Wartime Visitors in Hampton Roads

On Sunday morning April 11, 1915 residents of Hampton Roads in Virginia woke to find a familiar stranger in their midst.  Looming in the water near Fort Monroe and in the middle of U.S. fleet of battleships was the huge but graceful form of the German steamship Kronprinz Wilhelm. 

Kronprinz Wilhelm April 11, 1915.  Courtesy of The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, VA

Ordinarily the ship would have appeared as one of the grandest passenger liners of its era, all sleek black and sparkling white. 

Nativism and Gangs of New York

While it is a great movie, pure history Gangs of New York is not.  Sure, some of the event portrayed in the film did happen, like the draft riots in New York City during the Civil War.  Rioters really did focus much of their anger on the city's black population (including burning down an orphanage for black children and lynching black men).  Union troops, fresh from fighting at Gettysburg, really were sent in the stop the riots.  Other events in the movie, however, were made up or were mash-ups of several events, characters, etc.

One element the film did accurately portray, and portray quite well, was the extreme nativist feeling among many white Protestant Americans during the mid-19th century.  This sentiment was in full-on display in Day-Lewis' character, Bill Cummings, a.k.a. "the Butcher."

Nativists, like Bill the Butcher, believed that the only true Americans were white Protestants.  Nativism grew in response to increased immigration during the mid-19th century.  Beginning in the 1830s, the flow of immigrants into the United States increased dramatically.  America, where land was cheap and plentiful and industry was picking up, was seen as a place of opportunity.  The British and Scandinavians came in large numbers, as did Chinese to rapidly developing California.  Political revolution drove hundreds of thousands Germans to America.  By far the largest group, though, were the Irish.  Economic depression and the potato famine sent millions of Irish to the United States, a majority of whom were Catholic.

Not all Americans welcomed these newcomers.  Self-described "natives" resented the flood of alien languages and customs.  Most of all they resented the influx and influence of Catholicism in America.  The spread of militant evangelical Protestantism, spurred by the Second Great Awakening, fueled this anti-Catholic hysteria.  Many white Protestant Americans believed they were engaged in a holy battle against the influence of "popery."  Violence towards Catholics was not out of the question. In 1834, Protestant minister Lyman Beecher (an important figure in the abolitionist movement and father of Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame) gave a fiery sermon that incited a mob attack that burned down a Catholic convent in Massachusetts.

There were also fears that immigrants would form into ethnic voting blocs, so many nativists organized political groups to fight this immigrant influence on American politics.  One group formed in New York City in 1849, the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, grew into a popular third political party known as the American Party.  Even though the party was openly hostile towards immigrants (members were required to pledge to never vote for any foreign-born or Catholic candidate), members were instructed to answer any questions about the party with "I know nothing."  The American Party thus became popularly known as the Know-Nothing Party. 

Know-Nothing political cartoon showing the Catholic Church attempting to control American religious and political life through Irish immigration.

Advertisement announcing the publication of the "American Patriot," a short-lived nativist newspaper.

Despite beginning as an almost fringe group, the Know-Nothings grew into a formidable party that had major influence, especially on the state level, and elected more than forty U.S. congressmen.  Know-Nothings demanded the exclusion of immigrants and Catholics from public office and the extension of the period of naturalization from 5 to 21 years.  Know-Nothings never gained the national political strength to have any of their legislation enacted, and by the mid-1850s nativism as a political issue became overshadowed by the growing crisis over slavery.