White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

In the

Naming and definition

In the early Middle Ages Anglian and Saxon kingdoms were established over most of England, ('land of the Angles'). After the

These 'old' Americans possess, for the most part, some common characteristics. First of all, they are 'WASPs'—in the cocktail party jargon of the sociologists. That is, they are wealthy, they are Anglo-Saxon in origin, and they are Protestants (and disproportionately Episcopalian).^[18]

An earlier usage appeared in the African-American newspaper

In America, we find the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) ganging up to take their frustrations out on whatever minority group happens to be handy — whether Negro, Catholic, Jewish, Japanese or whatnot.[19]

The term was later popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell, himself a WASP, in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. Baltzell stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of the group by arguing that "There is a crisis in American leadership in the middle of the twentieth century that is partly due, I think, to the declining authority of an establishment which is now based on an increasingly castelike White-Anglo Saxon-Protestant (WASP) upper class."^[20]

Citing

Protestantism had not yet split into two mutually hostile camps – the liberals and fundamentalists. Of great importance, evangelical Protestantism still dominated the cultural scene. American values bore the stamp of this Anglo-Saxon Protestant ascendancy. The political, cultural, religious, and intellectual leaders of the nation were largely of a Northern European Protestant stock, and they propagated public morals compatible with their background.[23]

Before WASP came into use in the 1960s, the term Anglo-Saxon served some of the same purposes. Like the newer term WASP, the older term Anglo-Saxon was used derisively by writers hostile to an informal alliance between Britain and the U.S. The negative connotation was especially common among

In France, Anglo-Saxon refers to the combined impact of Britain and the United States on European affairs. Charles de Gaulle repeatedly sought to "rid France of Anglo-Saxon influence".^[29] The term is used with more nuance in discussions by French writers on French decline, especially as an alternative model to which France should aspire, how France should adjust to its two most prominent global competitors, and how it should deal with social and economic modernization.^[30]

Outside of Anglophone countries, the term Anglo-Saxon and its translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Variations include the German Angelsachsen,^[31] French le modèle anglo-saxon,^[32] Spanish anglosajón,^[33] Dutch Angelsaksisch model [nl] and Italian Paesi anglosassoni [it].

Anglo-Saxonism in the 19th century

In the nineteenth century, Anglo-Saxons was often used as a synonym for all people of English descent and sometimes more generally, for all the English-speaking peoples of the world. It was often used in implying superiority, much to the annoyance of outsiders. For example, American clergyman Josiah Strong boasted in 1890:

In 1700 this race numbered less than 6,000,000 souls. In 1800, Anglo-Saxons (I use the term somewhat broadly to include all English-speaking peoples) had increased to about 20,500,000, and now, in 1890, they number more than 120,000,000.^[34]

In 1893, Strong envisioned a future "new era" of triumphant Anglo-Saxonism:

Is it not reasonable to believe that this race is destined to dispossess many weaker ones, assimilate others, and mould the remainder until... it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind?^[35]

Other European ethnicities

The popular and sociological usage of the term WASP has sometimes expanded to include not just "Anglo-Saxon" or

The term WASP has many meanings. In sociology it reflects that segment of the U.S. population that founded the nation and traced their heritages to...Northwestern Europe. The term...has become more inclusive. To many people, WASP now includes most 'white' people who are not ... members of any minority group.[42]^{[page needed]}

Apart from Protestant English, British, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian Americans, other ethnic groups frequently included under the label WASP include Americans of

Historically, the early Anglo-Protestant settlers in the seventeenth century were the most successful group, culturally, economically, and politically, and they maintained their dominance till the early twentieth century.[45] Numbers of the most wealthy and affluent American families, such as Boston Brahmin, First Families of Virginia, Old Philadelphians,^[46] Tidewater, and Lowcountry Gentry or old money, were WASPs.^[45] Commitment to the ideals of the Enlightenment meant that they sought to assimilate newcomers from outside of the British Isles, but few were interested in adopting a Pan-European identity for the nation, much less turning it into a global melting pot. However, in the early 1900s, liberal progressives and modernists began promoting more inclusive ideals for what the national identity of the United States should be. While the more traditionalist segments of society continued to maintain their Anglo-Protestant ethnocultural traditions, universalism and cosmopolitanism started gaining favor among the elites. These ideals became institutionalized after the Second World War, and ethnic minorities started moving towards institutional parity with the once dominant Anglo-Protestants.^[45]

Education

Some of the first colleges and

The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant upper class has largely held

According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Episcopalians ranked as the third wealthiest religious group in the United States, with 35% of Episcopalians living in households with incomes of at least $100,000.^[71] Presbyterians ranked as the fourth most financially successful religious group in the United States, with 32% of Presbyterians living in households with incomes of at least $100,000.^[72]

Location

The Boston Brahmins, who were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites, were often associated with the American upper class, Harvard University,^[76] and the Episcopal Church.^[77][78]

Like other sociological groups, WASPs tend to concentrate within close proximity of each other. These areas are often exclusive and associated with top schools, high incomes, well-established church communities, and high real-estate values.^{[79][failed verification]} For example, in the Detroit area, WASPs predominantly possessed the wealth that came from the new automotive industry. After the 1967 Detroit riot, they tended to congregate in the Grosse Pointe suburbs. In the Chicago metropolitan area, white Protestants primarily reside in the North Shore suburbs, the Barrington area in the northwest suburbs, and in Oak Park and DuPage County in the western suburbs.^[80] Traditionally, the Upper East Side in Manhattan has been dominated by wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Protestant families.^[74][75]

Social values

America's social elite was a small, closed group. The leadership was well-known to the readers of newspaper society pages, but in larger cities it was hard to remember everyone, or to keep track of the new debutantes and marriages.^[84] The solution was the Social Register, which listed the names and addresses of about 1 percent of the population. Most were WASPs, and they included families who mingled at the same private clubs, attended the right teas and cotillions, worshipped together at prestige churches, funded the proper charities, lived in exclusive neighborhoods, and sent their daughters to finishing schools^[85] and their sons away to prep schools.^{[86][page needed]} In the heyday of WASP dominance, the Social Register delineated high society. According to The New York Times, its influence had faded by the late 20th century:

Once, the Social Register was a juggernaut in New York social circles... Nowadays, however, with the waning of the WASP elite as a social and political force, the register's role as an arbiter of who counts and who doesn't is almost an anachronism. In Manhattan, where charity galas are at the center of the social season, the organizing committees are studded with luminaries from publishing, Hollywood and Wall Street and family lineage is almost irrelevant.^[87]

Fashion

In 2007, The New York Times reported that there was a rising interest in the WASP culture.^[88] In their review of Susanna Salk's A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style, they stated that Salk "is serious about defending the virtues of WASP values, and their contribution to American culture."^[88]

By the 1980s, brands such as Lacoste and Ralph Lauren and their logos became associated with the preppy fashion style which was associated with WASP culture.^[89]

Social and political influence

The term WASP became associated with an upper class in the United States due to over-representation of WASPs in the upper echelons of society. Until the mid–20th century, industries such as banks, insurance, railroads, utilities, and manufacturing were dominated by WASPs.^[90]

The Founding Fathers of the United States were mostly educated, well-to-do, of British ancestry, and Protestants. According to a study of the biographies of signers of the Declaration of Independence by Caroline Robbins:

The Signers came for the most part from an educated elite, were residents of older settlements, and belonged with a few exceptions to a moderately well-to-do class representing only a fraction of the population. Native or born overseas, they were of British stock and of the Protestant faith.^[91][92]

Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest—mostly immigrants and their descendants from

Political scientist Eric Kaufmann argues that "the 1920s marked the high tide of WASP control".^[93] In 1965, Canadian sociologist John Porter, in The Vertical Mosaic, argued that British origins were disproportionately represented in the higher echelons of Canadian class, income, political power, the clergy, the media, etc. However, more recently, Canadian scholars have traced the decline of the WASP elite.^[12]

Post–World War II

According to Ralph E. Pyle:

A number of analysts have suggested that WASP dominance of the institutional order has become a thing of the past. The accepted wisdom is that after World War II, the selection of individuals for leadership positions was increasingly based on factors such as motivation and training rather than ethnicity and social lineage.^[90]

Many reasons have been given for the decline of WASP power, and books have been written detailing it.

After 1945, Catholics and Jews made strong inroads in getting jobs in the federal civil service, which was once dominated by those from Protestant backgrounds, especially the Department of State. Georgetown University, a Catholic school, made a systematic effort to place graduates in diplomatic career tracks. By the 1990s, there were "roughly the same proportion of WASPs, Catholics, and Jews at the elite levels of the federal civil service, and a greater proportion of Jewish and Catholic elites among corporate lawyers."^[96] The political scientist Theodore P. Wright Jr., argues that while the Anglo ethnicity of the U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush is evidence for the continued cultural dominance of WASPs, assimilation and social mobility, along with the ambiguity of the term, has led the WASP class to survive only by "incorporating other groups [so] that it is no longer the same group" that existed in the mid-20th century.^[36]

Very few Jewish lawyers were hired by White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ("WASP") upscale white-shoe law firms, but they started their own. The WASP dominance in law ended when a number of major Jewish law firms attained elite status in dealing with top-ranked corporations. Most white-shoe firms also excluded Roman Catholics.^{[97][98][99][100]} As late as 1950 there was not a single large Jewish law firm in New York City. However, by 1965 six of the 20 largest firms were Jewish; by 1980 four of the ten largest were Jewish.^[101]

Two famous confrontations signifying a decline in WASP dominance were the 1952 Senate election in Massachusetts, in which John F. Kennedy, a Catholic of Irish descent, defeated WASP Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.,^[102] and the 1964 challenge by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—an Episcopalian^[103] who had solid WASP credentials through his mother, but whose father was Jewish, and was seen by some as part of the Jewish community^[104]—to Nelson Rockefeller and the Eastern Republican establishment,^[105] which led to the liberal Rockefeller Republican wing of the party being marginalized by the 1980s, overwhelmed by the dominance of Southern and Western conservatives.^[106] However, asking "Is the WASP leader a dying breed?", journalist Nina Strochlic in 2012 pointed to eleven WASP top politicians, ending with Republicans George H. W. Bush, elected in 1988, his son George W. Bush, elected in 2000 and 2004, and John McCain, who was nominated but defeated in 2008.^[107] Mary Kenny argues that Barack Obama, although famous as the first Black president, exemplifies highly controlled "unemotional delivery" and "rational detachment" characteristic of WASP personality traits. Indeed, he attended upper class schools such as Columbia and Harvard, and was raised by his WASP mother Ann Dunham and the Dunham grandparents in a family that dates to Jonathan Singletary Dunham, born in Massachusetts in 1640.^{[108][109][110]} Inderjeet Parmar and Mark Ledwidge argue that Obama pursued a typically WASP-inspired foreign policy of liberal internationalism.^[111]

In the 1970s, a Fortune magazine study found one-in-five of the country's largest businesses and one-in-three of its largest banks was run by an Episcopalian.^[67] More recent studies indicate a still-disproportionate, though somewhat reduced, influence of WASPs among economic elites.^[90]

The reversal of WASP fortune was exemplified by the Supreme Court. Historically, the great majority of its justices were of WASP heritage. The exceptions included seven Catholics and two Jews.^[112] Since the 1960s, an increasing number of non-WASP justices have been appointed to the Court.^[113][114] From 2010 to 2017, the Court had no Protestant members, until the appointment of Neil Gorsuch in 2017.^[115]

The

A significant shift of American economic activity toward the Sun Belt during the latter part of the 20th century and an increasingly globalized economy have also contributed to the decline in power held by Northeastern WASPs. James D. Davidson et al. argued in 1995 that while WASPs were no longer solitary among the American elite, members of the Patrician class remained markedly prevalent within the current power structure.^[22]

Other analysts have argued that the extent of the decrease in WASP dominance has been overstated. In response to increasing claims of fading WASP dominance, Davidson, using data on American elites in political and economic spheres, concluded in 1994 that, while the WASP and Protestant establishment had lost some of its earlier prominence, WASPs and Protestants were still vastly overrepresented among America's elite.^[36][119]

In August 2012 the New York Times, reviewed the religion of the fifteen top national leaders: the presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the Supreme Court justices, the House Speaker, and the Senate majority leader. There were nine Catholics (six justices, both vice-presidential candidates, and the Speaker), three Jews (all from the Supreme Court), two Mormons (including the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney) and one African-American Protestant (incumbent President Barack Obama). There were no white Protestants.^[120]

Hostile epithet

Sociologist

In the 21st century, WASP is often applied as a derogatory label to those with social privilege who are perceived to be snobbish and exclusive, such as being members of restrictive private social clubs.^[90] Kevin M. Schultz stated in 2010 that WASP is "a much-maligned class identity....Today, it signifies an elitist snoot."^[123] A number of popular jokes ridicule those thought to fit the stereotype.^[124]

Occasionally, a writer praises the WASP contribution, as conservative historian Richard Brookhiser did in 1991, when he said the "uptight, bland, and elitist" stereotype obscures the "classic WASP ideals of industry, public service, family duty, and conscience to revitalize the nation."^[125] Likewise, conservative writer Joseph Epstein praised WASP history in 2013 and asked, "Are we really better off with a country run by the self-involved, over-schooled products of modern meritocracy?" He deplores how the WASP element lost its self-confidence and came under attack as "The Establishment".^[126]

In media

American films, including Annie Hall and Meet the Parents, have used the conflicts between WASP families and urban Jewish families for comedic effect.^[127]

The 1939 Broadway play Arsenic and Old Lace, later adapted into a Hollywood film released in 1944, ridiculed the old American elite. The play and film depict "old-stock British Americans" a decade before they were tagged as WASPS.^[128]

The playwright A. R. Gurney (1930–2017), himself of WASP heritage, has written a series of plays that have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat".^[129] Gurney told the Washington Post in 1982:

WASPs do have a culture – traditions, idiosyncrasies, quirks, particular signals and totems we pass on to one another. But the WASP culture, or at least that aspect of the culture I talk about, is enough in the past so that we can now look at it with some objectivity, smile at it, and even appreciate some of its values. There was a closeness of family, a commitment to duty, to stoic responsibility, which I think we have to say weren't entirely bad.^[130]

In Gurney's play The Cocktail Hour (1988), a lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter is true."^[129]

Filmmaker Whit Stillman, whose godfather was E. Digby Baltzell, has made films dealing primarily with WASP characters and subjects. Stillman has been called the "WASP Woody Allen".^[131] His debut 1990 film Metropolitan tells the story of a group of college-age Manhattan socialites during débutante season. A recurring theme of the film is the declining power of the old Protestant élite.^[132]

See also

References

Further reading

• Aldrich, Nelson, IV. "The upper class, up for grabs," Wilson Quarterly (1993), 18#3 pp 65–72.
• Aldrich, Nelson, IV. Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth (1997)
• Allen, Irving (1990). Unkind words: ethnic labeling from Redskin to WASP. New York: Bergin & Garvey Distributed to the trade by National Book Network.
  OCLC 21152778
  .
• Baltzell, E. Digby (1958). Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a New Upper Class.
• Baltzell, E. Digby (1987). The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & caste in America. Yale UP.
• Beckert, Sven (2003). The monied metropolis: New York City and the consolidation of the American bourgeoisie, 1850–1896.
• Beran, Michael Knox. "Five Best: Books on WASPs" Wall Street Journal July 9, 2021 online; 3 novels and 2 autobiographies
• Beran, Michael Knox. WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy (Pegasus Books, 2021) excerpt
• Brooks, David (2010). Bobos in paradise: The new upper class and how they got there.
• Burt, Nathaniel (1999). The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy.
• Davis, Donald F. (1982). "The Price of Conspicuous Production: The Detroit Elite and the Automobile Industry, 1900–1933". Journal of Social History. 16 (1): 21–46.
  JSTOR 3786880
  .
• Farnum, Richard (1990). "Prestige in the Ivy League: Democratization and discrimination at Penn and Columbia, 1890-1970". In W. Kingston, Paul; S. Lewis, Lionel (eds.). The high-status track: Studies of elite schools and stratification.
• Foulkes, Nick (2008). High society : the history of America's upper class. New York, NY: Assouline.
  OCLC 299582900
  .
• Fraser, Steve (2005). Ruling America : a history of wealth and power in a democracy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
  OCLC 434595715
  .
• Friend, Tad (2009). Cheerful money : me, my family, and the last days of WASP splendor. New York: Little, Brown and Co.
  OCLC 310097122
  .
• Fussell, Paul (1992). Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. Simon and Schuster.
  OCLC 27141367
  .
• Ghent, Jocelyn Maynard; Jaher, Frederic Cople (1976). "The Chicago Business Elite: 1830–1930. A Collective Biography". Business History Review. 50 (3): 288–328.
  S2CID 144151969
  .
• Hood, Clifton (2016). In Pursuit of Privilege: A History of New York City's Upper Class and the Making of a Metropolis.
• Ingham, John N. (1978). The Iron Barons: A Social Analysis of an American Urban Elite, 1874–1965.
• Jaher, Frederic Cople, ed. (1973). The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History.
• Jaher, Frederick Cople (1982). The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Chicago, Charleston, and Los Angeles.
• Jensen, Richard (1973). "Family, Career, and Reform: Women Leaders of the Progressive Era". In Michael Gordon (ed.). The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective. pp. 267–80.
• Lee, Erika. America for Americans a history of xenophobia in the United States (2019) excerpt
• Kaufmann, Eric P. (2004). The rise and fall of Anglo-America. Harvard University Press.
• King, Florence (1977). WASP, Where is Thy Sting?.
• Konolige, Kit and Frederica (1978). The Power of Their Glory: America's Ruling Class: The Episcopalians. New York: Wyden Books.
  ISBN 0-88326-155-3
  .
• The Rich and the Super-Rich
  : A Study in the Power of Money Today.
• McConachie, Bruce A. (1988). "New York operagoing, 1825–50: creating an elite social ritual". American Music. 6 (2): 181–192.
  JSTOR 3051548
  .
• Maggor, Noam (2017). Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth and Populism in America's First Gilded Age. Harvard UP.
• Marty, Martin E. "Ethnicity: The Skeleton of Religion in America." Church History 41#1 (1972), pp. 5–21. online, emphasis on WASP role
• Ostrander, Susan A. (1986). Women of the Upper Class.
  ISBN 978-0-87722-475-4
  .
• Parmar, Inderjeet, and Mark Ledwidge. "...'a foundation-hatched black': Obama, the U.S. establishment, and foreign policy." International Politics 54.3 (2017): 373-388 online.
• Phillips, Kevin (2002). Wealth and democracy : a political history of the American rich. New York: Broadway Books.
  OCLC 48375666
  .
• Pyle, Ralph E. (1996). Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment. Praeger.
  ISBN 978-0-2759-5487-1
  .
• Salk, Susanna (2007). A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style.
• Schatz, Ronald W. "The Barons of Middletown and the Decline of the North-Eastern Anglo-Protestant Elite." Past & Present, no. 219, (2013), pp. 165–200. online loss of control of Middletown, Connecticut in late 1930s.
• Schrag, Peter. (1970). The Decline of the WASP. NY: Simon and Schuster.
• Story, Ronald (1980). The forging of an aristocracy: Harvard & the Boston upper class, 1800–1870.
• Synnott, Marcia (2010). The half-opened door: Discrimination and admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970.
• Wald, Eli. "The rise and fall of the WASP and Jewish law firms." Stanford Law Review 60 (2007): 1803–1866. online
• Williams, Peter W. (2016). Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression.
• "Yankees". Encyclopedia of Chicago.

External links

Look up Wikisaurus:white person in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Social Register Locater compiles all the major cities into one list
• 35 Social Registers from major US cities early 20th century; online free