What I learned today...

A few random thoughts on my time at NARA today:

I started on the Senate Judiciary Committee records today, and the first thing that hit me was how well organized these records were. Each box and file was clearly labeled (and the label matched what was inside,) the boxes had indexes in some cases, and more or less the records were in good shape. 16 boxes so far...and these only cover 1954-1960, and only on refugees.

I also found out that I can only take about 170 pictures (w/o flash) before my camera battery dies. I need to start bringing my camera charger with me - I think this is going to be brutal on my rechargeable battery.

From what I read today it seems like the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 was much more controversial than I had previously thought (or had previously seen in the literature.) The Act is usually portrayed as either an emergency piece of legislation that only functioned on a very narrow level, or as one of the first to break down the strictures of the McCarran-Walter Act, by letting in refugees over and above quota limitations. From what I saw today, it seems that while the Act itself contained a number of more liberal provisions, the administrators dragged their feet and really slowed the numbers being admitted. This led to a showdown between between John Foster Dulles (the Secretary of State,) and Edward Corsi, a former Commissioner of Immigration in 1955. The archival record seems to show much more pushback on the restrictiveness of the RRA in general, and much more of a connection to the Refugee-Escapee Act of 1957 than I've seen anywhere. I'm still working out what exactly this means for the greater story of postwar immigration and refugee policy, but it is promising...