Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:54:44.899Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Know Nothing Party: Three Theories about its Rise and Demise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2013

Sabrina P. Ramet  and
Christine M. Hassenstab
Sabrina P. Ramet*
Affiliation:
The Norwegian University of Science & Technology
Christine M. Hassenstab*
Affiliation:
The Norwegian University of Science & Technology
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Sabrina P. Ramet, The Norwegian University of Science & Technology. E-mail: [email protected]
Christine M. Hassenstab, The Norwegian University of Science & Technology. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The 19th century was a time of rapid population growth in the United States, and much of it was due to immigration from Europe. In the 1840s and 1850s, the largest proportion of immigrants came from Ireland and Germany, and most were Catholic. The Germans spread across small communities as far west as Wisconsin and Texas, but the Irish concentrated in the larger cities on the eastern seaboard, especially Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Local third- and fourth-generation Protestant immigrants from England resented the new arrivals and organized “Nativist” associations. Among these was the anti-Catholic American Party, better known as the Know Nothing Party, which enjoyed spectacular success in Massachusetts and other states during 1854–1855. But, by 1862, the party was dead. This article examines how moral panic theory, the theory of persistent cultural patterns and cycles, and revitalization theory may offer insights into the Know Nothing Party. Each of these theories explains both the emergence of the party and its rapid demise, and suggest that each can make a contribution to understanding anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century America, and the Know Nothing Party in particular.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 570 - 595
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney. 1965. The Civic Culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
An American. 1855. The Sons of the Sires: A History of the Rise, Progress, and Destiny of the American Party. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Grambo & Co.Google Scholar
The American Citizen. 1855. “The Know-Somethings.” June 27, 1.Google Scholar
Anbinder, Tyler. 1992. Nativism & Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Atlas (Boston). 1835. “The Ursuline Convent.” March 14, 2.Google Scholar
Bangor Daily Whig and Courie (Bangor, Maine). 1855. “The Know Nothing Council — Secession of the Northern Delegates — The New Platform.” June 18.Google Scholar
Beals, Carleton. 1960. Brass-Knuckle Crusade — The Great Know-Nothing Conspiracy: 1820–1860. New York, NY: Hastings House Publishers.Google Scholar
Beecher, Lyman. 1835. A Plea for the West. New York, NY: Truman & Smith and Leavit, Lord & Co.Google Scholar
Billington, Ray A. 1938. The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism. New York, NY: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Blumer, Herbert. 1971. “Social Problems as Collective Behavior.” Social Problems. 18:298–306.Google Scholar
Boston Daily Advertiser. 1855a. “The Know-Nothing Convention.” June 19, 2.Google Scholar
Boston Daily Advertiser. 1855b. “Know-Nothing State Council.” June 29, 1.Google Scholar
Boston Daily Advertiser. 1855c. “The Know Nothing Platform.” August 8, 1.Google Scholar
Broussard, James H. 1966. “Some Determinants of Know-Nothing Electoral Strength in the South, 1856.” Louisiana History 7:5–20.Google Scholar
Carriere, Marius M. Jr. 1994. “Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Louisiana Politics in the 1850s.” Louisiana History 35:455–474.Google Scholar
Carroll, Anna Ella. 1859. The Great American Battle; or, the Contest between Christianity and Political Romanism. New York, NY: C. M. Saxton.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stanley. 1987. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and the Rockers. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Connors, Rev. Edward M. 1951. Church-State Relationships in Education in the State of New York. Washington DC: Catholic University of America.Google Scholar
Critcher, Chas. 2008. Moral Panics and the Media. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC). 1834. “The Convent Riot.” October 6, 2.Google Scholar
Downs, A. 1972. “Up with Ecology and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue Attention’ Cycle.” The Public Interest 28:38–50.Google Scholar
England, J. Merton. 1963. “The Democratic Faith in American Schoolbooks, 1783–1860.” American Quarterly 15:191–199.Google Scholar
Frink, Sandra. 2009. “Women, the Family, and the Fate of the Nation in American Anti-Catholic Narratives, 1830–1860.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 18:237–264.Google Scholar
Geffen, Elizabeth M. 1969. “Violence in Philadelphia in the 1840's and 1850's.” Pennsylvania History 36:381–410.Google Scholar
Giennap, William E. 1985. “Nativism and the Creation of a Republican Majority in the North before the Civil War.” Journal of American History 72:529–559.Google Scholar
Goode, Erich, and Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. 1994. “Moral Panic: Culture, Politics, and Social Construction.” Annual Review of Sociology 20:149–171.Google Scholar
Gudelunas, William Jr. 1978. “Nativism and the Demise of Schuylkill County Whiggery: Anti-Slavery or Anti-Catholicism.” Pennsylvania History 45:224–236.Google Scholar
Haynes, George H. 1897. “The Causes of Know-Nothing Success in Massachusetts.” The American Historical Review 3:67–82.Google Scholar
Hewitt, Warren F. 1935. “The Know Nothing Party in Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania History 2:69–85.Google Scholar
Higham, John. 1952. “The Mind of a Nativist: Henry F. Bowers and the A.P.A.” American Quarterly 4:16–24.Google Scholar
Higham, John. 1955. Strangers in the land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Hinckley, Ted C. 1962. “American Anti-Catholicism during the Mexican War.” Pacific Historical Review 31:121–137.Google Scholar
Holt, Michael F. 1973. “The Politics of Impatience: The Origins of Know Nothingism.” Journal of American History 60:309–331.Google Scholar
Holt, Michael F. 1993. Review of Tyler Anbinder's Nativism and Slavery. American Historical Review 98:1684–1685.Google Scholar
Hueston, Robert Francis. 1976. The Catholic Press and Nativism 1840—1860. New York: Arno Press.Google Scholar
Jelen, Ted G. 1991. The Political Mobilization of Religious Beliefs. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Joppke, Christian. 1991. “Social Movements during Cycles of Issue Attention: The Decline of the Anti-Nuclear Energy Movements in West Germany and the USA.” British Journal of Sociology 42:43–60.Google Scholar
Knuth, Priscilla. 1953. “Oregon ‘Know Nothing’ Pamphlet Illustrates Early Politics.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 54:40–53.Google Scholar
Lee, John Hancock. 1970. The Origins and Progress of the American Party in Politics. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.Google Scholar
Levine, Bruce. 2001. “Conservatism, Nativism, and Slavery: Thomas R. Whitney and the Origins of the Know-Nothing Party.” The Journal of American History 88:455–488.Google Scholar
Maizlish, Stephen E. 1982. “The Meaning of Nativism and the Crisis of the Union: The Know-Nothing Movement in the Antebellum North.” In Essays on American Antebellum Politics, 1840–1860, eds. Giennap, William E., Stephen E. Maizlish, and John J. Kushma. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
McCadden, Joseph J. 1964. “Bishop Hughes versus the Public School Society of New York.” The Catholic Historical Review 50:188–207.Google Scholar
McConville, Sister Mary St. Patrick. 1928. Political Nativism in the State of Maryland 1830–1860. Ph.D. diss. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America.Google Scholar
Monk, Maria. 1836. Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk: As Exhibited in a Narrative of Her Sufferings During a Residence of Five Years as a Novice and Two Years as a Black Nun: In The Hôtel Dieu Nunnery In Montreal. New York, NY: Howe & Bates.Google Scholar
Mulkern, John R. 1990. The Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts: The Rise and Fall of a People's Movement. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Myers, William Starr. 1924. “Know Nothing and Ku Klux Klan.” The North American Review 219:1–7.Google Scholar
Neely, Mark E. Jr. 1976. “Richard W. Thompson: The Persistent Know Nothing.” Indiana Magazine of History 72:95–122.Google Scholar
New York Herald. 1856a. “Bloody Riot at Baltimore.” September 14, 8.Google Scholar
New York Herald. 1856b. “Serious Political Riots in Baltimore.” October 7, 3.Google Scholar
Nugent, Walter T. K. 1963. The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ohio Statesman. 1855. “A Most Disgraceful Mob and Riot in the Capital of Ohio.” May 30.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Freeman. 1844. “The Riots.” http://www.aoh61.com/history/bible/riots.htm (Accessed on March 29, 2011).Google Scholar
Plain Dealer (Cleveland). 1855. “The Know Nothings vs. Political Corruption.” March 28, 2.Google Scholar
Rice, Philip Morrison. 1947. “The Know-Nothing Party in Virginia, 1854–1856.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 55:61–75.Google Scholar
Roll, Charles. 1948. Colonel Dick Thompson: The Persistent Whig. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Collections.Google Scholar
Scarry, Robert J. 2001. Millard Fillmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Google Scholar
Schafer, Joseph. 1924. “Know-Nothingism in Wisconsin.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 8:3–21.Google Scholar
Scott, Martin J. (S.J.). 1926. “Catholics and the Ku Klux Klan.” North American Review 223:268–281.Google Scholar
Silbey, Joel H. 1982. “The Surge of Republican Power: Partisan Antipathy, American Social Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War.” In Essays on American Antebellum Politics, 1840–1860, eds. Giennap, William E., Maizlish, Stephen E., and Kushma, John J.. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Stickney, Charles. 1894. “Know-Nothingism in Rhode Island.” In Papers from the Historical Seminary of Brown University, ed. FranklinJameson, J. Jameson, J.Providence, RI: The Rhode Island Historical Society.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 1993. “Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness and the Repertoire of Contention.” Social Science History 17:281–307.Google Scholar
Thompson, Richard W. 1894. The Footprints of the Jesuits. New York: Crowell.Google Scholar
Tuska, Benjamin. n.d. Know-Nothingism in Baltimore 1854–1860. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Library.Google Scholar
Victor, Jeffrey S. 1998. “Moral Panics and the Social Construction of Deviant Behavior: A Theory and Application to the Case of Ritual Child Abuse.” Sociological Perspectives 41:541–565.Google Scholar
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1956. “Revitalization Movements.” American Anthropologist 58:264–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitney, Thomas R. 1856. A Defence of the American Policy, As Opposed to the Encroachments of Foreign Influence, and Especially to the Interference of the Papacy in the Political Interests and Affairs of the United States. New York, NY: De Witt & Davenport.Google Scholar
Wooster, Ralph A. 1962. “Foreigners in the Principal Towns of Ante-Bellum Texas.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 66: 208–220.Google Scholar
“The Anti-Catholic Issue in the Late Election.” 1881. The American Catholic Quarterly Review 6:36–50.Google Scholar
“The Anti-Catholic Spirit of the Revolution.” 1889. The American Catholic Historical Researches, American Periodicals Series Online. 6:146–178.Google Scholar
“Archbishop Carroll on Anti-Catholic Newspaper Attacks.” 1894. The American Catholic Historical Researches. American Periodicals Series Online 11:133–134.Google Scholar
“Early Irish Immigration to America: Few Catholics.” 1901. The American Catholic Historical Researches, American Periodicals Series Online. July, 99–103.Google Scholar
“The Public Press and Public Morals.” 1883. The American Catholic Quarterly Review 8:120–138.Google Scholar