How Did The White Italian Americans Lose Their Power

After the Revolutionary War, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (W.A.S.P.s) were in power, they held all the political offices; they owned the most land, they had the most profitable businesses, and the largest factories. They enjoyed being in control of everything and they wanted to keep that control and power. After the Civil War more immigrants were coming to America to their share of the wealth they believed America had. These immigrants now were coming from all over the world, not just Northern Europe and England. Some of the larger groups of immigrants were coming from Germany, Ireland, and Southern Italy. The increase in people different than the W.A.S.P.s caused them to fear that they may lose some of their power. In order to protect their place in America, they used the media to spread stereotypes about these new groups to show other Americans that the …show more content…
The Germans immigrants at first were educated, had some money, stuck to small farm communities and voted for W.A.S.P.s politicians. These are reasons that the W.A.S.P.s did not originally have a severe “negative” view of them. However, this view of the Germans started to change with the temperance movement and about the 1840’s the Germans were added to W.A.S.P.s list of those that were not acceptable. After the civil war German immigrants started to establish their own companies including creating breweries in America. W.A.S.P.s involved with the temperance movement believed that all things related with alcohol were a sin. The W.A.S.P.s felt that drinking of alcohol was immoral and everyone should stop drinking. The Germans however felt differently and were making money in the brewing industry so they were not going to stop. German breweries changed the view the W.A.S.P.s held for the Germans who quickly became lumped in with the other “immoral immigrants”. By the 1900s this stereotype was in full