The Immigration History Research Center: Out of the Past, a Promising Future

DONNA R. GABACCIA

TRACING THEIR ORIGINS to 1965, the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) and the Immigration History Society (IHS—later IEHS, Immigration and Ethnic History Society) emerged almost simultaneously. Many members of the IEHS and readers of the Journal of American Ethnic History (JAEH) have, over the years, traveled to the Twin Cities to use the IHRC archives or to participate in conferences it has sponsored, most recently in May 2005 in honor of the retirement of its long-time director, Rudolph J. Vecoli. Still, it might surprise readers of the JAFH (for it certainly surprised me) to learn that, under IEHS bylaws, the IHRC also functions as the legal "office" of the IEHS. As the JAFH celebrates twenty-five years of successful publication for the IEHS, the IHRC is going through its own transition—contemplating the past while considering its future under a new director.