The U.S. Senate passed a resolution this week expressing regret for a law passed more than a century ago that stripped thousands of women of their U.S. citizenship for marrying foreigners. It is an obscure 1907 law. By 1922, Congress had acted to allow most American-born women who married foreigners to remain U.S. citizens. But those who married men ineligible for citizenship, such as Chinese immigrants, still forfeited their U.S. citizenship until the restriction was later repealed.
My grandmother, Helen Anderson, was one of these women. Did your grandmother lose her citizenship too?
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Thank you, Karen, for this reminder. It did not apply to anyone I knew, but was a sad, misguided law.
My grandmother was affected by this, as she married my grandfather who had immigrated from Nova Scotia, and he was not yet naturalized when they married in 1904.. It was a “story” told in the family which most did not believe, but when I took the “beginning” genealogy class a couple of years ago, I found the law– and copied it out. Grandma later reapplied for her citizenship so she could vote when women were emancipated. Sally Dewald
Karen,
I had not heard of this before; thank you for sharing your family story. I will keep this in mind as I pursue my family history.
Peggy Lombard