Earl G. Harrison papers

The Earl G. Harrison papers consist of the journal Harrison kept during his summer 1945 tour of displaced persons camps, a typescript of his article "The Last Hundred Thousand" about the camps he visited and people he met, excerpts from addresses about displaced persons he delivered in the fall and winter of 1945, a broadcast transcript of a radio program from July 1946 featuring Harrison's support of Jewish migration to Palestine, and newspaper and magazine clippings about displaced persons and Harrison’s work. Earl G. Harrison (1899-1955) was a lawyer who served in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration as Director of Alien Registration within the Justice Department, United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, and US representative on the Intergovernmental Commission on Refugees. At President Harry Truman’s request, he toured and inspected displaced persons camps in the American zone of Europe in the summer of 1945. His report, which became known as the Harrison Report, publicized the poor conditions of the camps, recommended that 100,000 Jewish displaced persons be permitted to resettle in Palestine, and led to the separation of Jewish displaced persons from anti-Semitic populations, an improvement in their housing and rations, and the appointment of an adviser on Jewish affairs to the U.S. Army.