Parillo argues that during the 19th and first half of the 20th Century there was clearly a single “melting pot” dominated by WASPs

During first waves of immigration from Catholic parts of Europe (Ireland and Germany in the mid-19th Century; then Italians, Poles, Lithuanians and other East Europeans in the mid- to late-19th Century) most nativists argued they were “unassimilable”

Yet, as these groups lost their ethnolinguistic cultural markers, the social distance between them and WASPs closed

Has it closed equally across majority Catholic ethnic groups?  (No, see social distance charts on pg. 7- note that it has closed for French, Italian, Irish; still larger gap for Poles, “other Hispanic/Latinos,” Filipinos – but overall gap is narrower in 2001 than it was in 1977)

Are some “white ethnics” better assimilated than others?  (yes, Italians and Irish better assimilated than Jews, Poles)

Are some still more stigmatized? (Yes, Jews, Poles, East Europeans)

Thus, Parillo says the single melting pot merged into a triple melting pot of Protestants, Catholics and Jews and now has merged again into a single melting pot of based on “Judeo-Christian” beliefs and practices

Is there room in this melting pot for practitioners of other religions, (Islam, Hinduism, paganism, no religion)???

Catholics
Today, the most numerous single denomination in the US – 62 mln

History of Discrimination:  most states had laws barring them from obtaining citizenship , voting rights, office-holding

Through 1830 US was majority Protestant
1830-1850 about 5 mln immigrants entered the US – majority were Irish and German Catholic peasants

Spawned a violent backlash of Protestant nativism, fear of Catholics taking over the country, the country becoming beholden to Rome

Fanned by several accounts of women who claimed to have lived in convents where they were forced to carry on sexual relations with priests (e.g. Rebecca Reed’s story of life in an Ursuline convent in MA; 1836 – Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal;’ 1887 – Margaret Lisle Shepherd’s My Life in a Convent.
All proved untrue, but note that public fixated on issues of clerical sexuality, calling into dispute clerical vows of chastity, imputing sexual relations among clergy.

Other anti-Catholic diatribes by men:
Josiah Strong’s Our Country (1855) accused Catrholics of immorality, crime, corruption, and (perhaps worst of all) socialism!

Rev. Justin Fulton’s Rome in America (1887) and Washington in the Lap of Rome (1888) warned that Catholics would undermine the school system and control the government

Anti-Catholic Movements/Organizations:
1850s - The Know-Nothings
Provoked anti-Catholic riots; church, school, convent and home burnings

1887 - The American Protective Association
Started in Iowa but grew to have 500,000 members, especially strong in the Midwest (not successful in the South)
Devoted to keeping Catholics out of office and employment – spurred by high rates of unemployment in the 1890s; self-destructed under corruption scandals by 1896

1911 – Guardians of Liberty
Founded by former Army Chief of Staff General Nelson Miles

Ku Klux Klan
Radicalized against both Catholics and Jews and was instrumental in getting the immigration laws of 1921 and 1924 passed

61 different anti-Catholic periodicals existed before WWI;  The Menace perhaps the most prominent
 

Why did WASPs/”nativists” hate and/or fear Catholics?  What was different about them?
1) history of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Europe
2) individualism of Protestantism and US political culture; Catholics perceived as being more “collectivist” – Is this true?  Class element here?
True that many Catholic workers were involved in workers’ movements, leftist politics in US; this put them in overt conflict with the Protestant establishment/capitalist class
3) Church hierarchy – feared Catholic parishes controlled by Rome, Catholics as an indoctrinated army of followers
4) celibacy – seen as unnatural, likely to produce sordid sexual practices among clergy
5) religious practices – mandatory mass attendance, same ceremony every week in Latin seemed “un-American and repressive of individual thought;” confession to a priest
6) education – Catholics opposed reading of King James bible in school; wanted their version read or to have own schools receiving public funding; Protestants argued against state support for parochial schools and in many states sought to eliminate them altogether

Have these things changed or become interpreted differently to explain the greater acceptance of Catholics in the US today?
 
Changes in practice/policy:  mass no longer in Latin; schools don’t receive public funding but note the trend toward vouchers for private schools in many cities tacitly supports parochial schools

On the issue of politics, what of Catholics “leftist tendencies”?  Conventional wisdom is that Catholics vote Democratic.  Is this still true?  Is there still such a thing as the “Catholic” vote?

Short answer:  not as much as there once was.
Source:  Grover G. Norquist, 2000, “The Catholic Vote,” The American Spectator, 33 no. 8, pp. 64-5.

Using presidential races as our guide:
1960 – JFK got 83% of the Catholic vote (defeating Nixon by less than 115,000 votes)
1964 – LBJ got 79% (winning over Barry Goldwater)
1968 – Hubert Humphrey got 57% (losing to Nixon)
1972 – Nixon got 61% of the Catholic vote (first time Catholic vote “tracked” the national vote)
1976 – Carter got 57% of the Catholic vote (winning over Ford with a very narrow 51% of the vote)
1980 – Reagan won 50% of Catholic vote (51% of the national vote)
1984 – Reagan won 54% of the Catholic vote (59% of the national vote)
1988 – Bush data not given
1992 - Clinton won only 41% of the Catholic vote
1996 – Clinton won 53% of the Catholic vote (49% of the vote overall)
2000 – Bush won 47% of Catholics’ votes; Gore won 50%

Catholics differ in their partisanship according to their level of religiousity
Actively practicing Catholics are slightly more likely to be “reliable Republicans” while inactive Catholics are slightly more likely to be “dependable Democrats” – note that these differences ARE very slight

 
Other figures on religious identification and party idenitification from:
Guth, Green, Smidt and Kellstedt, 2001.  “Partisan Religion.” The Christian Century.  Vol. 118, no. 10, pp. 18-20.

Among party convention delegates in 2000:
Republicans:     Democrats:
29%   Evangelical Protestants   7%
33%   Mainline Protestants 19%
20%   Catholics    23% (White)
13%   Other religious    7%
  5%   Secular   14%
  Jews      8%
  Black Protestants  15%
  Hispanic Catholics    8%

In all religious categories, Democrats tended to be less religiously observant (i.e., to attend services less frequently) than Republicans

2000 Presidential Elections

Biggest Bush supporters:
Evangelical Protestants – 75% voted for Bush
Among the most religiously devout of these – 84%
Mainline Protestants – 59%
Catholics of Euro descent – 49%
(but 57% of the regular mass attenders in this group voted for Bush)

Gore vote:
Black Protestants – 96%
Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims – 80%
Hispanic Catholics – 76%
Jews – 77%
Orthodox Christians – 72%
Hispanic Protestants – 67%
Secular voters – 65%

Jews

Jews have what Frank Giddings calls “consciousness of kind” (482)

In other words, it’s not an “ethnicity” but functions as a collective identity for many even though Jews in the US come from a myriad of regions, countries

Some people who are agnostic or atheists still may identity as Jewish

For our purposes, a Jew is anyone who identifies as one, although traditionally, Jews are only people born to Jewish mothers.  Conservative and Reform Jews recognize converts as well.

Three main religious branches in US – Orthodox, Conservative, Reform

History of Jews in US
First group –13 Jews from Brazil came in 1654 – refugees escaping the Portuguese take over of Brazil

More Sephardic Jews (i.e., Jews from the Iberian peninsula) came during the 17th and 18th centuries fleeing the Spanish Inquisition

By end of 18th Century, only 2-3000 Jews in US

19th Century – 2nd Wave
Dramatic influx of Ashkenazic Jews (from central Europe, Germanized regions of Europe)

By 1880, numbers of Jews in US had swelled to 250,000

While better off than earlier Jewish immigrants, still faced a lot of persecution at the hands of nativists, the Know-Nothings.; barred from voting, holding office.

e.g., Ulysses S Grant, former Know-Nothing, expelled all Jews from territory controlled by him during the Civil War (order was revoked by Lincoln)

1880-1920s – 3rd Wave
Most significant in terms of numbers, cultural impact, economic contributions and dominant group reaction (482)

By 1920, 3 mln Jews in US

Many from Eastern Europe, fleeing anti-Semitism, pogroms following the assassination of Czar Alexander II (1881), and economic chaos associated with industrialization of the Russian Empire

Pecking order among Jews in the US
Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews looked down their noses at East European Jews;
Russian Jews felt superior to Polish/Galician Jews; Bavarian Jews felt superior to East German Jews

 
Anti-Semitism
Widespread in media; depicted as scoundrels, or comedically

Joseph Seligman, invited to be Secretary of the Treasury by President Grant (!) refused accommodations at Saratoga Springs hotel (1877)

Conviction of Leo Frank for murdering a factory worker (1913) on flimsy evidence, largely viewed as anti-Semitic

Led to founding of B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League

Upward Mobility
More successful than other immigrant groups. Why?

1.  2/3 of males were skilled workers (compared to only 20% of other immigrant groups)
2.  came as family unit, rather than men alone
3.  traditional emphasis on learning, literacy