What is a WASP?

[King of Kensington]

Does it means whites of English ancestry or does it mean elite whites of English ancestry that belong to mainline churches but not fundamentalists?

If we use the former definition, Kentucky, say, would be a lot more "WASP" than Connecticut, but if we use the latter Connecticut would be more "WASP."

It's also interesting how census responses have a regional and class basis to them.  In New England and among the affluent, people are more inclined to declare English ancestry while in the South, they're more likely to say "American."

Scotch-Irish identity seems to be a Southern working class and rural phenomenon.  Though I should add the so-called "Celtic thesis" is garbage.

[King of Kensington]

It's true that colonial New England was almost exclusively English (from southeast England) while the South had more Scots-Irish and Scots - but English ancestry is more common in the South. My point is "Scotch-Irish" seems to be a proxy for white Southerner, even though English ancestry is actually more common. The argument that the Civil War had something to do with a clash between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic culture is ludicrous.

The Celtic capital of North America would be the Canadian Maritimes.

[King of Kensington]

Yes, New England is definitely the "Celtic capital" of the US.

Why did English ancestry responses drop off more in say, New England than the South?  My guess is the following:

New England is better educated than the South.

New England saw Irish and French Canadian immigration leading to more ethnic distinctions among whites. In addition, more 19th century English immigrants went to New England than the South so there are more people descended from later waves.  In contrast, most of the South didn't have significant post-1800 immigration and the main ethnic divide was "whites vs. blacks" not "Yankees vs. Catholics."

[King of Kensington]

Speaking of the Scots-Irish, they were also big in Pennsylvania.  And they actually continued to immigrate there after 1800:  Mellon was born in Ulster and in the 1930 census showed the PA had the largest population born in Northern Ireland.

[King of Kensington]

After Newfoundland and Utah, Southern whites are the most ethnically homogeneous group of whites in North America.  It's well known the vast majority are of British descent.  The French, Germans, Czechs etc. tend to be in regional pockets on the periphery of the South.

[King of Kensington]

The 1790 census and the 1980 census suggest they were more English than Scots-Irish.

[King of Kensington]

A lot of what is called Celtic is really re-heated 19th century romantic bull.

That's for sure!

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Of course not.  The talk about white Southerners being mostly "Scotch Irish" is nonsense!

I'm guessing "WASP" is barely used in the South, given that there was never an ethnic difference between the Southern elite and working class and rural Southern whites.  Kind of a redundant term.

[King of Kensington]

What attracted Northern Irish to Pennsylvania post-1800?

In Philadelphia, the northern Irish-born population was about 2/3 of the Irish Free State-born in 1930.  In Pittsburgh it was over 50%.

In most of the other big Northern cities it was usually about 15-20%.

Also, the Welsh population in PA was quite big.

[King of Kensington]

What does it mean in the South?  Outside of places like Baltimore or New Orleans where there were decent sized "white ethnic" populations it seems like a redundant term.  Do backcountry Baptists refer to old Southern elites as "WASPs"?

[King of Kensington]

Maybe it could include the following:

Well-off white mainline Protestants particularly Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Congregationalists.  Includes Scottish Americans like the Carnegies (they're actually more affluent than English Americans) and colonial Dutch (the Roosevelts!) and French Huguenots (most who would have married in with the Anglo-Saxons anyway). 

Doesn't include Baptists in Kentucky etc.  Not sure if it would include non-wealthy New England Yankees.  Congregationalists in New England do include a lot of rural and small-town people, not sure if that's true of the Episcopalians.

In Canada the term WASP is sometimes used as well.  We have three mainline "establishment" Protestant churches: Anglican, United Church and Presbyterian.  United Church was a merger of our Methodists and Congregationalists (they aren't that many Congregationalists in Canada though, Methodists were much larger) with some Presbyterians.  Today they're very liberal, closer to the UCC than United Methodist, but have a "mass" base all over the country.  Anglicans have a bit of more "prestige" as the establishment church, but on the other hand, there are lots of rural and working class Anglicans too - in Newfoundland for example Anglicans are the largest Protestant denomination and are hardly "elite."  In other words, all our mainline churches are more multi-class than the Episcopalians in the USA.

[King of Kensington]

Robin Williams RIP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sUazVworSU

[King of Kensington]

Educational attainment among ethno-religious groups ca. 1980:

After Jews and Asians (too small to be broken down further then), Scottish Protestants were the best educated, Irish Catholics had just pulled ahead of English Protestants. Irish Protestants were further down.

http://faculty.washington.edu/charles/pubs/theeducationattainment.pdf

You can also see that Irish Protestants were more "old stock" than Irish Catholics (4th generation+) though by no means their immigration ceased.  Though we often hear about "40 million Irish Americans" the descendants of post-1845 Irish Catholic immigrants is probably more about the size of the Italian American population in the US.

[King of Kensington]

Without a regional breakdown, it's hard to know.  How many in the Northeast vs. the South, for example?

[King of Kensington]

What attracted Northern Irish to Pennsylvania post-1800?

In Philadelphia, the northern Irish-born population was about 2/3 of the Irish Free State-born in 1930.  In Pittsburgh it was over 50%.

In most of the other big Northern cities it was usually about 15-20%.

Also, the Welsh population in PA was quite big.

Re: Philadelphia. It is useful to look at the ocean line routes from this period. People tended to emigrate on the cheapest route and with the easiest emigration process.  One branch of my ancestors went to Montreal first and only a few years later did they make their way to NYC. (this was in the 20's)  Also just because they were born in the North of Ireland, it would be flawed to assume them Protestant.  After independence, partition, civil war and then the sectarian violence, may Catholics in the north decamped from the Stormont state.

With Pittsburgh with Irish and Welsh in PA, you have people following jobs- whether they be miners or in the steel mills.

It would be flawed to assume that all people born in Northern Ireland were Protestant but certainly many were, and certainly a much, much higher percentage than those born in "Irish Free State."