The Treaty Meant To Control Nuclear Risks Is Under Strain 80 Years After The US Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, looks on as Secretary of State Dean Rusk signs the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty on July 1, 1968. Corbis via Getty Images

BY STEPHEN HERZOG

PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE,

MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AT

MONTEREY, MIDDLEBURY

Eighty years ago – on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945 – the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, thrusting humanity into a terrifying new age. In mere moments, tens of thousands of people perished in deaths whose descriptions often defy comprehension.

The blasts, fires and lingering radiation effects caused such tragedies that even today no one knows exactly how many people died. Estimates place the death toll at up to 140,000 in Hiroshima and over 70,000 in Nagasaki, but the true human costs may never be fully known.

The moral shock of the U.S. attacks reverberated far beyond Japan, searing itself into the conscience of global leaders and the public. It sparked a movement I and others continue to study: the efforts of the international community to ensure that such horrors are never repeated.

Racing toward the brink

The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cast a long shadow over global efforts to contain nuclear arms. The 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, more commonly known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, was a powerful, if imperfect, effort to prevent future nuclear catastrophe. Its creation reflected not just morality, but also the practical fears and self-interests of nations.

As the years passed, views of the bombings as justified acts began to shift. Harrowing firsthand accounts from Hibakusha – the survivors – reached wide audiences. One survivor, Setsuko Thurlow, described the sight of other victims:

“It was like a procession of ghosts. I say ‘ghosts’ because they simply did not look like human beings. Their hair was rising upwards, and they were covered with blood and dirt, and they were burned and blackened and swollen. Their skin and flesh were hanging, and parts of the bodies were missing. Some were carrying their own eyeballs.”

Nuclear dangers increased further with the advent of hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear weapons, capable of destruction far greater than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What had once seemed a decisive end to a global war now looked like the onset of an era wherein no city or civilization would truly be safe.

These shifting perceptions shaped how nations viewed the nuclear age. In the decades following World War II, nuclear technology rapidly spread. By the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union aimed thousands of nuclear warheads at one another.

Meanwhile, there were concerns that countries in East Asia, Europe and the Middle East would acquire the bomb. U.S. President John F. Kennedy even warned that “15 or 20 or 25 nations” might be able to develop nuclear weapons during the 1970s, resulting in the “greatest possible danger” to humanity – the prospect of its extinction. This warning, like much of the early nonproliferation rhetoric, drew its urgency from the legacies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Perhaps the starkest indication of the gravity of the stakes emerged during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. For 13 days, the world teetered on the edge of nuclear annihilation until the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles from Cuba in exchange for the secret withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey. During those long days, U.S. and Soviet leaders – and external observers – witnessed how quickly the risks of global destruction could escalate.

Crafting the grand bargain

In the wake of such “close calls” – moments where nuclear war was narrowly averted due to individual judgment or sheer luck – diplomacy accelerated.

Negotiations on a treaty to control nuclear proliferation continued at meetings of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva from 1965 to 1968. While the enduring horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped to drive the momentum, national interests largely shaped the talks.

There were three groups of negotiating parties. The United States was joined by its NATO allies Britain, Canada, Italy and France – which only observed. The Soviet Union led a communist bloc containing Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania. And there were nonaligned countries: Brazil; Burma, now known as Myanmar; Ethiopia; India; Mexico; Nigeria; Sweden, which only joined NATO in 2024; and the United Arab Republic, now known as Egypt.

For the superpowers, a treaty to limit the spread of the bomb was as much a strategic opportunity as a moral imperative. Keeping the so-called “nuclear club” small would not only stabilize international tensions, but it would also cement Washington’s and Moscow’s global leadership and prestige.

U.S. leaders and their Soviet counterparts therefore sought to promote nonproliferation abroad. Perhaps just as important as ensuring nuclear forbearance among their adversaries was preventing a cascade of nuclear proliferation among allies that could embolden their friends and spiral out of control.

Standing apart from these Cold War blocs were the nonaligned countries. Many of them approached the atomic age through a humanitarian and moral lens. They demanded meaningful action toward nuclear disarmament to ensure that no other city would suffer the tragic fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The nonaligned countries refused to accept a two-tiered treaty merely codifying inequality between nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” In exchange for agreeing to forgo the bomb, they demanded two crucial commitments that shaped the resulting treaty into what historians often describe as a “grand bargain.”

The nonaligned countries agreed in the treaty to permit the era’s existing nuclear powers – Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union (later Russia) and the United States – to temporarily maintain their arsenals while committing to future disarmament. But in exchange, they were promised peaceful nuclear technology for energy, medicine and development. And to reduce the risks of anyone turning peaceful nuclear materials into weapons, the treaty empowered the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections around the world.

Legacies and limits

The treaty entered into force in 1970 and with, 191 member nations, is today among the world’s most universal accords. Yet, from the outset, its provisions faced limits. Nuclear-armed India, Israel and Pakistan have always rejected the treaty, and North Korea later withdrew to develop its own nuclear weapons.

In response to evolving challenges, such as the discovery of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons program in the early 1990s, International Atomic Energy Agency safeguard efforts grew more stringent. Many countries agreed to accept nuclear facility inspections on shorter notice and involving more intrusive tools as part of the initiative to detect and deter the development of the world’s most powerful weapons. And the countries of the world extended the treaty indefinitely in 1995, reaffirming their commitment to nonproliferation.

The treaty represents a complex compromise between morality and pragmatism, between the painful memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hard-edged geopolitics. Despite its many imperfections and its de facto promotion of nuclear inequality, the treaty is credited with limiting nuclear proliferation to just nine countries today. It has done so through civilian nuclear energy incentives and inspections that give countries confidence that their rivals are not building the bomb. Countries also put pressure on each other to obey the rules, such as when the international community condemned, sanctioned and isolated North Korea after it withdrew from the treaty and tested a nuclear weapon.

But the treaty continues to face serious challenges. Critics argue that its disarmament provisions remain vague and unfulfilled, with some scholars contending that nonnuclear countries should exit the treaty to encourage the great powers to disarm. Nuclear-armed countries continue to modernize – and in some cases, expand – their arsenals, eroding trust in the grand bargain.

The behavior of individual countries also points to strains on the treaty. Russia’s persistent nuclear threats during its war on Ukraine show how deeply possessors may still rely on these weapons as tools of coercive foreign policy. North Korea continues to wield its nuclear arsenal in ways that undermine international security. Iran might consider proliferation to deter future Israeli and U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Still, I would argue that declaring the treaty to be dead is simply premature. Critics have predicted its demise since the treaty’s inception in 1968. While many countries have growing frustrations with the existing system of nonproliferation, most of them still see more benefit in staying than walking away from the treaty.

The treaty may be embattled, but it remains intact. Worryingly, the world today appears far removed from the vision of avoiding nuclear catastrophe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped awaken. As nuclear dangers intensify and disarmament stalls, moral clarity risks fading into ritual remembrance.

I believe that for the sake of humanity’s future, the tragedies of the atomic bombings must remain a stark and unmistakable warning, not a precedent. Ultimately, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s continued relevance depends on whether nations still believe that shared security begins with shared restraint.

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My Style Is A Mix Of My Alabama Upbringing, West African Roots, And New England Education. Finding It Took Some Time.

Alexis Okeowo (Pulitzer Center)

BY ALEXIS OKEOWO

When I left Alabama for college in the Northeast, I was wearing the most neutral of disguises. My wardrobe consisted of tops and miniskirts belonging to the girl-next-door aesthetic, found at mall stores like the Limited and Gap. I unintentionally had a characterless accent—a vaguely coastal one possibly born from the dissonance between the Southern drawls of my friends and the Nigerian accents of my parents. My high school summer job had been at American Eagle, which I abandoned as soon as I landed a gig at the sexier Express. I was one of only a few people leaving my high school in Montgomery to go to college, at Princeton, and I was a little uneasy: I wondered what people up north liked to read and talk about; what they did for fun; and especially, what they would be wearing. In an environment where people had more money than I had ever seen, how would I fit in? And how would I find my originality?

Princeton has a reputation of being the most preppy, conservative, and thus “southern,” of all the colleges in the Northeast. While few people claimed the latter two associations, the campus was a sea of popped pastel polo collars, seersucker trousers, and pleated miniskirts—mostly from designer labels, not the retail chains I grew up shopping at. Quilted Vera Bradley bags, seemingly plucked from the back of a grandmother’s closet, were also everywhere. At first, I felt pressured to join the prevailing aesthetic. I still remember wearing a pink polo shirt layered over a light blue one (or maybe it was the other way around) to a springtime lawn party. I’m eternally grateful that photos from that day no longer exist. My attempt to fit in by dressing the part was all too familiar. Growing up in the nineties and early aughts, my peers dressed nearly the same: in preppy pale-hued outfits, linen and seersucker among their wardrobe staples. Though I tried to wear similar clothes, they weren’t my style back then, either. They felt like a costume, especially in comparison to what I observed at home.

In terms of fashion, my mom and aunties were the opposite of the Montgomery status quo. Their hair and makeup were exquisitely done, with big curls and updos, red lipstick, and vivid eye shadow. Their outfits, planned weeks in advance, melded glamour and comfort; they could sweep you into the folds of their crinkly, glittering-fabric dresses as they danced. Their jewelry, usually gold or coral, was dramatic, and their shoes and purses always matched. The ease they had in their bodies was astonishing. Their clothes were loud, their voices were loud, their approaches to life were loud. They treated their new home in America like a stage that would have to bend to their directions. It was a resilience necessary for survival. Their extreme West African femininity both clashed and agreed with the archetype of southern white womanhood. My mom desperately wanted me to wear earrings more, do my hair more, put on dresses more; she also wanted me never to bow to anyone. But I wasn’t ready for that yet: I was still figuring out who I wanted to be and what felt best on my body.

At Princeton—post lawn party and also while studying for a term in London—I started to experiment. I traded my pastel pleated skirts for bright, floaty bubus worn over skinny jeans. I paired Nigerian-tailored slim skirts with T-shirts and button-downs. I wore sundresses with masculine leather sandals from West Africa. I wanted to look both unique and classic, and pairing the elegant flamboyance of West African textiles with the tailoring and the understated cheeriness of Southern fabrics and cuts felt like my truest self. Dressing like that signaled how I wanted to be perceived in the world—as a person who was proudly shaped both by my home in Alabama, and by the African women in my life.

Today, my wardrobe is less focused on West African prints, and more so on pieces that I find unusual and special. But I haven’t stopped choosing outfits with one goal in mind: looking and feeling wholly like myself.

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‘Well, No, You Don’t Have To Have Children’: What African Women Over The Age Of 60 Have Learned About Life

Sylvia Arthur recording the thoughts and recollections of Fatou Jabang and Awa Senghore, in Kartong, in the south of the Gambia. Photograph: Sarjo Baldeh/AWOHOWA/National Geographic Society

BY SYLVIA ARTHUR

Women across west Africa have a life expectancy of 59. In a rare project, Sylvia Arthur set out to give voice to those who have lived beyond expectation, whose experiences have been largely overlooked

Addra insists that his aunt, Anyessi Dossou, does not have a story to tell. “She’s just an old woman who’s never left the village,” he says, as he guides us along dirt tracks in fading light to her home in Avlo, Benin.

When Dossou, in her early 80s, emerges from her room in the compound house she shares with generations of her extended family, the conversation begins hesitantly. “I told you,” Addra says.

Then the levees break. Asked about her husband, Dossou recounts the impact of being widowed at a young age and raising five children. She speaks of small joys and triumphs, and of the intense heartbreak of losing a son. She describes her life now as an older woman and the loneliness she feels in her bones. Dossou clearly has a story. “I’ve never heard her talk like that,” Addra concedes.

At 59, life expectancy of women in west Africa is the lowest of any female population in the world. In 2023, I started to chronicle a history of the region through the experiences of older women, largely overlooked in official narratives.

In 100 interviews with women over the age of 60 in villages and towns on the coasts of Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone and the Gambia, covering how they live, love, survive and thrive, there were many stories. The commonality was in almost all having defied stereotypes, not just in terms of age but in breaking social and cultural barriers.

These are women who are farmers and traders, teachers and seamstresses, businesswomen, mothers, trade unionists and community leaders.

Marie-Thérèse Fakambi, 70, Benin: a midwife

As one of eight siblings from her father’s four wives, Marie-Thérèse Fakambi was her mother’s only child. She enjoyed a bucolic childhood in a large polygamous household in western Benin. Under her mother’s guidance, she left for the commercial capital, Cotonou, to study midwifery, and graduated three years later.

“When I started, on 25 January 1980, the place where I was assigned had no electricity. We worked using a small oil lamp called a luciole during deliveries and even to stitch women up when there were tears.”

Although she has never married or had any children of her own, Fakambi sees herself as a mother to the 5,000 children she delivered throughout her 18-year career, many of whom she still knows and who now have children of their own.

Of her own mother, she says: “She cried all the time until she died. The fact that she didn’t have any more children, and that I didn’t have any, hurt her.”

Fakambi saw things differently. “At one point, I told myself, ‘Well, no, you don’t have to have children.’ My sister has children, my brother has children, and they treat me well. So what’s the problem?”

Now retired, Fakambi is able to indulge her other passion: organising traditional marriage ceremonies, known as dots. She takes pride in bringing together young couples embarking on marital life. “I love it!” she says. “Since I started, I’ve done about 18. It brings me great joy.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, two of her brothers died in quick succession, Fakambi was appointed head of her extended family, a position traditionally held by men. “People have developed a certain trust in me, which allows me to lead them, but men are difficult, and it’s not easy.

“Everyone has their gift,” she says. “This is mine.”

Méwounèsso Tchetike, 74, Togo: a woman who broke the cycle of child marriage

As a child in Koumaye, Togo, Méwounèsso Tchetike had her life mapped out for her. Born into a farming family, as the fourth of five children, she would help on the land as soon as she could walk, assist her mother in selling the produce at market, and be initiated into womanhood at about 13 before being married off and having her own children, repeating the cycle of generations of women before her.

Despite a significant decline in child marriages over the past 30 years, one in four girls in Togo become wives before the age of 18. Kara, Tchetike’s home region, has the second-highest rate of child marriage in the tiny country.

Tchetike’s father betrothed her to the son of a neighbour before she was born. The price was a dowry of grains to be paid annually until Tchetike was ready to be given over to her husband’s family. When that time came, although Tchetike had reservations, she could not go against her father’s will.

“It would bring shame on my family,” Tchetike says. “Everyone in the village would ostracise us and accuse us of stealing our neighbour’s grain over the years.”

Six decades later, and now living in the capital, Lomé, Tchetike is still married to the man she was pledged to; his “senior wife”. But now about 74 (she does not know her exact age) and a mother to five, including two girls, she will not be repeating the patterns of the past.

When asked if she would ever arrange a marriage for her daughters, Tchetike breaks into a throaty laugh. “Never! Never, never, never! They wouldn’t stand for it, and I’d never do it.

“Let them choose their own husbands,” she adds. “I don’t want any trouble.”

Isatou Jarju, early 80s, and Isatou Madeline Jarju, 69, the Gambia: women who rule the river

“Around this creek, from where we are standing to the other end,” Isatou Jarju says, pointing across the Hallahin River, “there is no one who can beat me when it comes to oyster farming.”

She does not know her exact age – Jarju says she was “crawling when the Burma war started”, which would put her in her early 80s – but she knows: “Around this creek, there is no one who can swim better than me.”

Fishing is traditionally done by men, but women run the physically demanding oyster trade in Kartong, in the Gambia’s south, from harvesting in mangroves to processing and selling.

Jarju has been exerting her authority for decades, training young people in how to navigate the river and teaching them methods that have been handed down over generations. “I educated my children from this creek. I had 12; one is a doctor. Each one has something to hold on to after graduating.”

Several years ago, Jarju delegated leadership to her younger sister, Isatou Madeline Jarju, president of the 200-member Women’s Oyster Association. “I didn’t go through formal education, but Isatou did. I told her, ‘You are going to be our clerk, and you will be our go-to person whenever we are in need of support.’”

Isatou Madeline Jarju has travelled across Africa and Europe, learning about and teaching oyster farming and securing funds to develop the village, including the installation of toilets.

A divorced mother of five, she fosters local children at risk of abandonment. “In my home, I’m the husband,” she says. “I do what a man should do. Nowadays, it’s difficult to feed the children, but I’m happy because I’m in nature and working with the women.”

“Don’t talk about men,” the older sister says when asked about the role men have played in Kartong’s development.

“Men are just a hindrance,” she says. “They are the definition of driving a vehicle backwards. When I stand here, they will all say that the owner of the creek is back. That is who I am.”

Yetunde Adwoa Sillah Beckley, 73, Sierra Leone: a woman rebuilding history

Yetunde Adwoa Sillah Beckley’s life is rooted in remembrance. Born in Ghana to a Nigerian mother and a Ghanaian father, whose ancestries can be traced back to Sierra Leone, she is a proud Creole, a descendant of freed enslaved people from the Americas who established the capital, Freetown, in 1792. “My people were pioneers,” Beckley says. “Everything I do is in their memory.”

Based in the village of Kent on the Freetown peninsula, in the house her great-great-great-grandparents built, Beckley felt compelled to expand on their legacy. Notable within the community for the well they dug on their land, which supplied the purest water in the area, it sustained generations of her family and many others.

During Sierra Leone’s civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002, the well was destroyed and Beckley fled to Freetown. But on her return she committed to rebuilding her ancestors’ well. “I wanted to do something that would last,” she says. “It took some time, but I’m happy I was able to do it.”

Beckley’s daughter, who is in her 40s, also lives on the family land with her own children. She helps her mother run the small community grocery shop at the front of the main house, which sells oil and fresh produce. She has plans to complete an outbuilding her grandparents started before she was born, which has fallen into disrepair.

Meanwhile, Beckley’s dream is to return to Ghana to reconnect with her relatives, whom she lost touch with during the war. “I’m west African,” she says. “My people are everywhere.”

Addra did not give his first name

This project was supported by the National Geographic Society. A Women’s Oral History of West Africa is a five-part podcast series that tells an alternative history of postcolonial west Africa through the lives of women over 60, in their own words. It is available on awomensoralhistory.africa

This article was amended on 4 August 2025. Méwounèsso Tchetike is about 74, not 70, as an earlier version said.

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The Global Health System Can Build Back Better After US Aid Cuts – Here’s How

A study volunteer in an Ebola vaccine trial receives inoculation at Redemption Hospital in Monrovia in 2017. NIAID/Wikimedia Commons

BY JONATHAN E. COHEN

PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL POPULATION AND

PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCES, KECK SCHOOL OF

MEDICINE AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY 

ENGAGEMENT, INSTITUTE ON INEQUALITIES

AND GLOBAL HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Steep cuts in US government funding have thrown much of the field of global health into a state of fear and uncertainty. Once a crown jewel of US foreign policy, valued at some US$12 billion a year, global health has been relegated to a corner of a restructured State Department governed by an “America First” agenda.

Whatever emerges from the current crisis, it will look very different from the past.

As someone who has spent a 25-year career in global health and human rights and now teaches the subject to graduate students in California, I am often asked whether young people can hope for a future in the field. My answer is a resounding yes.

More than ever, we need the dedication, humility and vision of the next generation to reinvent the field of global health, so that it is never again so vulnerable to the political fortunes of a single country. And more than ever, I am hopeful this will be the case.

To understand the source of my hope, it is important to recall what brought US engagement in global health to its current precipice – and how a historic response to specific diseases paradoxically left African health systems vulnerable.

Disease and dependency

Over two decades ago, the field of global health as we currently know it emerged out of the global response to HIV/Aids – among the deadliest pandemics in human history. The pandemic principally affected people of reproductive age and babies born to HIV-positive parents.

The creation of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) in 2003 was at the time the largest-ever bilateral programme to combat a single disease. It redefined the field of global health for decades to come, with the US at its centre. While both the donors and issues in the field would multiply over the years, global health would never relinquish its origins in American leadership against HIV/Aids.

Pepfar placed African nations in a state of extreme dependence on the US. We are now witnessing the results – not for the first time. The global financial crisis of 2008 reduced development assistance to health, which generated new thinking about financing and domestic resource mobilisation.

Yet, the US continued to underwrite Africa’s disease responses through large contracts to American universities and implementers. This was for good reason, given the urgency of the problem, the growing strength of Africa’s health systems as a result of Pepfar, and the moral duty of the world’s richest country.

With the rise of right-wing populism and the polarising effects of COVID-19, global health would come to be seen by many Americans as an elite enterprise. The apparent trade-off between public health countermeasures and economic life during COVID-19 – a false choice to experts who know a healthy workforce to be a precondition for a strong economy – alienated many voters from the advice of disease prevention experts. The imperative to “vaccinate the world” and play a leadership role in global health security lacked a strong domestic constituency. It proved no match for monopolistic priorities of the pharmaceutical industry and the insularity and economic anxieties of millions of Americans.

This history set the stage for the sudden abdication of US global health leadership in early 2025. By the time the Department of Government Efficiency came for USAID, many viewed global health as a relic of the early response to HIV/Aids, an excuse for other governments to spend less on health, or an industry of elites. The field was an easy target, and the White House must have known it.

Yet therein lies the hope. If global health came of age around a single disease, an exercise of US soft power, and a cadre of elite experts, it now has an opportunity to change itself from the ground up. What can emerge is a new global health compact, in which African governments design robust health systems for themselves and enlist the international community to assist from behind.

Opportunity to build back better

To build a new global health compact for Africa, the first change must be from a focus on combating individual diseases to ensuring that all people have the opportunity for health and well-being throughout their lives. Rather than allowing entire health systems to be defined by the response to HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, Africa needs integrated systems that promote:

primary care, which brings services for the majority of health needs closer to communities

health promotion, which enables people to take control of all aspects of their health and well-being

long-term care, which helps all people function and maintain quality of life over their entire lifespan.

No global trend compels this shift more than population ageing, which will soon engulf every nation as a result of lengthening life expectancy and declining fertility. As the proportion of older adults grows to outstrip that of children, societies need systems of integrated healthcare that help people manage multiple diseases. They don’t need fragmented programmes that produce conflicting medical advice, dangerous drug interactions, and crippling bureaucracy. Time is running out to make this fundamental shift.

Second, there is a need to shift the relationship between low-income and high-income nations towards shared investment in the service of local needs. This is beginning to happen in some places, and it will require greater sacrifices on all sides.

Low-income governments need to spend a higher percentage of their GDP on healthcare. That will in turn require addressing the many factors that stymie the redistribution of wealth, from corruption to debt to lack of progressive taxation. The US and other high-income countries need to pay their fair share, while also sharing decision-making over how global public goods, from vaccines to disease surveillance to health workers, are shared and distributed in an interconnected world.

Third, there is need to change the narrative of global health in wealthy countries such as the US to better connect to the concerns of voters who are hostile to globalism itself. This means addressing people’s real fears that public health measures will cost them their job, force them to close their business, or advance a pharmaceutical industry agenda. It means justifying global health in terms that people can relate to and agree with – that is, helping to save lives without taking responsibility for other countries’ health systems.

It means forging unlikely alliances between those who believe in leadership from the so-called global south and those who take an insular view of America’s role in the world.

Leading from behind

Make no mistake. I am not counting on this – or any – US administration to reinvent global health on terms that are more responsive to current disease trends, more equitable between nations, and more relevant to American voters.

But nor would I want them to. To create the global health for the future, the leadership must come not only from the US, but rather from a shared commitment among the community of nations to give and receive according to their capacities and needs. And that is something to hope for.

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By Firing The Bureau Of Labor Statistics Chief, The Trump administration Raises Concerns That It May Further Restrict The Flow Of Essential Government Information

BY SARAH JAMES

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL

SCIENCE, GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

President Donald Trump’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Aug. 1, 2025, after an unfavorable unemployment report has been drawing criticism for its potential to undercut the agency’s credibility. But it’s not the first time that his administration has taken steps that could weaken the integrity of some government data.

Consider the tracking of U.S. maternal mortality, which is the highest among developed nations. Since 1987, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has administered the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System to better understand when, where and why maternal deaths occur.

In April 2025, the Trump administration put the department in charge of collecting and tracking this data on leave.

So far, there are no indications that any BLS data has been deleted or disrupted. But there have been reports of that occurring in other agencies of all kinds.

The White House is also collecting less information about everything from how many Americans have health insurance to the number of students enrolled in public schools, and making government-curated data of all kinds off-limits to the public. President Donald Trump is also trying to get rid of entire agencies, like the Department of Education, that are responsible for collecting important data tied to poverty and inequality.

His administration has also begun deleting websites and respositories that share government data with the public.

Why data is essential for the safety net

I study the role that data plays in political decision-making, including when and how government officials decide to collect it. Through years of research, I’ve found that good data is essential – not just for politicians, but for journalists, advocates and voters. Without it, it’s much harder to figure out when a policy is failing, and even more difficult to help people who aren’t politically well connected.

Since Trump was sworn in for a second time, I have been keeping an eye on the disruption, removal and defunding of data on safety net programs such as food assistance and services for people with disabilities.

I believe that disrupting data collection will make it harder to figure out who qualifies for these programs, or what happens when people lose their benefits. I also think that all this missing data will make it harder for supporters of safety net programs to rebuild them in the future.

Why the government collects this data

There’s no way to find out whether policies and programs are working without credible data collected over a long period of time.

For example, without a system to accurately measure how many people need help putting food on their tables, it’s hard to figure out how much the country should spend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program, formerly known as food stamps, the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, and related programs. Data on Medicaid eligibility and enrollment before and after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 offers another example. National data showed that millions of Americans gained health insurance coverage after the ACA was rolled out.

Many institutions and organizations, such as universities, news organizations, think tanks, and nonprofits focused on particular issues like poverty and inequality or housing, collect data on the impact of safety net policies on low-income Americans.

No doubt these nongovernmental data collection efforts will continue, and maybe even increase. However, it’s highly unlikely that these independent efforts can replace any of the government’s data collection programs – let alone all of them.

The government, because it takes the lead in implementing official policies, is in a unique position to collect and store sensitive data collected over long periods of time. That’s why the disappearance of thousands of official websites can have very long-term consequences.

What makes Trump’s approach stand out

The Trump administration’s pausing, defunding and suppressing of government data marks a big departure from his predecessors.

As early as the 1930s, U.S. social scientists and local policymakers realized the potential for data to show which policies were working and which were a waste of money. Since then, policymakers across the political spectrum have grown increasingly interested in using data to make government work better.

This focus on data grew starting in 2001, when President George W. Bush made holding government accountable to measurable outcomes a top priority.

He saw data as a powerful tool for reducing waste and assessing policy outcomes. His signature education reform, the No Child Left Behind Act, radically expanded the collection and reporting of student achievement data at K-12 public schools.

How this contrasts with the Obama and Biden administrations

Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden emphasized the importance of data for evaluating the impact of their policies on low-income people, who have historically had little political clout.

Obama initiated a working group to identify ways to collect, analyze and incorporate more useful data into safety net policies. Biden implemented several of the group’s suggestions.

For example, he insisted on the collection of demographic data and its analysis when assessing the impacts of new safety net policies. This approach shaped how his administration handled changes in home loan practices, the expansion of broadband access and the establishment of outreach programs for enrolling people in Medicaid and Medicare.

Why rebuilding will be hard

It’s harder to make a case for safety net programs when you don’t have relevant data. For example, programs that help low-income people see a doctor, get fresh food and find housing can be more cost-effective than simply having them continue to live in poverty.

Blocking data collection may also make restoring government funding after a program gets cut or shut down even more challenging. That’s because it will be more challenging for people who in the past benefited from these programs to persuade their fellow taxpayers that there is a need for investing in a expanding program or creating a new one.

Without enough data, even well-intended policies in the future may worsen the very problems they’re meant to fix, long after the Trump administration has concluded.

This article was updated on Aug. 4, 2025, with the BLS news.

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The West Wants Africa’s Resources, Not Its People

BY ANTHONIA OSONYE

A significant part of history holds evidence of how the West’s progress was built on the backs of Africans through transatlantic slavery and, subsequently, exploitation during colonialism. For instance, the American cotton industry, powered by slave labour, was the catalyst for the 19th-century economic growth of the United States. In 1833, when slavery was abolished, Britain paid £20 million (equivalent of £17 billion today) to slave owners as compensation for their loss. Ironically, recent anti-immigration policies in the West seek to close the door against Africans who contributed immensely to their progress, even at their own detriment.

THE GROWING ANTI-IMMIGRATION POLICIES

For years, Canada built a reputation as one of the most immigrant-friendly countries in the world. According to the 2016 Canadian census, Africans made up 13.4 per cent of immigrants in Canada between 2011 and 2016. Nigeria was one of the top five countries of origin for these immigrants. In 2023, Canada accepted 471,800 permanent residents, of whom 17,455 were Nigerians. However, in 2024, the Canadian government announced a 21 per cent cut in permanent residency approvals for 2025 to alleviate pressures on housing, infrastructure and social services. This trend is not isolated, as countries across Europe, as well as the United States, have also mirrored similar policies.

President Donald Trump of the United States began his second administration by ramping up anti-immigration policies. Trump, already known for strict immigration enforcement, doubled down since returning to office, increasing deportations, tightening borders and reinstating travel bans. In June 2025, the United States. issued a travel ban affecting 12 African countries. A report by Africanews states that the administration is considering expanding the ban to include as many as 40 African countries.

The West often justifies policies such as these with rhetoric that frames migrants as economic threats, making their policies appear as measures essential for national security and economic stability. The French interior minister, Gérard Collomb, in an interview with Journal Du Dimanche in 2017, stated that the country would welcome asylum seekers but prioritize distinguishing foreigners migrating for economic reasons. This statement positions migrants as a threat to the economy. But the impact of these decisions extends far beyond Western borders and into Africa, where economic and political instability continues to displace millions.

This is evidently seen in Sudan, where the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces recently claimed the lives of over 200 civilians and forced many others to flee. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the resurgence of the M23 group has led to the displacement of over 7 million people and the death of over 3000 others. Cases of kidnappings and insecurity in Nigeria have equally led to many deaths and displacement. In Benue State, Nigeria, residents of several communities have fled due to attacks by suspected herdsmen. According to a 2024 report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 45 million citizens across Africa are currently displaced, yet only a fraction seek refuge in the West. Even this fraction is increasingly met with rejection.

This same report estimates that the number of displaced Africans exceeds the entire populations of countries like Ghana, Angola or Morocco. The vast majority find shelter within the continent, in countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya or Uganda. The question now is, ‘Where exactly is this so-called “immigration crisis” the West claims to face?’

A 2022 study by Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky and Princeton’s Leah Boustan, in their book Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigration Success, solidifies this question while making it clear that immigrants are not taking over the United States. The percentage of immigrants in the US has remained steady, around 14 per cent for over a century. It has only recently risen to 15.6 per cent. Is this truly an unexpected or abrupt growth after 115 years?

A HISTORY OF REJECTION

This rejection by the West is not new and, unfortunately, will not end here. It traces back to the abolition of the slave trade by Britain in the 19th century. The abolition led by William Wilberforce, a British politician and philanthropist, advocated for the end of the slave trade by highlighting the inhumane nature of the practice. He believed that for the trade to end, it had to be stopped from Africa. Some historians argued that the trade did not end on moral grounds but because Britain wanted Africans to remain in Africa, under colonial rule. This is similar to the current policy trending across the West. For instance, Canada’s once favourable immigration policies were partly due to the country’s needs. The ageing population and low birth rates led to a shortage in the labour force and created a vacuum that the Canadian government opened up to immigrants, of which 13.4 per cent of these immigrants were Africans, as mentioned earlier.

Today’s immigration restrictions are just a modern version of the same system. Canada’s open arms in the past were not out of goodwill; they simply needed labour. Now that their needs are met, they have pulled back. The West is still eager for Africa’s resources: our minerals, markets, and cheap labour, but they do not care for the African people. African lives are still seen as expendable.

The current state of the Democratic Republic of Congo exemplifies this issue. The country produces 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, which is essential for smartphones, electric vehicles and laptops. Yet, it is one of the poorest countries in the world when it comes to development and the quality of life for its people. Its wealth serves the world, especially the West, but not its people.

Similarly, Ivory Coast and Ghana produce over 70 per cent of the world’s cocoa, yet the farmers’ daily earnings are less than the cost of one chocolate bar. These farmers make $0.78 and $1 a day, respectively and therefore, struggle to keep up with the cost of running a farm. This usually leads to employing children for cheaper labour. This is yet another representation of how Africa faces exclusion from the wealth generated by their labour.

Additionally, in October 2023, the UK announced a rise in the cost of student and visiting visas by 600 per cent. This was also followed by a policy that prevented international students, including Nigerians, from bringing dependents. This wave of policies demonstrates the tightening of the UK’s immigration stance while continuously benefiting economically from the high visa and tuition costs. These policies exist to ensure international students go back to their countries after their studies, further solidifying the exclusion of Africans.

While Westerners come and go across African borders with ease—for tourism, investment, and, often, exploitation—Africans do not have the same privilege. Recently, the United States Department revised its visa reciprocity for Nigeria and Ghana. This change reduced tourist, business and academic travellers to a single entry visa, valid for three months—a stark contrast from the multiple-entry visas with 2 to 5 year validity previously granted.

AFRICA MUST LOOK FORWARD

Migration in itself is a colonial legacy, a by-product of a continent stripped of its resources and forced to focus on the West. It should not come as a surprise that Africans turn to the West for refuge. It is imperative to note that African migrants do not head West to become burdens or for the pursuit of luxury; it is usually for survival. African immigrants are students seeking better education, professionals pursuing better opportunities, or individuals escaping conflict. They work, they build, they contribute. Given everything Africa has endured—slavery, colonialism, and continued economic exploitation—is it unreasonable to turn to the West for a chance at survival?

At some point, the West’s doors will open again, but not because they care about Africans, only because they need something. African resilience, skill, and labour will once again serve a purpose.

It is not unthinkable for a nation to defend and protect itself, but when that same nation played a critical role in dismantling the future of an entire continent, should it not also bear some responsibility?

Foreign aid will never be enough to repay the debt of exploitation, especially when the future of the continent continues to be shaped by decisions made outside the continent. Many experts have criticised foreign aid for its exploitative nature, highlighting how it serves the interests of the donor countries. Nations like the DRC, Mozambique, Mongolia, Namibia, Papua New Guinea and Guyana are all examples of where foreign aid is exchanged for contracts that grant foreign powers access to natural resources worth more than the aid provided.

Now more than ever, Africans must recognize that the continent’s progress cannot depend on whether the West opens or closes its doors when we come knocking. There is an urgent need for Africans to take charge of what is within our control; to unify, to build, and to create a path that is safe for us. Just as the West prioritizes its own interests, so too must Africa. We must craft policies that serve our people first. It is only in choosing ourselves that true progress will come.

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Why UK Recognition Of A Palestinian State Should Not Be Conditional On Israel’s Actions

BY KAREN SCOTT

PROFESSOR IN LAW,

UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY

The announcement this week by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the recognition of a Palestininian state has been welcomed by many who want to see a ceasefire in Gaza and lasting peace in the region.

In contrast to other recent statements on the status of Palestine, however, the UK has said it will recognise Palestine as a state in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commits to a long term sustainable peace, including through allowing the UN to restart without delay the supply of humanitarian support to the people of Gaza to end starvation, agreeing to a ceasefire, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.

Until this week, the UK’s position had been that recognition would only follow a negotiated two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Other countries have now begun to shift from that position, too.

The latest UK statement was preceded by announcements from France on July 25 and Canada on July 31 that they too would recognise Palestine as a state in September.

But the UK position is different in one important way: it is conditional on Israel failing to comply with its international humanitarian obligations in Gaza and the West Bank.

In other words, recognition of Palestine as a state by the UK is being used as a stick to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Should Israel agree to those conditions, the UK will presumably not recognise Palestine as a state in September, but will revert to its original position on a two-state solution.

Conditional recognition subject to action by Israel – a third state – represents an unwelcome and arguably dangerous departure from international practice.

While recognition (or otherwise) of states is inherently political – as demonstrated by the unique status of Taiwan, for example – it is not and should not be made conditional on the action or inaction of third states.

How states are recognised

According to the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a state must have a permanent population, territory, an independent government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states, as well as self-determination.

Palestine has arguably met all these criteria, with the possible exception of an independent government, given the level of Israeli intervention in the West Bank and the current situation in Gaza.

Although recognition by other states is arguably not a formal criterion of statehood, it is very difficult to function as a state without reasonably widespread recognition by other states.

Some 147 countries – two-thirds of UN members – now recognise the State of Palestine, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, which made announcements in 2024.

Those choosing not to formally recognise a Palestinian state are now in a small minority, including Australia and New Zealand. This is inevitably leading to calls in those countries to change position.

Australia is considering such a shift, subject to conditions similar to those set out by Canada – including the release of Israeli hostages, the demilitarisation of Hamas, and reform of the Palestinian Authority.

New Zealand is currently maintaining its longstanding position of recognising Palestine within the context of a two-state solution. On July 30, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and 13 of his counterparts issued a joint statement – the “New York Call” – demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and reiterating “unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution”.

The statement also asserted that “positive consideration” to recognise the state of Palestine is “an essential step towards the two-state solution”.

Better options are available

The UK’s position, however, introduces another dynamic. By using recognition of Palestine as a tool to punish Israel for its actual and alleged breaches of international law in Gaza, it is implicitly failing to respect Palestine’s right to self-determination.

If Palestine deserves statehood, it is on its own terms, not as a condition of Israel’s policies and actions.

But it is also setting a dangerous precedent. Countries could choose to recognise (or not recognise) states to pressure or punish them (or indeed other states) for breaches of international law. Such breaches may or may not be connected to the state actually seeking recognition.

This is important, because the post-colonial settlement of geographical boundaries remains deeply insecure in many regions. As well, low-lying island nations at risk of losing territory from sea-level rise may also find their status challenged, as territory has traditionally been a requirement of statehood.

The UK’s apparent conditional recognition of Palestine is only likely to increase this international instability around statehood.

While the UK’s announcement may be “clever politics” from a domestic perspective, and avoids outright US opposition internationally, it has conflated two separate issues.

The better option would be for the UK to recognise Palestine as a state, joining a growing number of countries that plan to do so in advance of the UN General Assembly meeting in September. It could make this subject to conditions, including the release of hostages and exclusion of Hamas from Palestinian governance.

And it should continue to press Israel to agree to a ceasefire in addition to the other demands set out in its announcement, and hold Israel accountable for its gross breaches of international law in Gaza. It can back up those demands with appropriate diplomatic and trade sanctions.

New Zealand, too, has a range of options available, and can help increase the pressure on Israel by using them.

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From Printing Presses To Facebook Feeds: What Yesterday’s Witch Hunts Have In Common With Today’s Misinformation Crisis

A 1669 edition of ‘Malleus Maleficarum.’ Wellcome Collection/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

BY JULIE WALSH

WHITEHEAD ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

OF CRITICAL THOUGHT AND ASSOCIATE

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY,

WELLESLEY COLLEGE

Between 1400 and 1780, an estimated 100,000 people, mostly women, were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe. About half that number were executed – killings motivated by a constellation of beliefs about women, truth, evil and magic.

But the witch hunts could not have had the reach they did without the media machinery that made them possible: an industry of printed manuals that taught readers how to find and exterminate witches.

I regularly teach a class on philosophy and witchcraft, where we discuss the religious, social, economic and philosophical contexts of early modern witch hunts in Europe and colonial America. I also teach and research the ethics of digital technologies.

These fields aren’t as different as they seem. The parallels between the spread of false information in the witch-hunting era and in today’s online information ecosystem are striking – and instructive.

Birth of a publishing empire

The printing press, invented around 1440, revolutionized how information spread – helping to create the era’s equivalent of a viral conspiracy theory.

By 1486, two Dominican friars had published the “Malleus Maleficarum,” or “Hammer of Witches.” The book has three central claims that came to dominate the witch hunts.

First, it describes women as morally weak and therefore more likely to be witches. Second, it tightly links witchcraft with sexuality. The authors claim that women are sexually insatiable – part of what leads them to witchcraft. Third, witchcraft involves a pact with the devil, who tempts would-be witches through pleasures such as orgies and sexual favors. After establishing these “facts,” the authors conclude with instructions for interrogating, torturing and punishing witches.

The book was a hit. It had more than two dozen editions and was translated into multiple languages. While “Malleus Maleficarum” was not the only text of its kind, its influence was enormous.

Prior to 1500, witch hunts in Europe were rare. But after the “Malleus Maleficarum,” they picked up steam. Indeed, new printings of the book correlate with surges in witch-hunting in Central Europe. The book’s success wasn’t just about content; it was about credibility. Pope Innocent VIII had recently affirmed the existence of witches and conferred authority on inquisitors to persecute them, giving the book further authority.

Ideas about witches from earlier texts and folklore – such as the “fact” that witches could use spells to make penises vanish – were recycled and repackaged in the “Malleus Maleficarum,” which in turn served as a “source” for future works. It was often quoted in later manuals and woven into civic law.

The popularity and influence of the book helped crystallize a new domain of expertise: demonologist, an expert on the nefarious activities of witches. As demonologists repeated one another’s spurious claims, an echo chamber of “evidence” was born. The identity of the witch was thus formalized: dangerous and decisively female.

Skeptics fight back

Not everyone bought into the witch hysteria. As early as 1563, dissenting voices emerged – though, notably, most didn’t argue that witches weren’t real. Instead, they questioned the methods used to identify and prosecute them.

Dutch physician Johann Weyer argued that women accused of witchcraft were suffering from melancholia – what we might now call mental illness – and needed medical treatment, not execution. In 1580, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne visited imprisoned witches and concluded they needed “hellebore rather than hemlock”: medicine rather than poison.

These skeptics also identified something more insidious: the moral responsibility of people spreading the stories. In 1677, English chaplain, physician and philosopher John Webster wrote a scathing critique, claiming that most demonologists’ texts were straightforward copy and paste jobs where the authors repeated one another’s lies. The demonologists offered no original analysis, no evidence and no witnesses – failing to meet the standards of good scholarship.

The cost of this failure was enormous. As Montaigne wrote, “The witches of my neighborhood are in mortal danger every time some new author comes along and attests to the reality of their visions.”

Demonologists benefited from the social and political status associated with the popularity of their books. The financial benefit was, for the most part, enjoyed by the printers and booksellers – what today we refer to as publishers.

Witch hunts petered out throughout the 1700s across Europe. Doubt about the standards of evidence, and increased awareness that accused “witches” may have been suffering from delusion, were factors in the end of the persecution. The skeptics’ voices were heard.

Psychology of viral lies

Early modern skeptics understood something we’re still grappling with today: Certain people are more vulnerable to believing extraordinary claims. They identified “melancholics,” people predisposed to anxiety and fantastical thinking, as particularly susceptible.

Nicolas Malebranche, a 17th-century French philosopher, believed that our imaginations have enormous power to convince us of things that are not true – especially fear of invisible, malevolent forces. He noted that “extravagant tales of witchcraft are taken as authentic histories,” increasing people’s credulity. The more stories, and the more they were told, the greater the influence on the imagination.

The repetition served as false confirmation.

“If they were to cease punishing (women accused of witchcraft) and treat them as mad people,” Malebranche wrote, “in a little while they would no longer be sorcerers.”

Today’s researchers have identified similar patterns in how misinformation and disinformation – false information intended to confuse or manipulate people – spreads online. We’re more likely to believe stories that feel familiar, stories that connect to content we’ve previously seen. Likes, shares and retweets becomes proxies for truth. Emotional content designed to shock or outrage spreads far and fast.

Social media channels are particularly fertile ground. Companies’ algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, so a post that receives likes, shares and comments will be shown to more people. The more viewers, the higher the likelihood of more engagement, and so on – creating a cycle of confirmation bias.

Speed of a keystroke

Early modern skeptics reserved their harshest criticism not for those who believed in witches but for those who spread the stories. Yet they were curiously silent on the ultimate arbiters and financial beneficiaries of what got printed and circulated: the publishers.

Today, 54% of American adults get at least some news from social media platforms. These platforms, like the printing presses of old, don’t just distribute information. They shape what we believe through algorithms that prioritize engagement over accuracy: The more a story is repeated, the more priority it gets.

The witch hunts offer a sobering reminder that delusion and misinformation are recurring features of human society, especially during times of technological change and social upheaval. As we navigate our own information revolution, those early skeptics’ questions remain urgent: Who bears responsibility when false information leads to real harm? How do we protect the most vulnerable from exploitation by those who profit from confusion and fear?

In an age when anyone can be a publisher, and extravagant tales spread at the speed of a keystroke, understanding how previous societies dealt with similar challenges isn’t just academic – it’s essential.

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Historian Uncovers Evidence Of Second Mass Grave Of Irish Immigrant Railroaders In Pennsylvania Who Suffered From Cholera, Violence And Xenophobia

The author, second from left, and his team at the dig site at Duffy’s Cut in 2011. William E. Watson, CC BY-NC-SA

BY WILLIAM W. WATSON

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY,

IMMACULATA UNIVERSITY

When commuters on the R5 SEPTA train that connects suburban Chester County to Philadelphia approach Malvern station, they might spot a square stone monument on the right side in a clearing surrounded by a thick stand of forest.

Above it, a sign paid for by the Amtrak electrical workers union and suspended from the trees reads:

BURIAL PLOT OF IRISH RAILROAD WORKERS: At this site, known as Duffy’s Cut, fifty-seven Irish immigrant railroad workers from the counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Derry and Leitrim died of cholera and murder in the summer of 1832.

I’m a historian at Immaculata University, about one mile west of Duffy’s Cut. In 2004, my colleagues and I were the ones to discover the mass grave when we excavated the site with the permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

My students, who were about the same age as Duffy’s workers in 1832, provided a great deal of the labor at the excavation.

More recently, in May 2025, we discovered human remains that suggest a second Irish immigrant railroader mass grave 11 miles west of Duffy’s Cut, in Downingtown.

57 dead railroaders

Duffy’s Cut was named after an Irish Catholic immigrant railroad contractor named Philip Duffy, who lived from 1783-1871 and was probably from County Donegal in northwest Ireland.

I learned about the site and its possible mass grave from Pennsylvania Railroad documents that survived in my family.

A 1909 file, labeled “History of Duffy’s Cut Stone enclosure east of Malvern, Pennsylvania, which marks the burial place of 57 track laborers who were victims of the cholera epidemic of 1832,” was compiled by future Pennsylvania Railroad president Martin W. Clement when he was an assistant supervisor. My grandfather, who was Clement’s executive assistant and later director of personnel, obtained the file before the records were auctioned off in 1972, and my brother showed me the file in 2002.

The Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, the predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, wanted to shorten the travel time from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh from three to four weeks by Conestoga wagon to three to four days by rail, canal and river.

The file my brother had in his possession stated that the dead railroaders at Duffy’s Cut were young men, recently arrived from Ireland. It also said the cost of mile 59 was vastly more expensive than the typical Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad mile. Laying a typical mile of P&C railroad cost US$5,000 in the 1830s. But at mile 59, gouging the landscape with a “cut” to lay the tracks on level ground and bridging the valley with a fill – an earthen bridge – cost $32,000. Although the work was especially difficult, the common laborers received about 25 cents a day.

Most of the men had sailed from the city of Derry in the north of Ireland to Philadelphia from April to June of 1832 aboard the John Stamp. The ship pulled into the Lazaretto quarantine station on the Delaware River in Essington, Pennsylvania, before sailing on to Philadelphia.

No one on the John Stamp was reported to be ill. This was the height of the 1832 cholera epidemic that ultimately killed at least 10,000 people in the U.S.

Forty-seven laborers from the John Stamp ship joined 10 other Irish immigrant workers who were already living with Duffy in a rental house in Willistown, a mile south of the work site.

Yet almost as soon as they arrived to the work camp at mile 59, so did cholera, which had spread to Philadelphia from New York City.

Cholera in the camps

Americans could read about the spread of cholera across Europe in 1831 in the newspapers, but very little was known about the disease until decades later.

Cholera is a bacterial infection that spreads due to poor sanitary practices in which human feces get into drinking water, via excrement passed into streams or by seepage from outhouses to wells.

But in 1832, people believed cholera was linked to intemperance and vice, which were thought to weaken the body. According to the prevailing miasma theory, it caused outbreaks once airborne. Immigrants and the poor were thought to be especially susceptible to the disease and primary vectors for its spread.

Cholera causes extreme diarrhea and vomiting that lead to rapid electrolyte loss. In 1832 it was fatal in about 50% of cases. In the Delaware Valley, cholera cases mounted from July into August 1832. Philadelphia registered its peak number of cases, 173, on Aug. 6 and peak number of deaths, 76, on Aug. 7. The hardest-hit areas in the region were working-class neighborhoods and canal and railroad work camps.

A typical crew on a P&C mile numbered 100 to 120 men. However, the work by Irish immigrants was segregated along sectarian lines on the railroads in the U.S., as it was in the Belfast dockyards at the same time. The other half of the workers at mile 59, according to Canal Commission reports, were Irish Protestant immigrants who worked for an Irish Protestant contractor and did the less dangerous work of laying tracks. They did not die of cholera.

Signs of a massacre

To excavate the site, we partnered with the Chester County Emerald Society, a law enforcement group that cleared our work with the county district attorney, and the coroner, in case we found human remains. The University of Pennsylvania Museum provided ground-penetrating radar, as well as archaeological and anthropological assistance for the dig. Staff trained my students in how to properly excavate and handle artifacts and bones.

Our research team uncovered seven sets of remains between 2009 and 2012 in the remaining eastern portions of the fill. The skeletons had been buried in coffins sealed with an exceptional number of nails, perhaps to contain the cholera.

Analysis at the UPenn Museum showed evidence of violence to each of the skulls – with one skull showing both an ax blow and a bullet encased in the skull. Researchers found no evidence of defensive wounds on any skeleton, suggesting that the men might have been tied up before being killed.

After our team analyzed the remains, we came to the startling conclusion that the men didn’t die from cholera – they were massacred.

I believe that fear of cholera, an epidemic that some clergymen in America and England called “a chastisement for the sins of the people,” and anti-immigrant sentiment fueled violence against them by native-born populations.

After forensic examinations of the remains, five of the skeletons were reburied during a ceremony at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd in 2012. My team determined the identities of two of the deceased – 18-year-old John Ruddy from County Donegal and 29-year-old Catherine Burns, the daughter of one of the workers, from County Tyrone – and their remains were returned to their home counties in Ireland in 2013 and 2015.

A second mass grave in Chester County

Historical records led us to what we believe is a second mass grave in Chester County.

An article in the Nov. 7, 1832, issue of the Village Record newspaper in West Chester reported that one man from Duffy’s Cut fled westward down the unfinished track line to another Irish immigrant railroader crew “near the line of East Bradford and East Caln.”

This was P&C mile 48 in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. It was under the direction of Irish immigrant contractor Peter Connor, whose crew of 100 to 120 men was reported to have all died around the same time as Duffy’s crew.

Forty years later, Charles Pennypacker’s 1909 “History of Downingtown” recorded that the dead Irishmen in Downingtown were carted north to a field where they were buried in a mass grave on the property of present-day Northwood Cemetery, “in the eastern part of the cemetery, near the gully.”

On May 15, 2025, the Duffy’s Cut team unearthed the first human remains from the Downingtown crew in the exact place reported by Pennypacker. This work has just started.

Up and down the East Coast, there are numerous mass graves of anonymous workers who died of epidemics and overwork in the 1820s and 1830s. Most of those people will never have their stories told.

At Duffy’s Cut, and now at the Downingtown site, we hope to humanize some of the hardworking immigrants who died building a crucial part of America’s industrial landscape.

Visitors can view artifacts found at Duffy’s Cut at the Duffy’s Cut Museum in the Gabriele Library at Immaculata University in Malvern, Pa.

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