Outline for “Same Old Song”
Introduction:
-Ben Franklin as xenophobe
-foundations of xenophobia
- economic stresses of working class
-ethnic and racial animosities
-security jitters (health and military)
-demagogic leadership
I.
II.
1
Irish Anti-catholicism, 1830s-1850s
A. Northeast Urban base
1. WASP anxieties
2. Working class fears
3. media frenzy
B. Local politics and violence
1. Boston and Philadelphia attacks
2. growth of anti-Catholic local associations
3. Samuel Morse and 1836 NY Mayoral race
C. Movement turns National in 1850s
1. Order of the Star-Spangled Banner (Know-Nothings)
2. Based in Middle Class
a. artisans
b. small businesses
D. Know-Nothings form basis of American Party
1. program
a. strict limits on admissions
b. twenty-one year waiting for citizenship
c. political restrictions
i.
voting
ii.
officeholding
2. growth in political vacuum
a. demise of Whig Party
b. balkanization of Democrats over slavery
3. major political successes in 1850s
a. seven governors
b. eight state legislatures
c. Millard Fillmore in 1856
4. Decline of Know-nothings
a. in movement toward Civil War
i.
despite expansion in popular culture
ii.
the controversy over slavery (free soil) outweighed anti-Romanism
b. intensive growth of immigrants during initial industrialization
i.
sources
1) Northern Europe
2) Western Europe
ii.
causes of immigrant growth
1) federal recruitment efforts
2) Homestead Act of 1862
3) westward spread of industrialization
Anti-Asian Immigrant Movement of the 1850s -1880s
A. Early Sinophobia in the 1850s and 1860s
1. The influx to the Western US: recruitment as cheap labor
a. mining
b. railroad construction
c. manufacturing
d. farmwork
2. working class hostility
a. lowering wages
b. lowering working conditions
3. media frenzy feeds Stanford’s hypocrisy
a. godless
b. drug addicts
c. prostitutes
d. gamblers
B. economic stresses of 1870s triggered growth in anti-Asian political movement
1. causes of 1870s unemployment crisis
a. unproductive mines
b. completion of transcontinental RR
c. flood of new settlers
III.
IV.
2
2. growth of Chinese Exclusion Leagues
3. state-level legislation in California
a. barriers to Chinese entry
b. segregation laws
c. special taxes on Chinese businesses
4. Denis Kearney and the Workingmen’s Party
a. state constitutional convention in 1878
b. 1879 state referendum calling for Chinese exclusion
i.
150,000 for
ii.
900 against
C. Anti-Chinese movement turns national in the 1880s: The Chinese Exclusion Acts
1. importance of Pacific states votes
2. Congressional action
a. suspended Chinese admissions for 10 years
b. Chinese exclusion act of 1882
3. Riots in major western cities after 1882
4. formal ghettoization
Eugenics and the Red Scare Close US borders, 1890-1924
A. regional revival of anti-Catholicism in aftermath of 1893 depression
B. American Protective Association fails in context of massive immigrant influx
1. Republican industrialists favor immigrants over nativists
2. William McKinley actively courted immigrants in 1896
C. the rise of the Immigration Restriction League
1. social base: educated elite
2. ideology
a. social Darwinism
b. eugenics vs.
i.
Italians
ii.
Greeks
iii.
Russians
iv.
Hungarians
v.
Poles
3. leader: Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts
4. methods of Progressive Era nativists
a. mass publicity
b. research: The Dillingham Commission
c. lobbying
5. countermobilization produced policy stalemate
a. employer groups
b. ethnic groups
D. World War I increased xenophobia
1. founded in patriotism and war hysteria
2. government actions as basis for American Protective League
a. defense associations
b. patriotic associations
3. Germans targeted
a. vandalism
b. mob violence
c. surveillance and harassment
d. job discrimination
e. arrests for unpatriotic speech
f. burning of German books
g. closure of German publications (even in English)
h. prohibition of
i.
speaking German
ii.
German composers
4. The National-origins Acts of 1921 and 1924
a. First Red Scare after WWI targeted Europeans
i.
Southern
ii.
Eastern
b. effects of laws
i.
European immigration to trickle
ii.
Asian immigration virtually ended
Conclusion: the legacy of American xenophobia
A. contributed to the Holocaust
B. Mexicans as alternatives in workforce
C. The Japanese Internment in WWII
1. national security basis
2. Racism (Why not Germans?)
D. Doors began to open again in 1965 in context of Cold War