Anti-immigrant sentiment has played a role in US politics from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 up to the present . \; Only once\, however\, has the mass expulsion of immigrants been t he primary policy goal of a major political party\, and that was the short -lived Know Nothing Party of the late 1840s and first half of the 1850s. T his talk will discuss the political\, religious\, and economic dynamics th at produced the Know Nothing party of the antebellum era\, with an eye to how those historical dynamics have familiar echoes in our contemporary mom ent.
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About the Presenter:
\nSeth Cotlar is a Professor of History at Willamette University in Salem\, OR where he tea ches a range of courses on many different periods in US \;History.&nbs p\; He is currently working on an article entitled \;&ldquo\;Rightland ia: Walter Huss and the Long History of the Far Right in Oregon\, 1955-200 5&rdquo\; about an anti-communist crusader with ties to white nationalists and neo-Nazis who was elected chair of the Oregon Republican Party in 197 8. Portions of that research have appeared on his Ghost newsletter page\, also entitled "Rightlandia." Cotlar&rsquo\;s first book\, Tom \;Pa ine's America: The Rise and Fall of Transatlantic Radicalism in the Early American Republic \;(University of Virginia Press\, 2011) won the James Broussard Prize for Best First Book from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. \; \;He is also the co-editor\, w ith Richard \;Ellis\, of a collection of essays entitled Historian \;in \;Chief: How Presidents Interpret the Past to Shape the Futu re\, (University of Virginia Press\, 2019).
\nQuestions? Contac t lizg@deschuteslibrary.org \; \;
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