Nativist ferment fell when the 1890s depression lifted

Evidence

From the outset I observed successive eras of crisis and confidence in public opinion: confidence in the early 1880s, crisis in the 18gos, recovery in the early twentieth century, crisis again from 1915 to the mid-1920s. But this was merely descriptive. At an explanatory level I pointed to the “social and economic problems of an urban-industrial society” as the root cause of the rise of nativism in the late nineteenth century (1988; p. 98). Essentially, I advanced an economic explanation. It seemed substantiated by a sharp decline of nativist ferment at the very end of the century. When the long depression of that decade lifted, social anxieties relaxed, and urban renewal flowered. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 2026

Categorization

• QUESTION: Intriguing to reader’s manufacturing-enemy question: if nativism tracks economic anxiety rather than durable identity, does the ‘enemy’ simply dissolve when the anxiety lifts — no new enemy required?
• XREF: connects to: The depression of 1893, not leadership, explains the anti-Catholic surge — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 480; Nativist ideology outlived its emotional drive after 1924. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1960; Nativist intensity collapsed once restriction was legally secured — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1955

Broader Connections

• Nativist intensity collapsed once restriction was legally secured #qualifies (0.80) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1955