Examples Of Nativism In The 1800s

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America has always been considered the boiling pot of immigrants. This is true to some degree but our favor towards immigrants started to fall during the mid 1800’s. As more and more immigrants arrived in America, nativism grew. Opposition to all the different immigrants arrived in America because many saw them as a problem. Many nativism araived and fought to stop immigration to America. People born in America began to resent immigrats because they feared that they would cause economical instability. The largest group in the 1800’s against immigration was the know-nothings. The know-nothing’s focused on Irish and German immigrants coming to America. They were most active in the 1800’s. They received their name because when members were asked about nativism organization they “knew nothing”. They officaly became known as the American party once they became public.1 The Know nothing group did not last past 1860 but its stance was common later in the centurary.2 …show more content…

People thought theses European immigrants would bring these radical ideas to America causing much damage. People started to back off from purely anti-Catholic policies to a more general policies against immigrants. American nativists blamed radical European ideas for labour unrest.7
Natists target different types of immigrants but many focused on Catholics but others focused on Eastern European immigrants. Many of those immigrants were considered uneducated and not as good as Americans. This is why nativism was so popular, because people asumed they were better than others based on nothing. Nativism has not left our country it just changes shape.8
Nativism had really been in America for a long time but the movement really got going as the number of German and Irish immigrants rose. Most Americans were protestant and saw Catholics as a threat. Nativist stood against this

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