White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
[5][6] Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s,[7][8][9] the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, and philanthropy.[18]An earlier usage appeared in the African-American newspaper The New York Amsterdam News in 1948, when author Stetson Kennedy wrote: 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 Gallup polling data from 1976, Kit and Frederica Konolige wrote in their 1978 book The Power of Their Glory, "As befits a church that belongs to the worldwide Anglican Communion, Episcopalianism has the United Kingdom to thank for the ancestors of fully 49 percent of its members.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.In December 1918, after victory in the World War, President Woodrow Wilson told a British official in London: "You must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers; we are neither.Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the United States....There are only two things which can establish and maintain closer relations between your country and mine: they are community of ideals and of interests.Irish-American humorist Finley Peter Dunne popularized the ridicule of "Anglo-Saxons", even calling President Theodore Roosevelt one.Variations include the German Angelsachsen,[31] French le modèle anglo-saxon,[32] Spanish anglosajón,[33] Dutch Angelsaksisch model [nl] and Italian Paesi anglosassoni [it].[17][39] A 1969 Time article stated, "purists like to confine Wasps to descendants of the British Isles; less exacting analysts are willing to throw in Scandinavians, Netherlanders and Germans.[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.While the more traditionalist segments of society continued to maintain their Anglo-Protestant ethnocultural traditions, universalism and cosmopolitanism started gaining favor among the elites.[65][2][3] Citing Gallup polling data from 1976, Kit and Frederica Konolige wrote in their 1978 book The Power of Their Glory, "As befits a church that belongs to the worldwide Anglican Communion, Episcopalianism has the United Kingdom to thank for the ancestors of fully 49 percent of its members.[72] 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.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.[91][92]Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest—mostly immigrants and their descendants from Ireland and Germany as well as southern and eastern Europe—came to dominate Democratic Party politics in big cities through the ward boss system.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.[95] The GI Bill brought higher education to new ethnic arrivals, who found middle class jobs in the postwar economic expansion.[10] 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."[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.[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.[108][109][110] Inderjeet Parmar and Mark Ledwidge argue that Obama pursued a typically WASP-inspired foreign policy of liberal internationalism.[117][118] 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.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)."[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?"
WASP (disambiguation)Trinity ChurchManhattanWall StreetProtestantUnited StatessociologicalProtestant AmericansBritishNorthwestern Europeandominant cultureupper-classMainline ProtestantBritish descentThe EstablishmentphilanthropyAustraliaNew ZealandCanadaRandom House Unabridged DictionaryEnglish ancestryNorthern EuropeanNorman conquestAndrew HackerEpiscopalianThe New York Amsterdam NewsStetson KennedyUniversity of PennsylvaniaE. Digby BaltzellGallupAnglican CommunionEpiscopalAnglicanPresbyterianUnited MethodistCongregationalistIrish AmericansAnglosphereSpecial RelationshipScottish NationalistFinley Peter DunneTheodore RooseveltTom HaydenJohn Fordlace-curtain IrishAnglo-CelticCharles de GaulleAnglo-Saxonism in the 19th centuryJosiah StrongEnglish-AmericanDutch AmericansScottish AmericansWelsh AmericansGerman AmericansUlster Scots or "Scotch-Irish" AmericansScandinavian AmericansBritish IslesFrench HuguenotGermanicwealthy and affluent American familiesBoston BrahminFirst Families of VirginiaOld PhiladelphiansTidewaterLowcountrygentryold moneyEnlightenmentPan-European identityHarvard CollegeuniversitiesHarvardPrincetonRutgersColumbiaDartmouthPennsylvaniaBoston UniversityWilliamsBowdoinMiddleburyAmherstprep schoolsIvy LeagueLittle IviesSeven Sisterslegacy preferenceadvanced degreesEpiscopal ChurchPresbyterian ChurchHarriet ZuckermanNobel PrizeChemistryMedicinePhysicsProtestantism in the United StatesWashington National CathedralWashington, D.C.church membershipChristianityUnited KingdomRepublicansDemocraticEpiscopaliansPresbyterianswealthiest and most affluent American familiesVanderbiltsAstorsRockefellersDu PontsRooseveltsForbesMellonsWhitneysMorgansPew Research CenterBeacon Hill, BostonUpper East SideBoston BrahminsAmerican upper classHarvard University1967 Detroit riotGrosse PointeChicago metropolitan areaNorth Shore suburbsBarrington