White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

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White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal term, sometimes derogatory or disparaging,[1] for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of English Protestant ancestry. The term implies the group controls disproportionate social and financial power.[2] The term WASP does not describe every Protestant of English background, but rather a small restricted group whose family wealth and elite connections allow them a degree of privilege held by few others.[3]


When the term appears in writing, it usually indicates the author's disapproval of the group's perceived excessive power in society. The hostile tone can be seen in an alternative dictionary: "The WASP culture has been the most aggressive, powerful, and arrogant society in the world for the last thousand years, so it is natural that it should receive a certain amount of warranted criticism."[4] People seldom call themselves WASPs, except humorously; the acronym is typically used by non-WASPs.[5]

Scholars agree that the group's influence has waned since the end of World War II, with the growing importance of Jews, Catholics, African Americans and other former outsiders.[6] The term is also used in Australia and Canada for similar elites.[7][8]

Contents

Origin of term[edit]

Historically, "Anglo-Saxon" has been used for centuries to refer to the Anglo Saxon language (today more correctly called "Old English") of the inhabitants of England and much of modern Scotland before about 1150, and since the 19th century has been in common use in the English-speaking New World, but not in Britain itself, to refer to all Caucasian people of English or British descent, who were mostly Protestants. The "W" and "P" were added in the 1950s to form a witty epithet with an undertone of "waspishness" (which means a person who is easily irritated and quick to take offense).

The first published mention of the term was provided by political scientist Andrew Hacker in 1957, indicating it was already used as common terminology among American sociologists:

“ They are 'WASPs'—in the cocktail party jargon of the sociologists. That is, they are wealthy, they are Anglo-Saxon in origin, and they are Protestants (and disproportionately Episcopalian). To their Waspishness should be added the tendency to be located on the eastern seaboard or around San Francisco, to be prep school and Ivy League educated, and to be possessed of inherited wealth."[9] ”

The term was popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. Baltzell stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of the group, arguing, "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."[10]

Expansion[edit]

Sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey noted the expansion of the term's coverage over time:

“ The term WASP has many meanings. In sociology it reflects that segment of the U.S. population that founded the nation and traced their heritages to...Northwestern Europe. The term...has become more inclusive. To many people, WASP now includes most 'white' people who are not ... members of any minority group.[11] ”

WASPs vary in exact Protestant denomination, from secular to mainline Protestant to Fundamentalist Protestant. High status Protestants with Northwestern and Northern European heritage are also associated with the term, such as those of German, Welsh, Irish, Scandinavian, Dutch, French Huguenot or Alsatian descent.[12][13][14]

The category has encompassed more groups as academics continue to explore U.S. society. Historian and theologic scholar Charles J. Scalise, coined the term "WIP" (White Italian Protestant) for Italian Americans who chose to convert to Protestantism, as a means to assimilate into 19th and 20th century mainstream America.[15]

In recent years, another minor usage has appeared in northeastern states to refer to a fashion style or a preppy lifestyle.[16] Nevertheless, as social, political, and economic elites are no longer fully dominated by WASPs, the term itself is gradually heard less and less. Many of the racial theories that once hypothesized an Anglo-Saxon race and categorized other groups based on religion are no longer in mainstream academic thought.

Culture attributed to WASPs[edit]

The original WASP elite established the United States, its social structure and significant institutions, existing as the dominant social group beginning in the 17th century when the country's social hierarchy took shape, and lasting into the 1960s, when WASP society gradually began to relinquish national control and retreating amongst themselves, growing reminiscent of a cloistered aristocracy, in what has been termed the "leisure class". Many scholars, including researcher Anthony Smith, argue that nations tend to be formed on the basis of a pre-modern ethnic core that provides the myths, symbols, and memories for the modern nation and that WASPs were indeed that core.[17] WASPs are still considered prominent at prep schools (expensive private high schools, primarily in the Northeast), Ivy League universities, and prestigious liberal arts colleges, such as the Little Ivies or Seven Sisters.[18] Entry to these colleges is based on merit, but there is nonetheless a certain preference for "legacy" alumni. Students learned skills, habits, and attitudes and formed connections which carried over to the influential spheres of finance, culture, and politics.[19]

WASP families are often seen as pursuing upscale diversions such as boating, golf, equestrianism, fencing, and yachting — expensive pursuits that need both leisure time and affluence to pursue, and which sociologists such as Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class) have pointed to as a marker of social standing.[20] Social registers and society pages listed the privileged, who mingled in the same private clubs, attended the same churches, and lived in neighborhoods—Dallas; Nashville; Northern Virginia, Philadelphia's Main Line and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods; New Jersey's Princeton; Florida's Palm Beach; Fairfield County, Connecticut; the coast of Maine, particularly Bar Harbor; Manhattan's Upper East Side; Westchester County, New York; and the North Shore of Long Island; Boston's Beacon Hill; Georgetown, Washington D.C.; Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and Chicago's Lake Forest and Highland Park are all examples.[21][22]

A common stereotype of WASP families is presenting their daughters of high school and college age (traditionally at the age of 17 or 18 years old) at a debutante ball, such as The International Debutante Ball in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

In the Midwest, WASPs were attributed to University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and University of Chicago. In the Detroit area, WASPs dominated the wealth that came from the huge industrial capacity of the automotive industry. After the 1967 Detroit riot, they tended to congregate in the very affluent northern suburbs of Detroit in Oakland County. In Chicago, they are present in neighborhoods such as the North Shore (Chicago).

David Brooks writes that WASPs took pride in "good posture, genteel manners, personal hygiene, pointless discipline, the ability to sit still for long periods of time."[23]

Fading dominance[edit]

It was not until after World War II that the privilege and power in the old Protestant establishment began to decline. Many reasons have been attributed to the decline of WASP power, and books have been written detailing it.[24] Self-imposed diversity incentives opened the country's most elite schools.[25] The GI Bill brought higher education to new ethnic arrivals, who found middle class jobs in the postwar economic expansion. Nevertheless, white Protestants remain influential in the country's cultural, political, and economic elite.

In the federal civil service, once dominated by those from a Protestant denomination (WASPs), especially in the Department of State, Catholics and especially Jews made strong inroads after 1945. Georgetown University, a Catholic school, made a systematic effort to place graduates in diplomatic career tracks, while Princeton University (a WASP bastion), at one point lost favor with donors because too few of its graduates were entering careers in the federal government.[26] By the 1990s there were “roughly the same proportion of WASPs and Jews at the elite levels of the federal civil service, and a greater proportion of Jewish elites among corporate lawyers.”[27]

With the 2010 retirement of John Paul Stevens (born 1920), the U.S. Supreme Court has no White Protestant members.[28] The University of California, Berkeley, once a WASP stronghold, has changed radically: only 30% of its undergraduates in 2007 were of European origin (including WASPs and all other Europeans), and 63% of undergraduates at the University were from immigrant families (where at least one parent was an immigrant), especially Asian.[29]

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. While WASPs are no longer solitary among the American elite, members of the Patrician class remain markedly prevalent within the current power structure.[30]

Related political culture[edit]

WASPs were major players in the Republican Party. Politicians such as Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Prescott Bush of Connecticut and Nelson Rockefeller of New York exemplified the pro-business liberal Republicanism of their social stratum, espousing internationalist views on foreign policy, supporting social programs, and holding liberal views on issues like racial integration. Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest, usually Irish-American, dominated Democratic party politics in big cities through the ward boss system. Catholic (or "white ethnic") politicians were often the target of WASP political hostility.[31]

A famous confrontation was the 1952 Senate election in Massachusetts where Irish Catholic John F. Kennedy defeated WASP Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. By the 1980s, the liberal Rockefeller Republican wing of the party was marginalized, with the dominance of the Southern and Western conservative Republicans.

Anglo-Saxon as a modern term[edit]

"Anglo-Saxons" before 1900 was often used as a synonym for all people of English descent and sometimes more generally, for all the English-speaking peoples of the world as such. For example, American missionary Josiah Strong said in 1890: "In 1700 this race numbered less than 6,000,000 souls. In 1800, Anglo- Saxons (I use the term somewhat broadly to include all English-speaking peoples) had increased to about 20,500,000, and now, in 1890, they number more than 120,000,000."[32] In 1893 Strong suggested, "This race is destined to dispossess many weaker ones, assimilate others, and mould the remainder until... it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind."[33]

Before WASP came into use in the 1960s the term "Anglo Saxon" filled some of the same purposes, especially when used by writers somewhat hostile to an informal alliance between Britain and the U.S. It was especially common among Irish Americans and writers in France. "Anglo-Saxon", meaning in effect the whole Anglosphere, remains a term favored by the French, used disapprovingly in contexts such as criticism of the Special Relationship of close diplomatic relations between the US and Britain, a more market-oriented economic approach, and discussion of perceived "Anglo-Saxon" cultural or political dominance. It also remains in use in Ireland as a term for the British or English, and sometimes in Scottish Nationalist discourse. American humorist Finley Peter Dunne popularized the ridicule of "Anglo Saxon" circa 1890-1910, even calling President Theodore Roosevelt one. Roosevelt insisted he was Dutch and invited Dunne to the White House for conversation. "To be genuinely Irish is to challenge WASP dominance," argues politician Tom Hayden.[34] The depiction of the Irish in the films of John Ford was a counterpoint to WASP standards of rectitude. "The procession of rambunctious and feckless Celts through Ford's films, Irish and otherwise, was meant to cock a snoot at WASP or 'lace-curtain Irish' ideas of respectability."[35]

In Australia, "Anglo" or "Anglo-Saxon" refers to people of English descent, while "Anglo-Celtic" expands to include people of Irish and Scottish descent.[36]

In France, "Anglo Saxon" often is used in expressions of anti-Americanism or Anglophobia. It also has had more nuanced uses in discussions by French writers on French decline, especially as an alternative model to which France should aspire, how France should adjust to its two most prominent global competitors, and how it should deal with social and economic modernization.[37]

See also[edit]

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Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1998) says the term is "Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive"
  2. ^ Irving Lewis Allen, "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet," Ethnicity, 1975 154+
  3. ^ The dictionaries define WASP as "an upper- or middle-class American white Protestant, considered to be a member of the most powerful group in society." (Oxford Dictionaries); or "an American of Northern European and especially British ancestry and of Protestant background; especially a member of the dominant and the most privileged class of people in the United States." (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The term is occasionally used by sociologists to include all Americans of North European ancestry. Social Problems In Global Perspective. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. 2004. p. 258. 
  4. ^ John Bassett McCleary, The hippie dictionary: a cultural encyclopedia (and phraseicon) of the 1960s and 1970s (2004) p. 555:
  5. ^ Allen, "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet," (1975)
  6. ^ Eric P. Kaufmann, "The decline of the WASP in the United States and Canada" in Kaufmann, ed., Rethinking ethnicity (2004) pp 54-73, summarizes the scholarship.
  7. ^ Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, Guide to Canadian English Usage (2008) pp. 517-8
  8. ^ "WASP" in Frederick Ludowyk and Bruce Moore, eds, Australian modern Oxford dictionary (2007)
  9. ^ Hacker, Andrew (1957). "Liberal Democracy and Social Control". American Political Science Review 51 (4): 1009–1026 [p. 1011]. JSTOR 1952449. 
  10. ^ Baltzell (1964). The Protestant Establishment. p. 9. 
  11. ^ William Thompson & Joseph Hickey, Society in Focus 2005
  12. ^ Roberts, Sam (2005-05-10). "Today's Loneliest Political Minority? It's Probably the White Protestant". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-03-25. 
  13. ^ Pelliccia, Hayden (1982-03-04). "Goys Into Wasps". NY Books. Retrieved 2012-03-24. 
  14. ^ Davidson, James D.; Pyle, Ralph E.; Reyes, David V. (1995). "Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930-1992". Social Forces 74 (1): 157–175 [p. 164]. JSTOR 2580627. 
  15. ^ Scalise, Charles J. "Retrieving the "WIPS" Exploring the Assimilation of White Italian Protestants in America". jstor.org. Retrieved 2013-05-21. 
  16. ^ See A Privileged Life by Susanna Salk and True Prep by Lisa Birnbach
  17. ^ The Decline of the WASP?: Anglo-Protestant Ethnicity and the American Nation-State
  18. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/2/26/the-new-boy-network-pbpbrep-schools-suck/
  19. ^ Useem (1984)
  20. ^ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/VEBLEN/chap01.html
  21. ^ "The Social Register: Just a Circle of Friends". The New York Times. 21 December 1997. 
  22. ^ Borrelli, Christopher (2010-10-04=5). "The modern, evolving preppy". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-09-17. 
  23. ^ David Brooks (2011). The Paradise Suite: Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive. Simon and Schuster. p. 22. 
  24. ^ See Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (January 17, 1991). "The Decline of a Class and a Country's Fortunes". New York Times. 
  25. ^ Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, Diversity in the power elite: how it happened, why it matters (2006) pp. 242-3
  26. ^ The Princeton debate was not about ethnicity per se. See the attack at [1][dead link] and Princeton's defense at [2]
  27. ^ Kaufman (2004) p 220 citing Lerner et al. American Elites, 1996）
  28. ^ Frank, Robert. "That Bright, Dying Star, the American WASP." Wall Street Journal 15 May 2010.
  29. ^ John Aubrey Douglass, Heinke Roebken, and Gregg Thomson. "The Immigrant University: Assessing the Dynamics of Race, Major and Socioeconomic Characteristics at the University of California." (November 2007) online edition
  30. ^ Davidson, James D.; Pyle, Ralph E.; Reyes, David V. (1995). "Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930-1992". Social Forces 74 (1): 157–175 [p. 164]. JSTOR 2580627. 
  31. ^ See "Are The Wasps Coming Back? Have They Ever Been Away?" Time Jan. 17. 1969
  32. ^ Josiah Strong (1885). Our country: its possible future and its present crisis. American Home Missionary Society. p. 161. 
  33. ^ Josiah Strong (1893). new era or the coming kingdom. p. 80. 
  34. ^ Tom Hayden, Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America (2003) p. 6
  35. ^ Luke Gibbons, Keith Hopper, and Gráinne Humphreys, The Quiet Man (2002) p 13
  36. ^ Miriam Dixson (1999). The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the Present. UNSW Press. p. 35. 
  37. ^ Emile Chabal, "The Rise of the Anglo-Saxon: French Perceptions of the Anglo-American World in the Long Twentieth Century," French Politics, Culture & Society (Spring 2013) 31#1 pp. 24-46.

References[edit]

  • Allen, Irving Lewis. "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet," Ethnicity, 1975 154+
  • Allen, Irving Lewis: Unkind Words: Ethnic Labeling from Redskin to Wasp (NY: Bergin & Garvey, 1990) online edition
  • Brookhiser, Richard. The Way of the WASP How It Made America and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, (1991) 171 pages.
  • Cookson, Peter W.; Persell, Caroline Hodges: Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools (1985) online edition
  • Davidson, James D.; Pyle, Ralph E.; Reyes, David V.: "Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930-1992", Social Forces, Vol. 74, No. 1. (September., 1995), pp. 157–175. Online edition
  • Friend, Tad. Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor (2009).
  • Fussell, Paul. Class: A Guide Through the American Status System (1983) excerpt and text search
  • Kaufmann, Eric P. "The decline of the WASP in the United States and Canada" in Kaufmann, ed., Rethinking ethnicity (2004) pp 54-73
  • King, Florence: WASP, Where is Thy Sting? (1977)
  • Pyle, Ralph E.: Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment (1996)
  • Salk, Susanna. A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style (2007)
  • Schrag, Peter.: The Decline of the WASP (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1970)
  • Useem, Michael. The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. (1984)

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