When Anti-Immigrant Hysteria Swept the Land
During and after World War I, anti-immigrant hysteria swept the nation, focusing largely on Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Some of the results of that hysteria were:
The Prohibition of alcoholic beverages by Constitutional Amendment
A Red Scare resulting in the jailing and deportation of thousands of immigrant radicals
The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan as an anti-Catholic, anti-foreign and anti-wet organization as well as an anti-Black one.
The passage of draconian immigration restriction legislation, favoring immigrants from Norther Europe, which restricted total immigration from 1,100,000 in 1919 to under 100,000 by the late 1920's.
The same era also saw pogroms and massacres directed at Black communities in East St Louis Missouri, Elaine Arkansas and Tulsa Oklahoma, including the torching and aerial bombardment of the wealthiest Black community in the nation in Tulsa.
If you want to read a novel which captures the wave of rage and fear sweeping through the nation in that era, read Dennis Lehane's "The Given Day."With A Brooklyn Accent: When Anti-Immigrant Hysteria Swept the Land:
