HIST 361 History of Anti-Catholicism and Nativism in the United States
This course examines the roles that anti-Catholicism and nativism against Catholic immigrants played throughout American history. The material begins with the ethno-religious tensions in Europe that predated colonization in the Americas and ends with the current state of xenophobia and religious intolerance that still exists in the United States today that parallels the anti-Catholic sentiment that pervaded American culture for much of the country's existence. The course will highlight events, such as the Philadelphia riots of the 1840s and the presidential election of 1928, as well major anti-Catholic and nativist social and political movements such as the Know Nothings, the American Protective Association, and the Second Ku Klux Klan, among others. It will also focus in on the ways in which the Catholic community pushed back against these groups and movements. The class will look at the intersections of race, class, and gender when exploring the history of anti-Catholic nativism in America, as well as compare anti-Catholic sentiment to other forms of discrimination and prejudice that coexisted with anti-Catholicism and have largely outlived it, such as racism, nationalism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia, to name a few. The course is designed to investigate the roots, complexities, evolution, and effects of anti-Catholicism in the United States to help us draw connections to the past to understand the world in which we live today.