tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post5841911204621475849..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: How did White Protestant Hegemony Fail?: James Barrett's _The Irish Way_Paul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-63257955818226321562012-05-18T20:10:58.572-06:002012-05-18T20:10:58.572-06:00Great stuff, Janine. Thanks for the review.Great stuff, Janine. Thanks for the review.Christopherhttp://usreligion.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-59667454124281171852012-05-18T12:12:36.401-06:002012-05-18T12:12:36.401-06:00Hi Janine,
Good point. I can't help but add t...Hi Janine,<br />Good point. I can't help but add the fact that in 1925, Sinclair Lewis described his hero Martin Arrowsmith as “a Typical Pure-bred Anglo-Saxon American, which means that he was a union of German, French, Scotch, Irish, perhaps a little Spanish, conceivably a little of the strains lumped together as ‘Jewish,’ and a great deal of English, which is itself a combination of primitive Briton, Celt, Phoenician, Roman, German, Dane and Swede.” Arrowsmith, p. 6<br />KevinKevin M. Schultzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10983890538804950630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-62703389939672809392012-05-17T21:08:17.739-06:002012-05-17T21:08:17.739-06:00As I hear it, WASP intends ethnicity of a sort, bu...As I hear it, WASP intends ethnicity of a sort, but really signifies a racial (and regional?) class aesthetic. So, for instance, Martha Stewart, a New Jersey-raised Catholic daughter of Polish immigrants who married a Jew, can become a quintessential image of New England WASPiness. One can become a WASP.rjchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12447486006327105309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-63326023835326816852012-05-17T12:01:31.625-06:002012-05-17T12:01:31.625-06:00Kevin, I can't wait to find and read the artic...Kevin, I can't wait to find and read the article, thank you for mentioning it in this context!<br /><br />What I was actually thinking about here, though, is not so much the use of the term as the question of whether the White Anglo Saxon Protestants of the 1900s-1920s are still "an" ethnic group. So many of the midwestern white Protestants I know are a mixture of German, Scandinavian, Dutch and other Protestant heritages of Europe. Somehow,somewhere, I've been thinking, Anglo- Protestantism must have been a flexible ethnic identity. For, today so many of these families have intermarried and are universally categorized (perhaps incorrectly) as WASPs.Janine Giordano Drakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743145462085629472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-38021019222400127982012-05-17T11:59:01.521-06:002012-05-17T11:59:01.521-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Janine Giordano Drakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743145462085629472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-41416993117133190632012-05-17T10:53:37.415-06:002012-05-17T10:53:37.415-06:00terrific review!!! thanks for postingterrific review!!! thanks for postingAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-62035708286822782182012-05-17T10:52:11.364-06:002012-05-17T10:52:11.364-06:00Great review, Janine. Thanks for turning me onto ...Great review, Janine. Thanks for turning me onto this book. <br /><br />Also, and at risk of tooting my own horn, I have written on the development of the term "WASP," how it came to be, what its antecedents were, and where I think it should go. The piece appeared in _Historically Speaking_ in Nov. 2010 and is unfortunately buried in Project Muse. (If you don't have access, I'll send you a pdf.) The piece has the cumbersome title, "The WASPish Hetero-Patriarchy," which brings in heterosexuality and patriarchy as other defining traits of power in America, fitting in with the historical progress of a term that focused on "Anglo-Saxon" in the early 20th century in response to immigration, then added Protestant during the midcentury, Tri-Faith years, then added "white" in the 1950s and early 1960s in response to the civil rights movement. So WASP isn't unchanging and timeless, but has a history like the rest of us!<br />KevinKevin M. Schultzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10983890538804950630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-84736205464855381392012-05-17T08:33:56.632-06:002012-05-17T08:33:56.632-06:00Thanks for this post, Janine! I grew up in the Bos...Thanks for this post, Janine! I grew up in the Boston area, and it was not until I was in college that I learned that the US was predominantly Protestant. In fact, it wasn't until graduate school (and I know this reflects poorly on me) that I learned just HOW predominantly protestant. Yet I grew up in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, which is where all the historical narratives I was reading traced American Protestantism (assumed as American Religion in toto, it seemed) origins to! <br /><br />My own ancestry is a mix of Irish Catholic immigrants and long, long standing WASPs. I grew up Episcopalian, thinking most Americans were Catholic and having lots of Jewish friends. The strong focus on Protestant history as the center of American religious history in our fieldhas always felt, well, weird to me, even if it is "correct" on some important numerical and hegemonic levels. <br /><br />I agree with your point about WASP as a term that seems to assume an unchanging timelessness, a unified front whose boundaries are clear. That almost gives WASPs too much power, the assumption that they are a natural category while everybody else is struggling with identity, social and cultural boundaries, etc. Yet I also agree that it's an important ethnic category, if approached critically. It can be used as a self-identifier and as to signify a particular group idea by outsiders who certainly have recognized the force and influence that WASPs have had in defining power in America, especially in the Northeast.rjchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12447486006327105309noreply@blogger.com