Description
Book SynopsisWhy have Americans expressed concern about immigration at some times but not at others? In pursuit of an answer, this book examines America's first nativist movement, which responded to the rapid influx of 4.2 million immigrants between 1840 and 1860 and culminated in the dramatic rise of the National American Party. As previous studies have focused on the coasts, historians have not yet completely explained why westerners joined the ranks of the National American, or Know Nothing, Party or why the nation's bloodiest anti-immigrant riots erupted in western citiesnamely Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. In focusing on the antebellum West, Inventing America's First Immigration Crisis illuminates the cultural, economic, and political issues that originally motivated American nativism and explains how it ultimately shaped the political relationship between church and state. In six detailed chapters, Ritter explains how unprecedented immigration from Europe and rapid westwar
Table of ContentsIntroduction | 1
Chapter 1
The Valley of Decision | 9
Chapter 2
Culture War | 31
Chapter 3
The Power of Nativist Rhetoric | 60
Chapter 4
The Order of Know-Nothings and Secret Democracy | 82
Chapter 5
Crime, Poverty, and the Economic Origins of Political Nativism | 105
Chapter 6
From Anti-Catholicism to Church-State Separation | 148
Epilogue
The Specter of Anti-Catholicism, New Nativism, and the
Ascendancy of Religious Freedom | 174
Notes | 185
Index | 251
