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 AntiCatholic 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 (antiimmigration) 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