A Nationality of Her Own

The 1920 census lists New York native Mary Verikios as an alien. She lost her citizenship upon her marriage to unnaturalized Greek immigrant Peter Verikios. I’d forgotten about this until I stumbled upon a reference to A Nationality of Her Own which addresses the citizenship of US women before the 1922 passage of the Cable Act which separated a woman’s citizenship status from that of her husband.

When Mary and Peter married his citizenship status became hers. That’s not true today.