Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Anti-Catholicism Native born hostilities against Irish often

took the form of anti-Catholicism Occurring since Puritan days 1825 – 1850 saw an upsurge in Anti-

Catholic feelings A Plea for the West, Protestant Lyman

Beecher warned of Catholic plot to send large enough numbers west to control the area.

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Anti-Catholicism Maria Monk – Awful Disclosures of the

Hotel Dieu Nunnery in Montreal 1840’s saw the formation of (anti-

immigration) societies American Republicans United Order of Americans

Some secret or semi secret

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Anti-Catholicism /Nativists

Order of the Star Spangled Banner, evolved in 1854 into the “Know –Nothings,” or American, party

This party became a major political force in the 1850’s

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Anti-Catholicism /Nativists

1840’s most societies only fought battles such as which book Catholic students should use for scripture readings, Douay or the Protestant King James version.

Protestant mobs descended on Catholic neighborhoods in the “Bible Riots”

30 buildings burned and 16 people dead

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Anti-Catholicism /Nativists

Protestants felt more democratic – each persons ability to interpret the Bible on their own.

Catholicism made doctrine the province of the pope or bishop

Panic of 1837 had lowered wages. Immigrants who were willing to work for almost nothing were a threat to their jobs.

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Land Reformers Agitators began to advocate land reform as

a solution t economic problems 1844 George Henry Evans organized

the National Reform Association - slogan, “Vote Yourself a Farm”.

Evans advocated neo-Jeffersonian plans for the establishment of “rural republican townships” 160-acre plots for workers. Supported by artisans – preferred “agrarian”

notions to industrial order

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Land reformers workers engaging in wage labor

abandoned any hope of achieving economic independence.

Appealed to radical, educated workers, artisans who were threatened by industry

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Land Reformers Lack of land reform left Labor Unions

appealing to workers Some believed they could gain more by unions

and strikes than by plowing and planting. Commonwealth v. Hunt ( 1842) Massachusetts

Supreme Court ruled that labor unions were not illegal monopolies that restrained trade. (less than 1% of workers were unionized therefore had little impact)

Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Labor Protest

Land Reformers differences between native born and

immigrant would eventually become intertwined with the political divisions of the second party system