What is the least "WASP" city in the United States?

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

It's is a little funny to me how many of you use the word "WASP" very differently than I do.

I went to a prestigious northshore catholic "college prep" high school and it was as preppy as you would imagine any wealthy college prep school to be, but the "WASP" label was not a term that anyone in my school would've identified with. We were overtly Catholic, and thus not ""WASP" by definition.

It's not just that others in this thread are using the word differently than you, they are using it incorrectly.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think WASP is really a commonly used term in the Midwest, like in the Northeast. Not sure I even heard it growing up. But it doesn't mean places like Glencoe, Kenilworth and Hinsdale don't share characteristics with their Eastern equivalents.

I didn't grow up in the midwest, but WASP isn't a commonly used term from my experience. Chicago's North Shore certainly could pass for Rye or Scarsdale or somewhere like that, but it certainly isn't WASPy.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Chicago's North Shore certainly could pass for Rye or Scarsdale or somewhere like that, but it certainly isn't WASPy.

How is somewhere like Kenilworth not WASPy? What characteristics distinguish it from a Bronxville or Darien?

[kool maudit]

It is really an outdated term, an arguably an outdated class. Strangely, the earliest usages of "WASP" often concerned Southern Jim Crow and Reconstruction issues, with groups like the KKK as well as their anti-racist opponents grouping Southern whites in this fashion.

These people have little to do with the Northeastern phenomenon we are discussing; the two classes arguably fought a whole Civil War. But on these people, it's a little like the old, masonry-clad skyscrapers: they have a resonance and some lingering associations, but they were really only a factor for a couple of decades.

To put it another way, by the time the old office buildings began to swell to such a scale that a term as broad as "WASP" was needed, Ellis Island etc. meant that curtain walls were a near-certainty, and it was just a matter of time.

Before the Industrial era, the various groups that coalesced into this saw themselves as quite different from one another.

[38 Geary]

I’ve never heard of the term WASP until SSP. Out here white people are just “white people”. From someone who’s never heard of the term before it sounds like WASP is a term for rich white people.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think WASP is really a commonly used term in the Midwest, like in the Northeast. Not sure I even heard it growing up. But it doesn't mean places like Glencoe, Kenilworth and Hinsdale don't share characteristics with their Eastern equivalents.

Eastern seaboard, for whatever reason, is really into ethnic identification. I was just a white guy in Michigan.

I remember hearing the term WASP growing up in Chicagoland, but it was always applied to people, not areas.

The Wilmette I grew up in was maybe 20% Jewish and maybe 30% Catholic, so there was no notion of any pervasive, overwhelming protestantism that would've made the term applicable to where I grew up.

When people use the word WASP as a proxy for any mostly white upscale area of old money with healthy doses of Catholics and Jews mixed in with mainline protestants, it just doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but maybe people in the northeast don't get as hung up on the "P" in WASP as I do.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think WASP is really a commonly used term in the Midwest, like in the Northeast. Not sure I even heard it growing up. But it doesn't mean places like Glencoe, Kenilworth and Hinsdale don't share characteristics with their Eastern equivalents.

Eastern seaboard, for whatever reason, is really into ethnic identification. I was just a white guy in Michigan.

There were remnants of the old Catholic/Protestant political divide in New England up through the 1990s. That is to say that Protestants voted for Republicans, while Catholics voted for Democrats, regardless of whether either the individual voters or the candidates were conservative or liberal. Which is how you got things like the 1990 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, where a socially liberal Republican ran against a socially conservative Democrat.

But yeah...WASP developed as a pejorative used by Catholics and Jews in the Northeast to describe the Protestant ruling class.

[Investing In Chicago]

Dp

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

How is somewhere like Kenilworth not WASPy? What characteristics distinguish it from a Bronxville or Darien?

Kenilworth is catholic, and isn’t very Anglo-saxon

[eschaton]

Actually, looking it up online, WASP was a term more or less invented by a handful of academics in the 1950s and 1960s. Though of course it was describing a group which had existed long before but didn't have a catchy name. The use as a pejorative took off soon after.

Originally the W stood for wealthy, not white, which makes more sense, since the Anglo-Saxon pretty much implies whiteness anyway.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Old money Kenilworth is catholic, and isn’t very Anglo-saxon

In 2022, there aren't really "Anglo Saxon" towns. There are like 1.5 million U.S. Episcopals left, and that includes a healthy number of West Indian immigrants.

WASP towns are legacy Protestant ruling class towns, like Kenilworth, even if Episcopals no longer run things. It's a cultural identifier for old money norms. Kenilworth is WASP. Beverly Hills isn't.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

In 2022, there aren't really "Anglo Saxon" towns. There are like 1.5 million U.S. Episcopals left, and that includes a healthy number of West Indian immigrants.

WASP towns are legacy Protestant ruling class towns, like Kenilworth, even if Episcopals no longer run things. It's a cultural identifier. Kenilworth is WASP. Beverly Hills definitely isn't.

Ok? I’m just telling you Kenilworth isn’t WASPy and was never Protestant

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Ok? I’m just telling you Kenilworth isn’t WASPy and was never Protestant

Every older, rich town in U.S. was at one point Protestant. Kenilworth was almost certainly heavily Protestant, probably until a generation or so ago.

In the NY area, affluent places like Great Neck, Scarsdale and Five Towns, associated with Jews for 70 years, were established as WASP strongholds.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Every older, rich town in U.S. was at one point Protestant. Kenilworth was almost certainly heavily Protestant, probably until a generation or so ago.

Well this certainly isn’t true.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Kenilworth is catholic

there are certainly catholics in kenilworth, but i don't think it's over 50%.

the town doesn't even have its own catholic parish, st. francis xavier (my childhood parish) and st. joe's down in wilmette, or faith hope & charity up in winnetka are the closest options.

there are only two churches located in kenilworth, one is episcopalian and the other is an independent "non-denomination ecumenical community church".

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

there are certainly catholics in kenilworth, but i don't think it's over 50%.

the town doesn't even have its own catholic parish, st. francis xavier (my childhood parish) and st. joe's down in wilmette, or faith hope & charity up in winnetka are the closest options.

there are only two churches located in kenilworth, one is episcopalian and the other is an independent "non-denomination ecumenical community church".

Kenilworth is tiny, even by North Shore standards, i'd wager Kenilworth is somewhere around 40-50% catholic, regardless, it's certainly the dominant religion there, even if it's less than 50%. Either way, it certainly isn't WASPy, unless we are using some new definition of that term.

As you know, Chicagoland isn't very WASPy, even the wealthy sections outside the Northshore (Hinsdale, Naperville, Oak Brook, etc).

[Crawford]

Oak Brook and Naperville definitely aren't old money WASPy. Those are newer sprawl areas. Oak Brook didn't exist when the term really meant something. Naperville is more a middle/upper middle class commuter burb.

[eschaton]

Yeah, almost any town in the Upper Midwest (barring those settled really early by errant French trappers and the like) was likely founded by someone of old-stock New England Yankee ancestry.

In the lower Midwest there were probably a good number of towns which were founded by Pennsylvania Dutch though.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

As you know, Chicagoland isn't very WASPy, even the wealthy sections outside the Northshore (Hinsdale, Naperville, Oak Brook, etc).

i guess my point is that the term "WASP" is just kinda dumb and pretty outdated when applied to places like chicago's northshore that aren't all that protestant.

the mix of mostly white and affluent protestants, catholics, and jews found in those kinds of places needs a different term.

maybe White Aflluent Social Preppies, or just "WASP" for short

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yeah, almost any town in the Upper Midwest (barring those settled really early by errant French trappers and the like) was likely founded by someone of old-stock New England Yankee ancestry.

most of the towns in the great lakes region were originally settled by french trappers. the great lakes were "french" in the 18th century.

but yankees soon took over in the first half of the 19th century, and then they themselves we're later overwhelmed by the hordes of germans, irish, and other euopean immigrants in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

chicago is a perfect example of this.