Know Nothing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing 

 

Know Nothing
Uncle Sam's youngest son, Citizen Know Nothing, an 1854 print
Other name	Native American Party American Party
First Leader	Lewis Charles Levin
Founded	1844
Dissolved	1860
Preceded by	Whig Party
Succeeded by	Constitutional Union Party
Headquarters	New York City
Secret wing	Order of the Star Spangled Banner
Ideology	American nationalism Anti-Catholicism Nativism Republicanism Right-wing populism White nationalism
Religion	Protestantism colors=     Red      White      Blue
Politics of United States Political parties Elections

The Know Nothing movement, formally known as the Native American Party, and the American Party from 1855 onwards, was a nativist political party and movement in the United States, which operated nationwide in the mid-1850s. It was primarily an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, and xenophobic movement, originally starting as a secret society. The Know Nothing movement also briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to simply reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its common name.

Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged "Romanist" conspiracy was being planned to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States, and sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in what they described as a defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because of fears by Protestants that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters. In most places, the ideology and influence of the Know Nothing movement lasted only a year or two before disintegrating due to weak and inexperienced local leaders, a lack of publicly declared national leaders, and a deep split over the issue of slavery. In the South, the party did not emphasize anti-Catholicism as frequently as it did in the North, but it became the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party.

The collapse of the Whig Party after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act left an opening for the emergence of a new major political party in opposition to the Democratic Party. The Know Nothing movement managed to elect congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and several other individuals in the 1854 elections into office, and subsequently coalesced into a new political party known as the American Party. Particularly in the South, the American Party served as a vehicle for politicians opposed to the Democrats. Many also hoped that it would stake out a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of Democratic politicians and the radical anti-slavery positions of the rapidly emerging Republican Party. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, although he kept quiet about his membership, and personally refrained from supporting the Know Nothing movement's activities and ideology. Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing behind the Democratic and Republican nominees.

The party entered a period of rapid decline after Millard Fillmore's loss in the 1856 election, and the controversial Dred Scott v. Sandford decision made by the Supreme Court in 1857 further galvanized opposition to slavery in the North, causing many former Know Nothings to join the Republicans. Most of the remaining members of the party supported the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election, which subsequently lost to Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party, and said defeat ultimately led to the final dissolution of the Know Nothing movement that same year.

History

Anti-Catholicism had been a factor in colonial America but played a minor role in American politics until the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics in the 1840s. It then reemerged in nativist attacks on Catholic immigration. It appeared in New York City politics as early as 1843 under the banner of the American Republican Party. The movement quickly spread to nearby states using that name or Native American Party or variants of it. They succeeded in a number of local and Congressional elections, notably in 1844 in Philadelphia, where the anti-Catholic orator Lewis Charles Levin, who went on to be the first Jewish congressman, was elected Representative from Pennsylvania's 1st district. In the early 1850s, numerous secret orders grew up, of which the Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner came to be the most important. They emerged in New York in the early 1850s as a secret order that quickly spread across the North, reaching non-Catholics, particularly those who were lower middle class or skilled workmen.

Name

The name "Know Nothing" originated in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member was asked about his activities, he was supposed to reply, "I know nothing." Outsiders derisively called them "Know Nothings", and the name stuck. In 1855, the Know Nothings first entered politics under the American Party label.

Underlying issues

The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had put down the failed liberal Revolutions of 1848 and that he was an opponent of liberty, democracy and republicanism. One Boston minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school". These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope.

In 1849, an oath-bound secret society, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, was created by Charles B. Allen in New York City. At its inception, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner only had about 36 members. Fear of Catholic immigration led to a dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, whose leadership in many cities included Catholics of Irish descent. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates sympathetic to their cause:

Immigration during the first five years of the 1850s reached a level five times greater than a decade earlier. Most of the new arrivals were poor Catholic peasants or laborers from Ireland and Germany who crowded into the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared. Cincinnati's crime rate, for example, tripled between 1846 and 1853 and its murder rate increased sevenfold. Boston's expenditures for poor relief rose threefold during the same period.

— James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 131

Rise

In spring 1854, the Know Nothings carried Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, and other New England cities. They swept the state of Massachusetts in the fall 1854 elections, their biggest victory. The Whig candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, editor Robert T. Conrad, was soon revealed as a Know Nothing as he promised to crack down on crime, close saloons on Sundays and to appoint only native-born Americans to office—he won by a landslide. In Washington, D.C., Know Nothing candidate John T. Towers defeated incumbent Mayor John Walker Maury, causing opposition of such proportion that the Democrats, Whigs, and Freesoilers in the capital united as the "Anti-Know-Nothing Party". In New York, in a four-way race the Know Nothing candidate ran third with 26%. After the 1854 elections, they exerted decisive influence in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California, but historians are unsure about the accuracy of this information due to the secrecy of the party, as all parties were in turmoil and the anti-slavery and prohibition issues overlapped with nativism in complex and confusing ways. They helped elect Stephen Palfrey Webb as mayor of San Francisco and J. Neely Johnson as governor of California. Nathaniel P. Banks was elected to Congress as a Know Nothing candidate, but after a few months he aligned with Republicans. A coalition of Know Nothings, Republicans and other members of Congress opposed to the Democratic Party elected Banks to the position of Speaker of the House.

The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know Nothings, up to then an informal movement with no centralized organization, that they formed officially as a political party called the American Party, which attracted many members of the now nearly defunct Whig party as well as a significant number of Democrats. Membership in the American Party increased dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of months during that year.

The historian Tyler Anbinder concluded:

The key to Know Nothing success in 1854 was the collapse of the second party system, brought about primarily by the demise of the Whig Party. The Whig Party, weakened for years by internal dissent and chronic factionalism, was nearly destroyed by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Growing anti-party sentiment, fueled by anti-slavery sentiment as well as temperance and nativism, also contributed to the disintegration of the party system. The collapsing second party system gave the Know Nothings a much larger pool of potential converts than was available to previous nativist organizations, allowing the Order to succeed where older nativist groups had failed.

In San Francisco, a Know Nothing chapter was founded in 1854 to oppose Chinese immigration—members included a judge of the state supreme court, who ruled that no Chinese person could testify as a witness against a white man in court.

Fillmore–Donelson campaign poster

In the spring of 1855, Know Nothing candidate Levi Boone was elected mayor of Chicago and barred all immigrants from city jobs. Abraham Lincoln was strongly opposed to the principles of the Know Nothing movement, but did not denounce it publicly because he needed the votes of its membership to form a successful anti-slavery coalition in Illinois. Ohio was the only state where the party gained strength in 1855. Their Ohio success seems to have come from winning over immigrants, especially German-American Lutherans and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, both hostile to Catholicism. In Alabama, Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, discontented Democrats and other political outsiders who favored state aid to build more railroads. Virginia attracted national attention in its tempestuous 1855 gubernatorial election. Democrat Henry Alexander Wise won by convincing state voters that Know Nothings were in bed with Northern abolitionists. With the victory by Wise, the movement began to collapse in the South.

Know Nothings scored victories in Northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40% of the vote in Pennsylvania. Although most of the new immigrants lived in the North, resentment and anger against them was national and the American Party initially polled well in the South, attracting the votes of many former southern Whigs.

The party name gained wide but brief popularity. Nativism became a new American rage: Know Nothing candy, Know Nothing tea, and Know Nothing toothpicks appeared. Stagecoaches were dubbed "The Know Nothing". In Trescott, Maine, a shipowner dubbed his new 700-ton freighter Know Nothing. The party was occasionally referred to, contemporaneously, in a slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism."

Leadership and legislation

Historian John Mulkern has examined the party's success in sweeping to almost complete control of the Massachusetts legislature after its 1854 landslide victory. He finds the new party was populist and highly democratic, hostile to wealth, elites and to expertise, and deeply suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics. The new party's voters were concentrated in the rapidly growing industrial towns, where Yankee workers faced direct competition with new Irish immigrants. Whereas the Whig Party was strongest in high income districts, the Know Nothing electorate was strongest in the poor districts. They expelled the traditional upper-class, closed, political leadership, especially the lawyers and merchants. In their stead, they elected working class men, farmers and a large number of teachers and ministers. Replacing the moneyed elite were men who seldom owned $10,000 in property.

Nationally, the new party leadership showed incomes, occupation, and social status that were about average. Few were wealthy, according to detailed historical studies of once-secret membership rosters. Fewer than 10% were unskilled workers who might come in direct competition with Irish laborers. They enlisted few farmers, but on the other hand they included many merchants and factory owners. The party's voters were by no means all native-born Americans, for it won more than a fourth of the German and British Protestants in numerous state elections. It especially appealed to Protestants such as the Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians.

The most aggressive and innovative legislation came out of Massachusetts, where the new party controlled all but three of the 400 seats—only 35 had any previous legislative experience. The Massachusetts legislature in 1855 passed a series of reforms that "burst the dam against change erected by party politics, and released a flood of reforms." Historian Stephen Taylor says:

[In addition to nativist legislation], the party also distinguished itself by its opposition to slavery, support for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures designed to improve the status of working people.

It passed legislation to regulate railroads, insurance companies and public utilities. It funded free textbooks for the public schools and raised the appropriations for local libraries and for the school for the blind. Purification of Massachusetts against divisive social evils was a high priority. The legislature set up the state's first reform school for juvenile delinquents while trying to block the importation of supposedly subversive government documents and academic books from Europe. It upgraded the legal status of wives, giving them more property rights and more rights in divorce courts. It passed harsh penalties on speakeasies, gambling houses and bordellos. It passed prohibition legislation with penalties that were so stiff—such as six months in prison for serving one glass of beer—that juries refused to convict defendants. Many of the reforms were quite expensive; state spending rose 45% on top of a 50% hike in annual taxes on cities and towns. This extravagance angered the taxpayers, and few Know Nothings were reelected.

The highest priority included attacks on the civil rights of Irish Catholic immigrants. After this, state courts lost the power to process applications for citizenship and public schools had to require compulsory daily reading of the Protestant Bible (which the nativists were sure would transform the Catholic children). The governor disbanded the Irish militias and replaced Irish holding state jobs with Protestants. It failed to reach the two-thirds vote needed to pass a state constitutional amendment to restrict voting and office holding to men who had resided in Massachusetts for at least 21 years. The legislature then called on Congress to raise the requirement for naturalization from five years to 21 years, but Congress never acted. The most dramatic move by the Know Nothing legislature was to appoint an investigating committee designed to prove widespread sexual immorality underway in Catholic convents. The press had a field day following the story, especially when it was discovered that the key reformer was using committee funds to pay for a prostitute. The legislature shut down its committee, ejected the reformer, and saw its investigation become a laughing stock.

The Know Nothings also dominated politics in Rhode Island, where in 1855 William W. Hoppin held the governorship and five out of every seven votes went to the party, which dominated the Rhode Island legislature. Local newspapers such as The Providence Journal fueled anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment.

Violence

Know Nothing Party ticket naming party candidates for state and county offices (at the bottom of the page are voting instructions)

 

Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them. 

On 6 August 1855, rioting broke out in Louisville, Kentucky, during a hotly contested race for the office of governor. Twenty-two were killed and many injured. This "Bloody Monday" riot was not the only violent riot between Know Nothings and Catholics in 1855. In Baltimore, the mayoral elections of 1856, 1857, and 1858 were all marred by violence and well-founded accusations of ballot-rigging. In the coastal town of Ellsworth Maine in 1854, Know Nothings were associated with the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Jesuit Johannes Bapst. They also burned down a Catholic church in Bath, Maine.

South

In the Southern United States, the American Party was composed chiefly of ex-Whigs looking for a vehicle to fight the dominant Democratic Party and worried about both the pro-slavery extremism of the Democrats and the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican party in the North. In the South as a whole, the American Party was strongest among former Unionist Whigs. States-rightist Whigs shunned it, enabling the Democrats to win most of the South. Whigs supported the American Party because of their desire to defeat the Democrats, their unionist sentiment, their anti-immigrant attitudes and the Know Nothing neutrality on the slavery issue.

David T. Gleeson notes that many Irish Catholics in the South feared the arrival of the Know-Nothing movement portended a serious threat. He argues:

The southern Irish, who had seen the dangers of Protestant bigotry in Ireland, had the distinct feeling that the Know-Nothings were an American manifestation of that phenomenon. Every migrant, no matter how settled or prosperous, also worried that this virulent strain of nativism threatened his or her hard-earned gains in the South and integration into its society. Immigrants fears were unjustified, however, because the national debate over slavery and its expansion, not nativism or anti-Catholicism, was the major reason for Know-Nothing success in the South. The southerners who supported the Know-Nothings did so, for the most part, because they thought the Democrats who favored the expansion of slavery might break up the Union.

In 1855, the American Party challenged the Democrats' dominance. In Alabama, the Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, malcontented Democrats and other political misfits; they favored state aid to build more railroads. In the fierce campaign, the Democrats argued that Know Nothings could not protect slavery from Northern abolitionists. The Know Nothing American Party disintegrated soon after losing in 1855.

In Louisiana and Maryland, the Know Nothings enlisted native-born Catholics. Know Nothing congressman John Edward Bouligny was the only member of the Louisiana congressional delegation to refuse to resign his seat after the state seceded from the Union. In Maryland, the party's influence lasted at least through the Civil War: the American Party's Governor and later Senator Thomas Holliday Hicks, Representative Henry Winter Davis, and Senator Anthony Kennedy, with his brother, former Representative John Pendleton Kennedy, all supported the United States in a State that bordered the Confederate states. Historian Michael F. Holt argues that "Know Nothingism originally grew in the South for the same reasons it spread in the North—nativism, anti-Catholicism, and animosity toward unresponsive politicos—not because of conservative Unionism". Holt cites William B. Campbell, former governor of Tennessee, who wrote in January 1855: "I have been astonished at the widespread feeling in favor of their principles—to wit, Native Americanism and anti-Catholicism—it takes everywhere".

Decline

Results by county indicating the percentage for Fillmore in each county

The party declined rapidly in the North after 1855. In the presidential election of 1856, it was bitterly divided over slavery. The main faction supported the ticket of presidential nominee Millard Fillmore and vice presidential nominee Andrew Jackson Donelson. Fillmore, a former President, had been a Whig and Donelson was the nephew of Democratic President Andrew Jackson, so the ticket was designed to appeal to loyalists from both major parties, winning 23% of the popular vote and carrying one state, Maryland, with eight electoral votes. Fillmore did not win enough votes to block Democrat James Buchanan from the White House. During this time, Nathaniel Banks decided he was not as strongly for the anti-immigrant platform as the party wanted him to be, so he left the Know Nothing Party for the more anti-slavery Republican Party. He contributed to the decline of the Know Nothing Party by taking two-thirds of its members with him.

Many were appalled by the Know Nothings. Abraham Lincoln expressed his own disgust with the political party in a private letter to Joshua Speed, written 24 August 1855. Lincoln never publicly attacked the Know Nothings, whose votes he needed:

I am not a Know-Nothing—that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Historian Allan Nevins, writing about the turmoil preceding the American Civil War, states that Millard Fillmore was never a Know Nothing nor a nativist. Fillmore was out of the country when the presidential nomination came and had not been consulted about running. Nevins further states:

[Fillmore] was not a member of the party; he had never attended an American [Know-Nothing] gathering. By no spoken or written word had he indicated a subscription to American [Party] tenets.

After the Supreme Court's controversial Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling in 1857, most of the anti-slavery members of the American Party joined the Republican Party. The pro-slavery wing of the American Party remained strong on the local and state levels in a few southern states, but by the 1860 election they were no longer a serious national political movement. Most of their remaining members supported the Constitutional Union Party in 1860.

American ancestry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ancestry 

American ancestry

Total population
21,227,906 6.6% of the US population in 2017
Regions with significant populations
Southern United States and Midwestern United States
Languages
English (American English dialects)
Religion
Predominantly Christianity (Mainly Protestantism)
Related ethnic groups
American ancestries

American ancestry refers to people in the United States who self-identify their ancestral origin or descent as "American", rather than the more common officially recognized racial and ethnic groups that make up the bulk of the American people. The majority of these respondents are visibly White Americans, who either simply use this response as a political statement or are far removed from and no longer self-identify with their original ethnic ancestral origins. The latter response is attributed to a multitude of generational distance from ancestral lineages, and these tend be of English, Scotch-Irish, or other British ancestries, as demographers have observed that those ancestries tend to be seriously undercounted in U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey ancestry self-reporting estimates. Although U.S. Census data indicates "American ancestry" is commonly self-reported in the Deep South and Upland South, the vast majority of Americans and expatriates do not equate their nationality with ancestry, race or ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance.

Historical reference

The earliest attested use of the term "American" to identify an ancestral or cultural identity dates to the late 1500s, with the term signifying "the indigenous peoples discovered in the Western Hemisphere by Europeans." In the following century, the term "American" was extended as a reference to colonists of European descent. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies this secondary meaning as "historical" and states that the term "American" today "chiefly [means] a native (birthright) or citizen of the United States."

American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's famous painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1861). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of "manifest destiny".

 

President Theodore Roosevelt asserted that an "American race" had been formed on the American frontier, one distinct from other ethnic groups, such as the Anglo-Saxons. He believed, "The conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race...." "We are making a new race, a new type, in this country." Roosevelt's "race" beliefs certainly weren't unique in the 19th and early 20th century. Eric Kaufmann has suggested that American nativism has been explained primarily in psychological and economic terms to the neglect of a crucial cultural and ethnic dimension. Kauffman contends American nativism cannot be understood without reference to the theorem of the age that an "American" national ethnic group had taken shape prior to the large-scale immigration of the mid-19th century.

Nativism gained its name from the "Native American" parties of the 1840s and 1850s. In this context "Native" does not mean indigenous or American Indian but rather those descended from the inhabitants of the original Thirteen Colonies (Colonial American ancestry). These "Old Stock Americans", primarily English Protestants, saw Catholic immigrants as a threat to traditional American republican values, as they were loyal to the papacy.

Flag of the Know Nothing or American Party, c. 1850

Nativist outbursts occurred in the Northeast from the 1830s to the 1850s, primarily in response to a surge of Catholic immigration. The Order of United American Mechanics was founded as a nativist fraternity, following the Philadelphia nativist riots of the preceding spring and summer, in December 1844. The New York City anti-Irish, anti-German, anti-Catholic secret society the Order of the Star Spangled Banner was formed in 1848. Popularised nativist movements included the Know Nothing or American Party of the 1850s and the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s. Nativism would eventually influence Congress; in 1924, legislation limiting immigration from Southern and Eastern European countries was ratified, while quantifying previous formal and informal anti-Asian previsions, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907.

Modern usage

Statistical data

According to U.S. Census Bureau; "Ancestry refers to a person's ethnic origin or descent, 'roots,' or heritage, or the place of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States".

The plurality (not majority) ancestry background in each county in the US in 2000:
German English Norwegian Dutch Finnish Irish French Italian
Mexican Native Spanish American African American Puerto Rican

According to 2000 U.S census data, an increasing number of United States citizens identify simply as "American" on the question of ancestry. The Census Bureau reports the number of people in the United States who reported "American" and no other ancestry increased from 12.4 million in 1990 to 20.2 million in 2000. This increase represents the largest numerical growth of any ethnic group in the United States during the 1990s.

In the 1980 census, 26% of United States residents cited that they were of English ancestry, making them the largest group at the time. Slightly more than half of these individuals would cite that they were of "American" ancestry on subsequent censuses when the option to do so was made available, with areas where "American" ancestry predominates on the 2000 census corresponding to places where "English" predominated on the 1980 census.

In the 2000 United States Census, 6.9% of the American population chose to self-identify itself as having "American ancestry". The four states in which a plurality of the population reported American ancestry were Arkansas (15.7%), Kentucky (20.7%), Tennessee (17.3%), and West Virginia (18.7%). Sizable percentages of the populations of Alabama (16.8%), Mississippi (14.0%), North Carolina (13.7%), South Carolina (13.7%), Georgia (13.3%), and Indiana (11.8%) also reported American ancestry.

Map showing areas in red with high concentration of people who self-report as having "American" ancestry in 2000

In the Southern United States as a whole, 11.2% reported "American" ancestry, second only to African American. American was the fourth most common ancestry reported in the Midwest (6.5%) and West (4.1%). All Southern states except for Delaware, Maryland, Florida, and Texas reported 10% or more American, but outside the South, only Missouri and Indiana did so. American was in the top five ancestries reported in all Southern states except for Delaware, in four Midwestern states bordering the South (Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio) as well as Iowa, and six Northwestern states (Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), but only one Northeastern state, Maine. The pattern of areas with high levels of American is similar to that of areas with high levels of not reporting any national ancestry.

In the 2014 American Community Survey, German Americans (14.4%), Irish Americans (10.4%), English Americans (7.6%) and Italian Americans (5.4%) were the four largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States, forming 37.8% of the total population. However, English, Scotch-Irish, and British American demography is considered to be seriously undercounted, as the 6.9% of U.S. Census respondents who self-report and identify simply as "American" are primarily of these ancestries.

Academic analysis

Reynolds Farley writes that "we may now be in an era of optional ethnicity, in which no simple census question will distinguish those who identify strongly with a specific European group from those who report symbolic or imagined ethnicity."

Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters write: "As whites become increasingly distant in generations and time from their immigrant ancestors, the tendency to distort, or remember selectively, one's ethnic origins increases.... [E]thnic categories are social phenomena that over the long run are constantly being redefined and reformulated." Mary C. Waters contends that white Americans of European origin are afforded a wide range of choice: "In a sense, they are constantly given an actual choice—they can either identify themselves with their ethnic ancestry or they can 'melt' into the wider society and call themselves American."

Professors Anthony Daniel Perez and Charles Hirschman write: "European national origins are still common among whites—almost 3 of 5 whites name one or more European countries in response to the ancestry question. ... However, a significant share of whites respond that they are simply "American" or leave the ancestry question blank on their census forms. Ethnicity is receding from the consciousness of many white Americans. Because national origins do not count for very much in contemporary America, many whites are content with a simplified Americanized racial identity. The loss of specific ancestral attachments among many white Americans also results from high patterns of intermarriage and ethnic blending among whites of different European stocks."

Social and economic stratification in Appalachia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_economic_stratification_in_Appalachia 

 

Areas included within the Appalachian Regional Commission's charter.

 

The Appalachian region of the Eastern United States is home to over 25 million people and covers parts of mostly mountainous areas of 13 states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and the entire state of West Virginia. The near-isolation of the area's rugged topography is home to communities with a distinct culture, who in many cases are put at a disadvantage because of the transportation and infrastructure problems that have developed.

Appalachia is often divided into three regions—southern (portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee), central (portions of Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southern and southeastern Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee), and northern (parts of New York, Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, Maryland, and northern and northeastern Ohio) Appalachia. Though all areas of Appalachia share problems of rural poverty, inadequate jobs, services, transportation, education, and infrastructure, some elements (particularly those relating to industry and natural resource extraction) are unique to each sub-region. For example, Appalachians in the central sub-region experience the deepest poverty, partially due to the area's isolation from urban growth centers.

Appalachia is particularly interesting in the context of social and economic divisions within and between the region's socioeconomic communities. In addition, outsiders' often incorrect and over-generalized external perspectives, and their relationship to culture and folklore of this near-isolated area, are important to the region's future development.

Poverty, politics, and uneven economic development

Though industry and business existed in Appalachia before the 20th century, the major modern industries of agriculture, large-scale coal mining, timber, and other outside corporate entries did not truly take root until this time. Many Appalachians sold their rights to land and minerals to such corporations, to the extent that 99 percent of the residents control less than half of the land. Thus, though the area has a wealth of natural resources, natives are often poor. Since at least the 1960s, Appalachia has a higher poverty rate and a higher percentage of working poor than the rest of the nation. Wages, employment rates, and education also lag. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created in 1965 to address some of the region's problems, and though there have been improvements, serious issues still exist. Communities that are not considered "growth centers" are bypassed for investment and fall further behind. In 1999, roughly a quarter of the counties in the region qualified as "distressed," the ARC's worst status ranking. Fifty-seven percent of adults in central Appalachia did not graduate from high school (as opposed to less than 20 percent in the general U.S.), roughly 20 percent of homes have no telephone, and the population is declining.

According to the statistics conducted by ARC, one out of every three Appalachians suffered from poverty; their average income was 23 percent lower than the average level of American per capita income; and due to the poor infrastructure, health care, high unemployment rate and other tough living conditions, two million or more Appalachians left their homes during the 1950s. Poverty in Appalachian had not been given attention until the 1960s. In the year 1960, the Region's government was trying to solve the poverty problem with a will. After one year, the newly elected President John F. Kennedy was touched by the poverty he saw there and decided to improve the living standard of Appalachians. In 1963, President Kennedy set up President's Appalachian Regional Committee, aimed to formulate a program to improve the Appalachian economy. The program was outlined in 1964. One year later, his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson submitted PARC's reports to the Congress and the program was passed in 1965.

Infrastructure as an agent of poverty

One of the factors at the root of Appalachian economic struggles is the poor infrastructure. Though the region is crisscrossed by many U.S. and interstate highways, those routes primarily serve cross-country traffic rather than local traffic. Towns closer to the major highways and nearer to the many larger cities fringing the region (Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Columbus, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., etc.) are disproportionately better-off than rural regions in the mountainous interior.

Transportation may be the reason which most restricts the development of the economy. So after the Appalachian Regional Commission was established, road construction has become the first concern of regional development. In the following years, the Commission has spent plenty of capital on road construction.

Instead of being tied to the land, jobs in the towns tend to emphasize industry and services—important signs of a more diversified economy. However, aside from the major urban centers along its perimeter, the entire Appalachian region still suffers from population decline and the loss of younger residents to the cities.

Another factor affecting development has been sheer inequality in power between the classes. Historically, elites interested in satisfying personal goals have controlled Appalachian politics to the expense of the region's poorer residents. Seeing no personal benefit to establishing infrastructure, they generally eschewed developments that would have been difficult and expensive to establish in the mountainous areas. Instead, they allowed the region to rely on industry—using barges to send natural resources to market, requiring that workers have only minimal education, etc.--and created no infrastructure for business.

There is a lot of evidence to show that economic status generally has a positive effect on education. This positive link suggests that people in Appalachia are less educated than in rest areas of the nation. "Labor economists estimated that the inflation-adjusted rate of return to an additional year of schooling is about 10 percent on average". (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) This means, each additional school year will contribute a 10 percent average gain in earnings. "At the same time, this 10 percent average return masks important variation in returns across individuals with different levels of schooling". (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) High school graduates often earn more than those with GED recipients. During past decades, the Appalachian population are better educated than many years ago, but it still lags behind the United States' average level. From Burris's research, the central lands of Appalachia have been dominated by landowners who only show interest in the profits of mountaintop coal mining, undermining the importance of those who live in the areas and the effect their business has on their lives. It is the cyclical way of life where those who profit from the detrimental effects are the ones who do not have to endure those effects. This economy has caused a region-wide depression on the people as well as other afflictions such as illness and addiction. The goal is to eliminate the depression and need people feel to abuse pain medications. As systems work together to aim attention of younger generations at education instead of drugs. "For well over a century now, central Appalachia has been ruled by absentee landowners only interested in making the highest profit available from natural resource extraction, primarily coal. From the beginning of its presence in the mountains, the coal industry intentionally created single-industry economies to exert absolute control over the people, the politicians, the land and the wealth that still flows out of the mountains". (American Psychologic Association) 

Now, with roughly 100,000 jobs left for miners, Appalachianites are unable to access jobs or the resources and opportunities necessary to lift themselves out of poverty. Some academics contend that the situation of Appalachianites amounts to one similar to that in third world countries: Residents live on land that cannot be traded outside of trusted circles or used as collateral because, due to the history of unincorporated businesses with unidentified liabilities, there are not adequate records of ownership rights. This "dead" capital is a factor that contributes to the historical poverty of the region, limiting Appalachianites' abilities to use their investments in home and other land-related capital.

Political inequalities

The elite class instilled strong systems of inequality into Appalachian politics and economy. For instance, the powerful have a history of encouraging racial divisions in order to divide workers and pit them against each other, spurring competition and serving to lower workers' wages. Family history and economic status are also bases of discrimination: One resident notes of employers, "If you have a rich name, they'll take you--otherwise you can't get no work."

Since the 19th century, coal operators and plantation bosses have discouraged education and civic action, allowing workers to become indebted to plantation stores, live in company housing, and generally make themselves vulnerable to the interests of their powerful employers. Community members who experienced a justifiable fear of punishment for speaking out against the corruption of the status quo developed a habit of compliance rather than democratic institutions for social change. Fearful of punishment, middle class residents allied themselves with the elites rather than challenging the system that colored their everyday lives. Burdened by the choice between exile and exploitation, the actual and potential middle class left the region, widening the gap between the poor and those in power. Observers often perceive a fatalistic attitude on the part of the Appalachian people; many suggest that this is due to the history of political corruption and disenfranchisement, which led to weak civic cultures and a sense of powerlessness. Says a volunteer in the area, "the people usually regard politicians as crooks who won't do anything."

In the remote mountain districts, violent feuds often happen. Appalachians use assassination and guns as weapons, against each other for several years. The major participants are always the elite class and people who are fighting for their political rights.

Educational disadvantages

In 2000, 80.49 percent of all adults in the United States were high school graduates, as opposed to 76.89 in Appalachia. Almost 30 percent of Appalachian adults are considered functionally illiterate. Education differences between men and women are greater in Appalachia than the rest of the nation, tying into a greater trend of gender inequalities.

Education in Appalachia has historically lagged behind average literacy levels of United States. At first, education in this region was largely nurtured through religious institutions. Children who found time away from family work were often taught to read about the Bible and Christian morality. Then, after the civil war, some districts established primary schools and high schools. People began to access standard education during this period, and higher education in large communities was expanded at that time. Lately, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, education in rural areas has been advanced; some settlement schools and sponsored schools were established by organizations. In the 20th century, the national policy has begun affecting education in Appalachia. Those schools were trying to meet the demands which federal and state settled. Some public schools were facing the problem of gathering funds because of government's No Child Left Behind policy. (DeYoung 1517–1521) 

Since Appalachia is a place with abundant resources such as coal, mineral, land and forest, the main jobs here are lumbering, mining and farming. None of these jobs need a high education, and employers don't decide the jobs based on their education level. A diploma has not been a priority in job finding. Many children of school age dropped school to help their family work. Women in Appalachia have less opportunity in access of jobs. Many kinds of jobs in this area require a strong body, so that men are preferred than women by employers when they are seeking jobs.

The National Career Development Association has organized a program hoping to increase the education in the Appalachia region, which has been deprived of what other parts of the nation take for granted. The region is primarily utilized for mining, coal, and its other natural resources and farmland. Families that live in these parts have become accustomed to a certain way of life whether it involve school or working. Many kids are not given the opportunity to be successful, only to remain in the family business surrounding one of the many natural resources from their land. The New Opportunity School for Women, NOSW, has begun offering 14 women a 3-week course in Berea, Kentucky, on employment opportunities, skills, basic knowledge that they may not have received. The NOSW also offers a residential housing opportunity to those with low-income after their participation in the course and thereafter. This brings hope to Appalachian women, although it only allows 14 participants, it is a start and that number can only grow with growth within the Appalachian region.

"Women from the Appalachian region of Kentucky and surrounding south central Appalachian states share common challenges resulting from low educational attainment, limited employment skills, few strong role models and low self-esteem. The presence of these challenges are directly linked to high incidences of early marriage, teen pregnancies, divorce, domestic violence, substance abuse and high school dropout rates". (National Career Development Association.)

This program provides interview, job search, computer and other basic skills that are useful in careers for those less skilled. Women can participate freely, no extra money is required. Participants are provided with classes from Monday to Friday, 8 am to 12 pm and afternoon is internship time. These classes are mainly about: job search, interview skill, math, women's health, computer skills, leadership development, and self-protection. (National Career Development Association) Internships not only include working in a real work site, but also include a training of choosing interview clothes and make-ups. The organizer will also hold some events during the weekends except for additional classes. For instance, the American Association of University Women and the Berea Younger Women's Club are available for participants to choose. They can also go for a field trip to some places. All these efforts are conducted to help women build confidence in job finding. As a vulnerable group of people, these rich experiences can help them become an active part in their living communities. After graduating from NOSW, professional agencies will provides each of them counseling services about education. This program has achieved active outcomes. According to a recent survey, after attending this program, 80 percent of those women participants have incomes for less than 10,000 dollars per year with their half high school degree. Among them, 79 percent of graduates are employed, 55 percent of graduates got an associate degree (two-year), a bachelor's degree or even a master's degree, and 35 percent of graduates got a Certification Program degree. (National Career Development Association)

Gender inequalities in Appalachia

Women have traditionally been reedited to the domestic sphere, often lack access to resources and employment opportunities, are disproportionately represented in peripheral labor markets, and have lower wages and higher vulnerability to job loss. Throughout the region, women typically earn 64 percent of men's wages. However, when adjusted for the fact that women take less risky jobs, that require less qualifications, they make roughly the same amount. Women are also often the hardest-hit by poverty—for example, 70 percent of female-headed households with children under the age of six are in distressed counties, a figure substantially higher than the national average.

Where there is oppression, there is opposition. There are a lot of fearless and outstanding women in Appalachia who stood out to fight for their rights. Women in the Appalachia have long earned their reputation for being strong as well as struggling. Among the many men within the region, women have participated in the fields, mines, and labor movements. Many women have given their all and then some for their families and to stand up for what they believe in. Women have also made waves through literature, art, and keeping their stories and family history alive within their culture.

"Women have played a major role in the labor and activist movements in the coal-bearing regions of Appalachia.", "Other crucial roles for women have involved education, literature, healthcare and art, and the promotion of minorities in our region". (Appalachian Voices).

There are many achievements conducted by outstanding women leadership. Those women devoted their lifelong efforts in improving their social status and in fighting against poverty in their communities and their living regions. A woman named Kathy Selvage was a citizen lobbyist for years and worked in the fight against a proposal for a Wise County coal-fired plant. She says that Appalachian women are people of action. Lorelei Scarbro helped establish a community center in Whitesville, W.V. to encourage outside activity besides the home and workplace. This reunites them with togetherness and a place to convene about ideas and local build-up. Vivian Stockman is the face of the stand against mountaintop removal and has worked endlessly to spread the word through photos of the detrimental effects it has on the land that people call home. These women, among countless others have done everything they can to end the poverty and depression that has plagued their region for so long.

"A coal miner's daughter from Wise County, Va., Selvage has always had a great respect for miners, but when a coal company began blasting off mountaintops in her community, Selvage began working to bring national exposure to mountaintop removal coal mining". (Appalachian Voices). Rural Appalachian has found projects to help women save for their life especially life after retirement. It is kind of program to help females who have problems in raising their children and retirement save money. Some women have saved surprisingly a little for their retirement and they are facing the risk of running out of their money. Appalachian Savings Project was established to alleviate this risk by recreating saving plans for those self-employed women workers who do not have those plans provided by companies. This program is aiming to help the female workers who have children to care about. Anita Wallace is a mother who operates a family day care in Athens County, Ohio. She is 40 years old while her husband is 47 years old and they have three of their own children to raise. As Wallace is self-employed, she has not provided with company retirement plans, for example, company 401(k). She often complaints about that it is expensive to raise children. Since she is not employed by another company, to have retirement funds is a difficult thing for her. Appalachian Saving Project made her an offer that "if she saved 600 dollars in United States saving bonds in a year, it would match half of that".(Npr) Wallace thought it was a great idea, because even if she has not enough money to put in one month, she doesn't need to worry about that. Now she has an account and save 50 dollars per month in it. This program is designed to help women with low or relatively low incomes save for their retired life and to alleviate the retirement crisis for them. Due to the lagged economic status in Appalachian regions and discriminations, there are an increasing number of women who are getting jobs without comprehensive benefits, such as retirement plans. Instead of consumption, it is an investment to have this saving account. Many mothers put their children at first place and will not start to save money for their retirement until their children are independent and do not need their help any more. However, this program is encouraging them to save money for their own need instead of their kids'. There are also some complaints. Most of them complain that they don't have enough time to attend the financial classes and money is always not enough to spare. In a word, the road ahead of Appalachian Saving Project will not be flat. All it wants is that women can realize they can save for themselves and then save more.

Outside perspectives and stereotypes

Though mainstream Americans assume that Appalachian culture is homogeneous in the region, many distinct locales and sub-regions exist. Over-generalizations of Appalachianites as impulsive, personalistic, and individualistic "hillbillies" abound. Many scholars speculate that these stereotypes have been created by powerful economic and political forces to justify exploitation of Appalachian peoples. For example, the same forces that put up barriers to prevent the development of civic culture promulgate the image of Appalachian peoples as politically apathetic, without a social consciousness, and deserving of their disenfranchised state. In spite of the region's desperate need for aid, weariness of being represented as "helpless, dumb and poor" often creates an attitude of hostility among Appalachianites.

Appalachians as a separate status group

It has been suggested that Appalachia constitutes a separate status group under the sociologist Max Weber's definition. The criteria are tradition, endogamy, an emphasis on intimate interaction and isolation from outsiders, monopolization of economic opportunities, and ownership of certain commodities rather than others. Appalachia fulfills at least the first four, if not all five. Furthermore, mainstream Americans tend to see Appalachia as a separate subculture of low status. Based on these facts, it is reasonable to say that Appalachia constitutes a separate status group.