Prescott F. Hall
Prescott Farnsworth Hall (27 September 1868 – 28 May 1921) was an American lawyer and author who championed nativism, eugenics and anti-immigration views. Career After preparation at G. W. Noble's School in Boston he entered Harvard, graduating from the college in 1889 and from the Law School in 1892. In May 1894, he became one of the founders and first secretary of the Immigration Restriction League, today considered the first anti-immigrant think tank in the United States. He was also a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, the Bostonian Society and the American Genetic Association. An advocate of scientific racism and eugenics, he is known today primarily for his role in lobbying for the passage of what became the Immigration Act of 1917, which created a federal framework for restricting immigration—by imposing a literacy test, levying an $8 charge on every immigrant, and creating a massive exclusion zone with the Asiatic Barred Zone. Works Immigration and its Effects upon the United States, Henry Holt and Company, 1906. "The Ethical Aspects of Regulation." In Albert B. Wolfe, ed., Readings in Social Problems, Ginn & Company, 1916. "History of Immigration." In Philip Davis, ed., Immigration and Americanization, Ginn & Company,