Essay On 19th Century American Culture

In the 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s the WASP was seen as unjust and cruel by many European immigrants in America. Every single one of those terms however was necessary for full acceptance into the American mainstream: white, Anglo-Saxon (from northern Europe although the Irish are the exception) and Protestant. In the nineteenth century America was undergoing a dramatic transformation; the rise of industrialization, a massive influx of immigrants and urbanization caused racism to become a powerful force in American culture, affecting all parts of the political spectrum. American culture became obsessed with crude and cruel racial and ethnic stereotypes in literature, the arts and in the press.

Political cartoons regarding the Irish immigrants were designed to question how and if they were fit for American democracy by representing them as apes, casting doubt on if they were capable of being good and loyal citizens and intelligent

They were also depicted as a stupid servant race not loyal to America and not willing to assimilate into the culture. These images were portrayed in the daily east coast newspapers, photographs, and other media of the time. “The Mortar of Assimilation: And The One Element That Just Won’t Mix”, published in Puck magazine on June 26, 1889, cartoon was a perfect demonstration of the nativist American view of Irish immigration to the United States. In it, the drawing shows the American melting pot made up of different kinds of Americans, but the Irishman is standing on the edge of the pot holding a knife and a flag. As anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment grew, newspaper advertisements for jobs and housing routinely ended with the statement: “No Irish need