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Northern and Western Europeans
Chapter 5
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Questions We Will Explore
• What was the dominant group at the nation’s beginning
and how did it set the stage for dominant-minority
relations in the U.S.?
• What are some examples of cultural pluralism among the
Dutch, French, German, and Irish peoples in the United
States?
• What similarities in dominant-minority patterns were
shared by most northern and western European
immigrants?
• How do the three major theoretical perspectives explain
the experiences of the northern and western European
immigrant groups?
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What Motivated Europeans to
Come to America
• European colonist gambled on having better lives--origin
of the American Dream
• Europeans experienced generations of survival difficulties;
 walls surrounded most European cities to protect them from outside
attacks,
 disease was rampant, resulting in early death,
 riots,
 burnings at the stake,
 combat sieges and sacks of towns.
• They came well prepared by their life in the Old World to
do what was needed to survive in America.
• They wanted land to build more communities to create a
‘New England’, and only the Indians stood in their way.
Kent L. Kippelman with R. Lee Goodhart, 2005
Cultural Foundations of Dominance and
Oppression in United States
• European colonists in America encourages oppressive attitudes and
actions toward those who were different for survival.
• Oppressive colonial attitudes and actions were reinforced in
response to ethnic and religious diversity contributed by subsequent
waves of immigration.
 Eastern Europeans
 Southern European
 Religious diversity
 Catholics
 Jewish
 Atheist.
• Early American culture fostered oppression aids that were the
impetus in understanding how anti-oppressive attitudes and actions
were promoted in response throughout history
•
Kent L. Kippelman with R. Lee Goodhart, 2005
English Influence
• English immigrants’ greatest impact on U.S. culture
occurred during the colonial period. Settling in the 13
original colonies, they so established themselves that
succeeding generations were culturally and politically
dominant by the time of the American Revolution.
• In 1790, about 63 percent of the U.S. population could
claim nationality or descent from the British Isles. This
large majority of English-speaking citizens made an
indelible imprint on U.S. culture in language, law, customs,
and values.
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Anglo-Saxon Reactions to
Immigrants during the Late 1700s
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestants were the dominant group in the
United States during the late 1700s.
• Many new immigrants arrived during the immediate postRevolution period, and a broad-based antiforeign attitude
asserted itself.
• Many Federalists (the conservatives of the late 1700s) believed
that the large foreign-born population was the root of all evil in
the United States.
• The dominant English Americans’ beliefs about and actions
toward the newly arriving northern and western European
immigrants set what was to become a familiar pattern in
dominant-minority relations in the U.S.
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Anglo-Saxon
Definition: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Noun: A White Protestant of Anglo-Saxon ancestry [syn: WASP, white Anglo-Saxton
Protestant]
 The history of Anglo-Saxon England must be considered in three stages:

the pagan period from the settlement to the Augustinian mission
 The establishment of England
 The Scandinavian ear.
Roman government bequeathed a legacy of Roman institutions to Britain. The
Romanized native population struggled for a short time to preserve its individuality
and to retain its civilization,
The newcomers, came from three very powerful nations of Germans: namely the
Saxon, The Angles and the Jutes.
Angles--Germanic people whose homeland is located on the central and southern
parts of the Jutland peninsula.
Saxons--Germanic people whose homeland is located in Northern German coastal
plans, and between the rivers of Elbe and Weser
Anglo-Saxon--Name given to distinguish the barbarian settlers of Britain, ‘ The English
Saxon:
Anglo-Saxon Reactions (cont’d)
• Suspicious of those who differed from themselves, the
Anglo Saxons ( dominant group) felt threatened.
• The dominant group’s concerns were that the newcomers’
cultures, religions, political ideologies—their very
essence as people—were so unlike themselves as to make
their blending into the mainstream a virtual impossibility.
• The increasing numbers of non-English speaking
foreigners disturbed the Federalists the most.
• Their ethnocentrism led these early nativists to undermine
the culture and society of the newcomers, a reaction
similar to nativist reactions still heard in the 21st century.
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Examples of Cultural Pluralism :
The Dutch, French, German, and Irish
• Dutch culture and influence persisted for many generations
despite the Anglo-Saxon cultural dominance.
• Dutch settlements were in the New York City area and in
South Carolina.
• The Dutch were self-sufficient and their church, rather than
mainstream secular ways, formed the basis of their social life.
The more orthodox they were, the more they resisted
assimilation. A steady migration into concentrated residential
communities reinforced the old ways.
• Not until 1774 (over 100 years after New York became an
English colony) were Dutch Americans taught English.
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Pluralism (continued)
• Two persistent subcultures of French Americans can be
found in southern Louisiana and in New England.
• The Cajuns in Louisiana were so strong (19th and early 20th
century) that they absorbed other ethnic groups in the area.
Today, they remain a strong presence in Louisiana. Cajun
music and cuisine remain resilient entities as does family
cohesiveness.
• During the 19th century many French Canadians migrated to
the U.S., half of them to New England. The family and the
church serve as strong cohesive units for retaining language
and culture. French parochial schools have a unifying effect
on this community. Today, French Canadians remain a
distinct subgroup in New England.
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Pluralism (continued)
• 18th century German immigrants settled in mid-Atlantic states.
In the the 19th century they predominantly went to the Midwest
and became homesteaders. They preserved their heritage through
schools, churches, newspapers, language, mutual aid societies,
and recreational activities.
• In the cities, they concentrated in Germantown communities.
Here, Germans owned and operated most of the businesses, and
German was the principal spoken language. Fraternal and
mutual aid societies, newspapers, schools, churches, restaurants,
and saloons aided newly arrived Germans in adjusting to their
new country.
• After WWI, many German Americans, showed loyalty to the
U.S. by abandoning their cultural manifestations.
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Pluralism (continued)
• After 1820, the largest number of Irish immigrants came to the
U.S. mostly to crowded coastal cities.
• They created their own mutual welfare system through trade
associations (predecessors of labor unions), fraternal
organizations, and homes for the aged. They were further united
through family, church, and school, as well as social and
recreational activities.
• Irish Catholics made slow but steady progress in entering the
societal mainstream. Antipathy against them lessened as their
command of English, improved economic position, and physical
appearance made them less objectionable to English American
Protestants than the new immigrants arriving from other parts of
Europe.
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Dominant-Minority Patterns Shared by Most
Northern and Western European Immigrants
• All Northern and Western European immigrants faced varying
degrees of hardship in the U.S. To ease the adjustment, they
established churches, schools, newspapers, and fraternal and
mutual aid societies. These helped them gain a measure of
security, but such practices also led often to suspicion,
dissension, and hostility between the dominant and minority
cultures.
• Discrimination and xenophobia occurred when the AngloSaxons (dominant group) viewed the numbers and influence of
the French, Irish, and Germans (minorities) as posing a threat to
the stability of the job market, the community, or the nation
itself.
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Shared Patterns (continued)
• There were nativist movements against the French and Irish
during John Adam’s presidency and against the German & Irish
during the mid-19th century. Through legislative efforts and
violent actions, the dominant group sought to justify
discriminatory behavior as necessary to preserve the character of
the U.S.
• For these northern and western European immigrants, the Civil
War brought an end to the difficulties they had encountered
because of their background. They now became comrades-inarms for a common cause. Then, too, a new threat loomed on
the horizon, as “new” immigrants from southern, central, and
eastern Europe began the next great wave of migration to the
U.S.
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Three Major Perspectives Explaining the Northern
and Western European Immigrant Experience
• Functionalist:
• Northern and western European immigrants were desirable
because they helped to forge a new society out of an
underdeveloped country rich in resources.
• Dysfunction occurred when large numbers entered the
country because they could not be absorbed quickly enough.
They clustered together, culturally distinct from the
dominant English American model, generating prejudice
and discrimination against them.
• In time, education and upward mobility through economic
growth and the civil service allowed both acceptance and
assimilation.
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Three Perspectives (Continued)
• Conflict theory:
• Emphasizes English American dominance and the
economic exploitation of other nationalities.
• Economic exploitation, particularly in the case of the
Irish, brought prosperity to the owners of mines,
factories, and railroads. Much of the industrial
expansion in the 19th century, conflict theorists
maintain, came at the expense of the immigrant
workers who made it possible.
• The resulting conflict did eventually bring about
change, as Irish and Germans organized and gained a
greater share of the nation’s wealth.
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Three Perspectives (continued)
• Interactionist:
• Differing social interpretations, among groups
unfamiliar to each other, set the stage for ethnic
conflict.
• In a country predominantly Protestant throughout
its colonial and early national periods, the arrival
of large numbers of German and Irish Catholic
immigrants disturbed the native population.
• The Protestants interpreted the presence of these
groups as a threat to the “American” way of life.
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Summary
• The dominant Anglo-Saxons’ ethnocentrism and
discrimination toward the newly arriving northern and
western European immigrants set what was to become a
familiar pattern in dominant-minority relations in the United
States.
• All northern and western immigrants faced varying degrees of
hardship in their new country.
• Dutch, French, German, and Irish culture and influence
persisted for many years despite Anglo-Saxon cultural
dominance. In time, all assimilated.
• The functionalist, conflict and interactionist theories provide
explanations for the Northern and Western European
experience.
•
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