Introduction

On June 17, 2015, neo-Confederate white supremacist Dylan Roof entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, SC and murdered nine black parishioners.  The event, though sadly not unusual in the history of the United States, sparked immediate and profound national outrage.  In the aftermath, symbols of the Confederacy began to be removed and Americans struggled to come to grips with centuries of white supremacy terrorism.  A product of that struggle was the #CharlestonSyllabus (http://aaihs.org/resources/charlestonsyllabus/), compiled by the African American Intellectual History Society.  Scholars from around the world contributed to the list of the most important primary and secondary sources to understand what had happened in Charleston and what it meant for American society.

Since the summer of 2015, other issues have arisen to anger Americans and ignite impassioned debate, namely the role of newly-arrived immigrants in American society.  Syrians fleeing devastation and civil war in their home country; Central Americans yearning for jobs, security, and a better life – their arrival in the United States triggered alarm and fear among many Americans.  Politicians stoked the flames of hate, anger, and hostility, eager to ride this issue into high office.  Some politicos grabbed headlines by making wild accusations about foreign-born Americans and the dangers of the Islamic faith, suggesting national religious registries, internet censorship, and racial quotas.

Nativism – the fear of immigrants and the desire to deny them rights – has long been part of United States history.  Manifesting most famously (and effectively) in the Know Nothings of the 1850s, Chinese Exclusionists of the 1880s, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and Japanese Internment in the 1940s, nativism has proven a powerful force in American politics.  The books, essays, articles, and primary sources below provide a comprehensive road-map for understanding American nativism and immigration.

#NativismSyllabus was conceived and compiled by Dr. Michael Landis (@DrMichaelLandis), with the help of Margie Maxfield.  The hashtag started trending on December 8, 2015, in response to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump\’s call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.

Ms. Margie Maxfield, MSIS, is the Systems Librarian at Tarleton State University.

Dr. Michael Todd Landis is an Assistant Professor of History at Tarleton State University, board member of Historians Against Slavery (http://www.historiansagainstslavery.org/main/), and author of Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis (http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100250560&fa=author&person_id=5105).

• Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points : the 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world\’s most notorious slum. New York: Free Press, 2001. 

• Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and slavery : the northern Know Nothings and the politics of the 1850\’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

• Baker, Jean H. Ambivalent Americans : the Know-Nothing Party in Maryland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

• Baker, Kelly. Gospel according to the Klan : the KKK\’s appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2011.

• Baynton, Douglas C. Defectives in the land : disability and immigration in the age of eugenics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

• Bennett, David H. The party of fear : from nativist movements to the New Right in American history. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

• Billington, Ray A. The Protestant crusade 1800-1860 : a study of the origins of American nativism. 3th ed. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964.

• Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan : racism and gender in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

• Canaday, Margot. The straight state : sexuality and citizenship in twentieth-century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.

• Fairchild, Amy L. Science at the borders : immigrant medical inspection and the shaping of the modern industrial labor force. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

• Gerstle, Gary. American crucible : race and nation in the twentieth century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

• Gienapp, William E. The origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

• Hernandez, Kelly L. Migra ! : a history of the U.S. border patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

• Higham, John. Strangers in the land : patterns of American nativism, 1860-1925. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

• Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish became White. New York: Routledge, 1995.

• Kraut, Alan M. Silent travelers : germs, genes, and the \”immigrant menace\”. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

• Love, Eric Tyrone Lowery. Race over empire : racism and U.S. imperialism, 1865-1900. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

• Motomura, Hiroshi. Americans in waiting : the lost story of immigration and citizenship in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

• Ngai, Mae M. Impossible subjects : illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

• O\’Leary, Cecilia E. To die for : the paradox of American patriotism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

• Rauchway, Eric. Murdering McKinley : the making of Theodore Roosevelt\’s America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

• Salyer, Lucy E. Laws Harsh as Tigers : Chinese immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

• Samito, Christian G. Becoming American under fire : Irish Americans, African Americans, and the politics of citizenship during the Civil War era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.

• Takaki, Ronald T. A different mirror : a history of multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1993.

• Takaki, Ronald T. Iron cages : race and culture in 19th-century America. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

• Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing lines : the politics of immigration control in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.

• Zimmer, Kenyon. Immigrants against the state : Yiddish and Italian anarchism in America. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Essays/ Articles:

• Baker, David L. \”The Joyce Family Murders: Justice and Politics in Know-Nothing Louisville.\” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 103, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 357-82.

• Baynton, Douglas C. \”Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History.\” In The new disability history : American perspectives, edited by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, 33-57. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

• Cheatham, Mark R. \”\”I shall persevere in the cause of truth\”: Andrew Jackson Donelson and the election of 1856.\” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 62, no. 3 (September 2003): 218-37.

• Curley, Augustine J. \”The 1854 Attack on Saint Mary\’s Church, Newark: A Typical Know-nothing Incident.\” American Benedictine Review 61, no. 4 (December 2010): 387-406.

• Dash, Mark. \”Notes and Documents: New Light on the Dark Lantern: The Initiation Rites and Ceremonies of a Know-Nothing Lodge in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.\” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 127, no. 1 (January 2003): 89-100.

• Endres, David J. \”Know-Nothings, Nationhood, and the Nuncio: Reassessing the Visit of Archbishop Bedini.\” U.S. Catholic Historian 21, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 1-16.

• Frederick, Jeff. \”Unintended Consequences: The Rise and Fall of the Know-Nothing Party in Alabama.\” Alabama Review 55, no. 1 (January 2002): 3-34.

• Gonzales, Phillip B. \”Mexican party, American party, Democratic party: Establishing the American political party in New Mexico,1848-1853.\” New Mexico Historical Review 88, no. 3 (June 2013): 253-85.

• Harper, Leslie A. \”Lethal Language: The Rhetoric of George Prentice and Louisville\’s Bloody Monday.\” Ohio Valley History11, no. 3 (2011): 24-43.

• Levine, Bruce. \”Conservatism, Nativism, and Slavery: Thomas R. Whitney and the Origins of the Know-Nothing Party.\” The Journal of American History 88, no. 2 (September 2001): 455-88.

• Melton, Tracy M. \”Research Notes & Maryland Miscellany The Case of the Catholic Know-Nothings.\” Maryland Historical Magazine 109, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 351-71.

• Muccino, Eileen. \”Irish Filibusters and Know Nothings in Cincinnati.\” Ohio Valley History 10, no. 3 (2010): 3-26.

• Pinsker, Matthew. \”Not Always Such a Whig: Abraham Lincoln\’s Partisan Realignment in the 1850s.\” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 29, no. 2 (July 2008): 26-46.

• Ritter, Luke. \”The St. Louis Know-Nothing Riot of 1854.\” Gateway 2012, no. 32 (2012): 26-35.

• Schiff, Stacy. \”Anger: An American History.\” The New York Times, December 20, 2015, sec. SR, p. 5.

• Smith, Miles. \”\’Rode out of the Democratic party as a heretic\’: The political transformation of Sam Houston and the Southern Whig legacy, 1848-1861.\” East Texas Historical Journal 52, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 64-83.

• Tinkler, Robert. \”Henry Wilson and the Coming of the Civil War.\” Journal of the Early Republic 28, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 663-69.

Primary Sources:

• Whitney, Thomas R. A defence of the American policy, as opposed to the encroachments of foreign influence and especially to the interference of the papacy in the political interests and affairs of the United States. New York: De Witt & Davenport, 1856.