The Fires of Philadelphia
Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation
-
- £15.49
-
- £15.49
Publisher Description
A gripping and masterful account of the moment one of America's founding cities turned on itself, giving the nation a preview of the Civil War to come.
America is in a state of deep unrest, grappling with xenophobia, racial, and ethnic tension a national scale that feels singular to our time. But it also echoes the earliest anti-immigrant sentiments of the country. In 1844, Philadelphia was set aflame by a group of Protestant ideologues—avowed nativists—who were seeking social and political power rallied by charisma and fear of the immigrant menace.
For these men, it was Irish Catholics they claimed would upend morality and murder their neighbors, steal their jobs, and overturn democracy. The nativists burned Catholic churches, chased and beat people through the streets, and exchanged shots with a militia seeking to reinstate order.
In the aftermath, the public debated both the militia’s use of force and the actions of the mob. Some of the most prominent nativists continued their rise to political power for a time, even reaching Congress, but they did not attempt to stoke mob violence again.
Today, in an America beset by polarization and riven over questions of identity and law enforcement, the 1844 Philadelphia Riots and the circumstances that caused them demand new investigation.
At a time many envision America in flames, The Fires of Philadelphia shows us a city—one that embodies the founding of our country—that descended into open warfare and found its way out again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
George Mason University historian Schrag (The Great Society Subway) takes a comprehensive look at the 1844 riots that pitted nativist Protestants in Philadelphia against Irish Catholic immigrants. Positioning the riots as a precursor to the Civil War, Schrag details how leaders of the American Republican Party (a forerunner of the Know Nothing Party), including charismatic newspaperman and future U.S. congressman Lewis Levin, fanned the flames of anti-immigrant resentment by alleging that Irish Catholics were a "menace to American self-government." Allegations spread that Catholics were trying to remove the Protestant bible from public schools, and a nativist rally in the Irish neighborhood of Kensington erupted into a brawl, sparking waves of violence that led to the burning of two Catholic churches and the ransacking of a third, the deaths of dozens of protestors, and a military takeover of the city. Schrag renders the era's political and religious turmoils in granular detail and offers blow-by-blow accounts of the rolling street battles that engulfed Philadelphia. History buffs will be rewarded by this meticulous account of a largely forgotten episode.
