Massachusetts Senator.

Congress passed statutes in the late 1880’s that discriminated against Chinese immigrants. The two sitting U.S. Senators from Connecticut, Joseph Roswell Hawley and Orville Hitchcock Platt, and Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar, closely tied to Connecticut, unsuccessfully opposed passage of these statutes. The Senators’ opposition, while an initial failure in the U.S. Senate, formed the basis for the repeal of these statutes in 1943.

These Senators formed friendships with the adults and met the students from the Chinese Educational Mission, a cultural and educational exchange program headquartered in Hartford.

This virtual event is free and open to the public. Click here to register! When you do, you’ll get an emailed receipt with an attached “ticket” — the Zoom link is in that ticket!

The Chinese Educational Mission is the subject of our current exhibition, Journeys 旅途: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission. Visit us in person, or click the link to see a virtual 3D tour. And if podcasts are your thing, listen to our exhibition staff talk about how the exhibition came together, and the new discoveries that inspired it, on Grating the Nutmeg: The Podcast of Connecticut History.