Daily AncestorGentlemen's Agreement
The Gentlemen's Agreement was a 1907 to 1908 understanding in which Japan agreed to restrict its laborers' emigration to the U.S.; the 1924 law ended it.
It was not a law but a series of diplomatic notes exchanged between late 1907 and early 1908. The U.S. agreed to press San Francisco to withdraw its plan to send Japanese and Chinese children to segregated schools, and Japan promised to restrict the emigration of laborers.
Wives and children of laborers, and laborers who had already lived in the U.S., could still come, which led to the era of picture brides. The Immigration Act of 1924 overrode the agreement by barring aliens ineligible for citizenship, ending most Japanese immigration until 1952.
- Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: Japanese-American Relations at the Turn of the Century, 1900-1922
- Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)
- Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California, Japanese Americans: Immigration (California Office of Historic Preservation, 1988; NPS online copy)
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Daily Ancestor. "Gentlemen's Agreement." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/immigration/gentlemens-agreement. Last checked 2026-10-12.