Ari Forsyth (they/them)

I study race, gender, and disability in the nineteenth and twentieth-century United States, with an emphasis on Jewish migration, racialization, and the development of state and scientific power. 

My research focuses on the political and scientific activities of ordinary women and girls, bridging histories of racial uplift, private philanthropy, professional social work, modern social science, urban policing, and eugenics in the early twentieth century United States. 

Some of my research and teaching interests include: Jewish-American history, global migration and racial formation(s), US imperialism and nation-building, Science Technology and Society (STS) Studies, Critical Disability Studies, intellectual and developmental disability (IDD), gender and sexuality, women's (and girls') history, Progressive reform, professionalization, and the welfare state. 

My dissertation examines shifting relationships between whiteness, gender normativity, and disability in the evolution of modern social welfare systems, centering on the experiences of Jewish women and girls in US cities between 1880 and 1940. Drawing from critical studies of gender, race, and disability, I use archival evidence to explore how a growing network of Jewish social welfare institutions (immigrant aid societies, settlement houses, family casework agencies, juvenile courts, parole systems etc.) enabled an aspiring class of Jewish women to gain authority as social workers, while other groups of subaltern (poor and working class, disabled, gender non-normative) Jewish women and girls became the stigmatized subjects of their social work. My dissertation illuminates the overlooked importance of Jewish social workers in the history of the modern welfare state, revealing important connections between American Jewish identity formation and the exercise of state and scientific power in the early twentieth-century United States. 

When I'm not working, I love reading speculative fiction, making zines and linocuts, two-stepping to fast drums, and riding public transportation. I believe that historical research is not only a life-saving and politically essential tool for understanding systems of power that shape our lives but also, frankly, an incredibly fun way to spend a Saturday night. I serve UW students and local community members and welcome requests for insight, support, or advocacy.