Americanization

Early Years

Relative cultural homogeneity during the colonial and early republic period meant that concepts of inclusion into public culture—particularly as enshrined in the law—were generally defined by European males, usually from wealthy families, who were overwhelmingly Protestant. The “blue” and Sunday closing laws, religious restrictions on voting and eligibility for election, prosecutions for blasphemy, and Bible reading in school were common reflections of the synthesis of Protestantism and U.S. public society. Some Catholic men did participate in the larger political culture—for instance, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence—but by the American Revolution even the historically Catholic colony of Maryland was under Protestant political control.

Free African Americans, women, Jews, and the working classes were marginalized politically and, thus, rendered incapable of contributing to the larger cultural debates in other than occasional or indirect ways. Enslaved African Americans and Native Americans residing on reservations were specifically excluded by law. This meant that, for the most part, although all of these groups may have been the focus of public debate about the ethics of slavery or the rights of women, for example, they were never mistaken for fully vested members of U.S. society.

This is not to suggest that there was universal agreement within the Euro-American Protestant [Page 63]world. Some scholars of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment have suggested that its religious clauses were crafted specifically to protect the new federal government from serious and continuing denominational suspicions that dominated specific colonies as they became states. Given the relative homogeneity of the power elite, religion was the most tangible cultural distinction; a federal guarantee permitting the continuation of state religious establishments while disestablishing the federal government meant that, for example, Massachusetts Congregationalists and Virginia Episcopalians could reach a consensus on the new national charter.

The Impact of Immigration

By the 1840s, however, significant changes introduced challenges to the perceived Protestant monopoly on the “U.S.” identity. Roman Catholicism—established on the West Coast nearly a century before British Protestantism settled the East—became the largest single religious identity in the United States when the Methodists split North-and-South over slavery. In addition, increased immigration from Ireland and Germany meant an increased number of Roman Catholics in the United States. By the end of the 19th century, continued Catholic immigration coupled with a relative explosion in Jewish immigration (from Central and Eastern Europe), as well as the beginnings of Eastern Orthodox immigration from the Baltic and Mediterranean states, meant that the religious complexion of the country was changing.

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