Germans ranked above native whites in prestige before the war reversed it
Evidence
In 1903 a Boston sociologist pronounced the Germans the best ethnic type in the city. In 1908 a group of professional people, in rating the traits of various immigrant nationalities, ranked the Germans above the English and in some respects judged them superior to the native whites. … By and large the Germans had risen out of the working class. They were businessmen, farmers, clerks, and in a few cases highly skilled workmen. Among workers in the major industries, a German was more likely to own his own home than was a native white. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1152
Categorization
- XREF: Baseline evidence that the ‘enemy’ category is not fixed to an actual disliked group: Germans — previously the most praised group — became the target within two years purely from external events, supporting the claim that racialization/ethnic enmity is transitional, not a fixed trait of a stable out-group. — connects to: German cultural predominance was abstract prestige, not structural influence