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White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
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White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans of English, or more broadly British, descent who are generally part of the white dominant culture, and who belong to Protestant denominations. Some sociologists and commentators use WASP more broadly to include all White Protestant Americans of Northwestern European and Northern European ancestry. It was seen to be in exclusionary contrast to Catholics, Jews, Irish, immigrants, southern or eastern Europeans, and the non-White. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. Critics have disparaged them as "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, and philanthropy.
WASP is also used for similar elites in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The 1998 Random House Unabridged Dictionary says the term is "sometimes disparaging and offensive".
In the early Middle Ages, Anglian and Saxon kingdoms were established over most of England ('land of the Angles'). After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Anglo-Saxon refers to the pre-invasion English people. Political scientist Andrew Hacker used the term WASP in 1957, with W standing for 'wealthy' rather than 'white' (since 'white Anglo-Saxon' is a tautology). The P formed a humorous epithet to imply "waspishness" or someone likely to make sharp, slightly cruel remarks. Describing the class of Americans that held "national power in its economic, political, and social aspects", Hacker wrote:
These 'old' Americans possess, for the most part, some common characteristics. First of all, they are 'WASPs'—in the cocktail party jargon of the sociologists. That is, they are wealthy, they are Anglo-Saxon in origin, and they are Protestants (and disproportionately Episcopalian).
An earlier usage appeared in the African-American newspaper The New York Amsterdam News in 1948, when author Stetson Kennedy wrote:
In America, we find the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) ganging up to take their frustrations out on whatever minority group happens to be handy — whether Negro, Catholic, Jewish, Japanese or whatnot.
The term was later popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell, himself a WASP, in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. Baltzell stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of the group by arguing that "There is a crisis in American leadership in the middle of the twentieth century that is partly due, I think, to the declining authority of an establishment which is now based on an increasingly castelike White-Anglo Saxon-Protestant (WASP) upper class."
Citing Gallup polling data from 1976, Kit and Frederica Konolige wrote in their 1978 book The Power of Their Glory, "As befits a church that belongs to the worldwide Anglican Communion, Episcopalianism has the United Kingdom to thank for the ancestors of fully 49 percent of its members. ... The stereotype of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) finds its fullest expression in the Episcopal Church."
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White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans of English, or more broadly British, descent who are generally part of the white dominant culture, and who belong to Protestant denominations. Some sociologists and commentators use WASP more broadly to include all White Protestant Americans of Northwestern European and Northern European ancestry. It was seen to be in exclusionary contrast to Catholics, Jews, Irish, immigrants, southern or eastern Europeans, and the non-White. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. Critics have disparaged them as "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, and philanthropy.
WASP is also used for similar elites in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The 1998 Random House Unabridged Dictionary says the term is "sometimes disparaging and offensive".
In the early Middle Ages, Anglian and Saxon kingdoms were established over most of England ('land of the Angles'). After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Anglo-Saxon refers to the pre-invasion English people. Political scientist Andrew Hacker used the term WASP in 1957, with W standing for 'wealthy' rather than 'white' (since 'white Anglo-Saxon' is a tautology). The P formed a humorous epithet to imply "waspishness" or someone likely to make sharp, slightly cruel remarks. Describing the class of Americans that held "national power in its economic, political, and social aspects", Hacker wrote:
These 'old' Americans possess, for the most part, some common characteristics. First of all, they are 'WASPs'—in the cocktail party jargon of the sociologists. That is, they are wealthy, they are Anglo-Saxon in origin, and they are Protestants (and disproportionately Episcopalian).
An earlier usage appeared in the African-American newspaper The New York Amsterdam News in 1948, when author Stetson Kennedy wrote:
In America, we find the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) ganging up to take their frustrations out on whatever minority group happens to be handy — whether Negro, Catholic, Jewish, Japanese or whatnot.
The term was later popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell, himself a WASP, in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. Baltzell stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of the group by arguing that "There is a crisis in American leadership in the middle of the twentieth century that is partly due, I think, to the declining authority of an establishment which is now based on an increasingly castelike White-Anglo Saxon-Protestant (WASP) upper class."
Citing Gallup polling data from 1976, Kit and Frederica Konolige wrote in their 1978 book The Power of Their Glory, "As befits a church that belongs to the worldwide Anglican Communion, Episcopalianism has the United Kingdom to thank for the ancestors of fully 49 percent of its members. ... The stereotype of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) finds its fullest expression in the Episcopal Church."
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