Mr. Andrew Palella

Professional Background

Andrew Palella is a doctoral student at Boston College and holds a master's degree in history from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and a bachelor's degree in United States history from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Mr. Palella served as an infantry officer in the United States Army and has taught American military history at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Mr. Palella's doctoral studies examine the network of extremist movements in the United States during the 1930s that aimed to overthrow the Roosevelt administration and dismantle New Deal reforms. His research demonstrates that the term "conspiratorial antisemitism" fueled the network's hostility toward the Roosevelt administration and that this conspiratorial antigovernment grievance persisted in fringe circles well into the late 20th century.

In addition, Mr. Palella is working on a project examining conspiracism and what he terms "instrumentalized antisemitism" in covert action at the dawn of the Cold War. He has published two articles in the Journal for the Study of Radicalism, exploring violence, antisemitism, and political extremism in the 20th century.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Summer Graduate Student Research Fellow, Andrew Palella will conduct research on Robert Edward Edmondson and his extremist activities during the New Deal Era, with a focus on Edmondson’s writing of antisemitic propaganda. Mr. Palella plans to utilize the  Museum’s rare books and manuscripts collections to read works by Robert Edward Edmondson and William Dudley Pelley as he examines the logic of the "conspiratorial antisemitism" that shaped critiques of the New Deal and influenced revolutionary plots by the Midwest's Black Legion and William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion of America. 

Residency Period: June 1, 2025 – August 31, 2025