Nativism’s strongest support came from regions with fewest immigrants

Evidence

With these words, a new phase in the history of American nativism inauspiciously began. Although beaten in the legislative fight of 1906-07, the southern and western opponents of immigration, together with the eastern restrictionists, pressed steadily forward in succeeding years. And just as steadily the importance of the West and South in the nativist coalition grew, until the preponderant strength of the movement came from those outlying regions, where the main object of attack, the new immigration, was least numerous. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 987

Categorization

• QUESTION: Supports the manufactured-threat hypothesis: hostility was most intense where actual contact with targets was least — the ‘enemy’ functions as an abstraction, not an experienced presence.
• XREF: Mirrors Milgrom on information costs and constructed reputation — the enemy is constructed precisely where direct knowledge is absent. — connects to: Prosperity reversed anti-immigrant sentiment fastest where nativism was newest — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 631; Institutional confidence loss, not ethnic competition, drives nativism to the national agenda

Broader Connections

• Institutional confidence loss, not ethnic competition, drives nativism to the national agenda #expands (0.80)
• Prosperity reversed anti-immigrant sentiment fastest where nativism was newest #complicates (0.78) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 631