White Anglo-Saxon Protestants#Education

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'. The P formed a humorous epithet to imply "waspishness" or someone likely to make sharp, slightly cruel remarks.{{r|Allen 1975}} Describing the class of Americans that held "national power in its economic, political, and social aspects", Hacker wrote:

{{blockquote |These 'old' Americans possess, for the most part, some common characteristics. First of all, they are {{nowrap|'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).{{cite journal |first=Andrew |last=Hacker |title=Liberal Democracy and Social Control |journal=American Political Science Review |year=1957 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=1009–1026 |jstor=1952449 |doi=10.2307/1952449|s2cid=146933599 }}}}

An earlier usage appeared in the African-American newspaper The New York Amsterdam News in 1948, when author Stetson Kennedy wrote:

{{blockquote |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.{{cite news |last1=Shapiro |first1=Fred |title=Letter: The First WASP? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/books/review/the-first-wasp.html |url-access=limited |work=The New York Times |date=14 March 2012}}}}

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."{{cite book |last=Baltzell |title=The Protestant Establishment |url=https://archive.org/details/protestantestabl00baltrich |url-access=registration |year=1964 |page=[https://archive.org/details/protestantestabl00baltrich/page/9 9] |publisher=New York, Random House}}

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."{{cite book |last=Konolige |first=Kit and Frederica |title=The Power of Their Glory: America's Ruling Class: The Episcopalians |publisher=Wyden Books |location=New York |year=1978 |page=28 |isbn=0-88326-155-3}}

WASP is also used in Australia and Canada for similar elites. WASPs traditionally have been associated with Episcopal (or Anglican), Presbyterian, United Methodist, Congregationalist, and other mainline Protestant denominations; however, the term has expanded to include other Protestant denominations as well.{{cite journal |first1=James D. |last1=Davidson |first2=Ralph E. |last2=Pyle |first3=David V. |last3=Reyes |title=Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930–1992 |journal=Social Forces |volume=74 |issue=1 |year=1995 |pages=157–175 [p. 164] |doi=10.1093/sf/74.1.157 |jstor=2580627}}

The concept of Anglo-Saxonism, and especially Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, evolved in the late 19th century, especially among American Protestant missionaries eager to transform the world. Historian Richard Kyle says:

Protestantism had not yet split into two mutually hostile camps – the liberals and fundamentalists. Of great importance, evangelical Protestantism still dominated the cultural scene. American values bore the stamp of this Anglo-Saxon Protestant ascendancy. The political, cultural, religious, and intellectual leaders of the nation were largely of a Northern European Protestant stock, and they propagated public morals compatible with their background.{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Kyle |title=Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wxAgETGXRaMC&pg=PA76 |year=2011 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |page=76 |isbn=978-1-4128-0906-1}}

Before WASP came into use in the 1960s, the term Anglo-Saxon served some of the same purposes. Like the newer term WASP, the older term Anglo-Saxon was used derisively by writers hostile to an informal alliance between Britain and the U.S. The negative connotation was especially common among Irish Americans and writers in France. Anglo-Saxon, meaning in effect the whole Anglosphere, remains a term favored by the French, used disapprovingly in contexts such as criticism of the Special Relationship of close diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the UK and complaints about perceived "Anglo-Saxon" cultural or political dominance. In December 1918, after victory in the World War, President Woodrow Wilson told a British official in London: "You must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers; we are neither. Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the United States....There are only two things which can establish and maintain closer relations between your country and mine: they are community of ideals and of interests."Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson: vol. 53 1918–1919 (1986) p. 574. The term remains in use in Ireland as a term for the British or English, and sometimes in Scottish Nationalist discourse. Irish-American humorist Finley Peter Dunne popularized the ridicule of "Anglo-Saxons", even calling President Theodore Roosevelt one. Roosevelt insisted he was Dutch.{{cite book |first=Thomas F. |last=Gossett |title=Race: The History of an Idea in America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WUucYTW6ug0C&pg=PA319 |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=319, 439 |isbn=978-0-1980-2582-5}} "To be genuinely Irish is to challenge WASP dominance", argues California politician Tom Hayden.{{cite book |first=Tom |last=Hayden |title=Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America |year=2003 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-8598-4477-9 |page=6}} The depiction of the Irish in the films of John Ford was a counterpoint to WASP standards of rectitude. "The procession of rambunctious and feckless Celts through Ford's films, Irish and otherwise, was meant to cock a snoot at WASP or 'lace-curtain Irish' ideas of respectability."{{cite book |first1=Luke |last1=Gibbons |first2=Keith |last2=Hopper |first3=Gráinne |last3=Humphreys |title=The Quiet Man |year=2002 |publisher=Cork University Press |isbn=1-8591-8287-9 |page=13}}

In Australia, Anglo or Anglo-Saxon refers to people of English descent, while Anglo-Celtic includes people of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish descent.{{cite book |first=Miriam |last=Dixson |author-link=Miriam Dixson |title=The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the Present |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aXTw9BTUIBMC&pg=PA35 |year=1999 |publisher=UNSW Press |page=35 |isbn=978-0-8684-0665-7}}

In France, Anglo-Saxon refers to the combined impact of Britain and the United States on European affairs. Charles de Gaulle repeatedly sought to "rid France of Anglo-Saxon influence".{{cite book |first=John |last=Newhouse |title=De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons |year=1970 |publisher=Andre Deutsch |location=London |isbn=0-2339-6162-3 |pages=30–31}} The term is used with more nuance in discussions by French writers on French decline, especially as an alternative model to which France should aspire, how France should adjust to its two most prominent global competitors, and how it should deal with social and economic modernization.{{cite journal |url=http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/echabal/ecanglosaxon.pdf |first=Emile |last=Chabal |title=The Rise of the Anglo-Saxon: French Perceptions of the Anglo-American World in the Long Twentieth Century |journal=French Politics, Culture & Society |date=2013 |volume=31 |pages=24–46 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202235030/http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/echabal/ecanglosaxon.pdf |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |url-status=live |doi=10.3167/fpcs.2013.310102}}

Outside of Anglophone countries, the term Anglo-Saxon and its translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Variations include the German {{lang|de|Angelsachsen}},{{cite book |last=Winkelvoss |first=Peter |title=Die Weltherrschaft der Angelsachsen : Aufstieg und Niedergang des anglo-amerikanischen Systems |publisher=Grabert |location=Tübingen |year=2006 |isbn=978-3-87847-227-8 |language=de |trans-title=Anglo-Saxon world domination: the rise and fall of the Anglo-American system}} French {{lang|fr|le modèle anglo-saxon}},{{sfnp|Chabal|2013|p=35}} Spanish anglosajón,See [http://deconceptos.com/ciencias-sociales/anglosajon "Concepto de anglosajón"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025121955/http://deconceptos.com/ciencias-sociales/anglosajon |date=October 25, 2015}} Dutch {{ill|Angelsaksisch model|nl}} and Italian {{ill|Paesi anglosassoni|it}}.

{{main|Anglo-Saxonism in the 19th century}}

In the nineteenth century, Anglo-Saxons was often used as a synonym for all people of English descent and sometimes more generally, for all the English-speaking peoples of the world. It was often used in implying superiority, much to the annoyance of outsiders. For example, American clergyman Josiah Strong boasted in 1890:

In 1700 this race numbered less than 6,000,000 souls. In 1800, Anglo-Saxons (I use the term somewhat broadly to include all English-speaking peoples) had increased to about 20,500,000, and now, in 1890, they number more than 120,000,000.{{cite book |first=Josiah |last=Strong |title=Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G2ECAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA161 |year=1885 |publisher=American Home Missionary Society |page=161 |isbn=978-0-8370-6621-9}}

In 1893, Strong envisioned a future "new era" of triumphant Anglo-Saxonism:

Is it not reasonable to believe that this race is destined to dispossess many weaker ones, assimilate others, and mould the remainder until... it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind?{{cite book |first=Josiah |last=Strong |title=New Era or The Coming Kingdom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XK3ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA80 |year=1893 |location=New York |publisher=Baker & Taylor Co. |pages=79–80|isbn=9780882710112 }}

The popular and sociological usage of the term WASP has sometimes expanded to include not just "Anglo-Saxon" or English-American elites but also American people of other Protestant Northwestern European origin, including Protestant Dutch Americans, Scottish Americans,{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Theodore P. Jr. |editor=Kaufmann, Eric P. |title=Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |location=London; New York |isbn=0-41-531542-5 |pages=33–34 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LotDtx2HUxMC&q=WASPs&pg=PA33 |chapter=The identity and changing status of former elite minorities}} Welsh Americans,{{cite book |url=https://sk.sagepub.com/Reference/multicultural-america/n889.xml |title=WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) |year=2013 |editor=Carlos E. Cortés |publisher=SAGE Reference |doi=10.4135/9781452276274 |isbn=9781452216836 |access-date=October 31, 2021}} German Americans, Ulster Scots or "Scotch-Irish" Americans,{{cite book |last=King |first=Florence |title=Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting? |date=1977 |publisher=Stein and Day |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y77ZAAAAMAAJ&q=Wasps+Scots+Irish |page=211 |isbn=9780812821666}} and Scandinavian Americans.{{refn|name=Glassman Swatos Denison}}{{cite book |first=Abraham D. |last=Lavender |title=French Huguenots: From Mediterranean Catholics to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants |publisher=Peter Lang |location=New York |isbn=0-8204-1136-1 |year=1990}} A 1969 Time article stated, "purists like to confine Wasps to descendants of the British Isles; less exacting analysts are willing to throw in Scandinavians, Netherlanders and Germans."{{cite magazine |date=January 17, 1969 |title=Essay: Are the WASPS Coming Back? Have They Ever Been Away? |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838862,00.html |magazine=Time}} The sociologist Charles H. Anderson writes, "Scandinavians are second-class WASPs" but know it is "better to be a second-class WASP than a non-WASP".{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Charles H. |title=White Protestant Americans: From National Origins to Religious Group |date=1970 |publisher=Prentice Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J. |isbn=0-13-957423-9 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhydLVyROPAC&q=%22second-class+WASP%22}}

Sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey described the further expansion of the term's meaning:

The term WASP has many meanings. In sociology it reflects that segment of the U.S. population that founded the nation and traced their heritages to...Northwestern Europe. The term...has become more inclusive. To many people, WASP now includes most 'white' people who are not ... members of any minority group.{{cite book |first1=William |last1=Thompson |first2=Joseph |last2=Hickey |title=Society in Focus: An introduction to sociology |publisher=Allyn & Bacon |isbn=0-2054-1365-X |edition=5th |year=2005}}{{page needed|date=January 2021}}

Apart from Protestant English, British, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian Americans, other ethnic groups frequently included under the label WASP include Americans of French Huguenot descent, Protestant Americans of Germanic European descent in general,{{cite book |last=Van den Berghe |first=Pierre L. |title=The Ethnic Phenomenon |date=1987 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=esAA9Njteu0C&q=WASPs&pg=PA225 |page=225 |isbn=9780275927097}} and established Protestant American families of a "mix" of or of "vague" Germanic Northwestern European heritages.{{cite book |author1=Kaufman, Edward |author2=Borders, Linda |editor=Coombs, Robert H. |title=The Family Context of Adolescent Drug Use |date=1988 |publisher=Psychology Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zMrR1ZlJJgkC&q=WASPs&pg=PA105 |chapter=Ethnic Family Differences in Adolescent Substance Use |page=105 |isbn=978-0-8665-6799-2}}

Historically, the early Anglo-Protestant settlers in the seventeenth century were the most successful group, culturally, economically, and politically, and they maintained their dominance until the late twentieth century at the earliest.{{Cite journal|last=Varzally|first=Allison|date=2005|title=Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America|url=https://www.sneps.net/research-interests/the-rise-and-fall-of-anglo-america-the-decline-of-dominant-ethnicity-in-the-united-states/the-rise-and-fall-of-anglo-america-review|journal=The Journal of American History|volume=92|issue=2|pages=680–81|doi=10.2307/3659399|jstor=3659399}} Numbers of the most wealthy and affluent American families, such as Boston Brahmin, First Families of Virginia, Old Philadelphians,{{cite book|title=Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class|first=E. Digby |last=Baltzell|year=2011| isbn=9781412830751| page =236|publisher=Transaction Publishers|quote=}} Tidewater, and Lowcountry gentry or old money, were WASPs. Commitment to the ideals of the Enlightenment meant that they sought to assimilate newcomers from outside of the British Isles, but few were interested in adopting a Pan-European identity for the nation, much less turning it into a global melting pot. However, in the early 1900s, liberal progressives and modernists began promoting more inclusive ideals for what the national identity of the United States should be. While the more traditionalist segments of society continued to maintain their Anglo-Protestant ethnocultural traditions, universalism and cosmopolitanism started gaining favor among the elites. These ideals became institutionalized after the Second World War, and ethnic minorities started moving towards institutional parity with the once dominant Anglo-Protestants.

File:HarvardElizaSusanQuincy1836.jpg was primarily white and Protestant into the 20th century.{{cite book |first=Jerome |last=Karabel |title=The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zwf-Ofc--toC&pg=PA23 |year=2006 |page=23 |isbn=978-0-6187-7355-8}}]]

Some of the first colleges and universities in America, including Harvard,{{cite web |url=https://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/intro/index.html |title=The Harvard Guide: The Early History of Harvard University |publisher=News.harvard.edu |access-date=August 29, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100722203532/https://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/intro/index.html |archive-date=July 22, 2010 }} Yale,{{cite web |url=https://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_057300_matherincrea.htm |title=Increase Mather |access-date=February 16, 2022 |archive-date=February 11, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211012309/http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_057300_matherincrea.htm |url-status=live }}, Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Encyclopædia Britannica Princeton,{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/pr/facts/revolution.html|title=Princeton in the American Revolution|author=Princeton University Office of Communications|access-date=May 24, 2011|archive-date=June 14, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070614194111/https://www.princeton.edu/pr/facts/revolution.html|url-status=live}} The original Trustees of Princeton University "were acting in behalf of the evangelical or New Light wing of the Presbyterian Church, but the college had no legal or constitutional identification with that denomination. Its doors were to be open to all students, 'any different sentiments in religion notwithstanding.'" Rutgers, Columbia,{{cite book |title=Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York |url=https://archive.org/details/standcolumbiahis00aaro |url-access=limited |last=McCaughey |first=Robert |year= 2003|publisher=Columbia University Press |location= New York, New York |isbn=0231130082 |page=[https://archive.org/details/standcolumbiahis00aaro/page/n15 1] }} Dartmouth,{{cite web | url = https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/rauner/dartmouth/dartmouth_history.html | title = A Dartmouth History Lesson for Freshman | first = Francis Lane | last = Childs | work = Dartmouth Alumni Magazine | date = December 1957 | access-date = February 12, 2007 | archive-date = September 8, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150908080011/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/rauner/dartmouth/dartmouth_history.html | url-status = live }} Pennsylvania,{{cite book|title=Standing Against the Whirlwind: Evangelical Episcopalians in Nineteenth-Century America|first=Diana |last=Hochstedt Butler|year= 1995| isbn=9780195359053| page =22|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote= Of all these northern schools, only Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania were historically Anglican; the rest are associated with revivalist Presbyterianism or Congregationalism.}}{{cite book|title=Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans, 1820–1860|first=Samir |last=Khalaf|year=2012| isbn=9781136249808| page =31|publisher=Routledge|quote= Princeton was Presbyterian, while Columbia and Pennsylvania were Episcopalian.}} Duke,{{cite web|url=http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/history/duke-umchh-basic.html|title=Duke University's Relation to the Methodist Church: the basics|quote=Duke University has historical, formal, on-going, and symbolic ties with Methodism, but is an independent and non-sectarian institution ... Duke would not be the institution it is today without its ties to the Methodist Church. However, the Methodist Church does not own or direct the University. Duke is and has developed as a private nonprofit corporation which is owned and governed by an autonomous and self-perpetuating Board of Trustees|publisher=Duke University|year=2002|access-date=March 27, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612020402/http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/history/duke-umchh-basic.html|archive-date=June 12, 2010}} Boston University,{{cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news/releases/display.php?id=381 |title=Boston University Names University Professor Herbert Mason United Methodist Scholar/Teacher of the Year |quote=Boston University has been historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1839 when the Newbury Biblical Institute, the first Methodist seminary in the United States, was established in Newbury, Vermont. |publisher=Boston University |year=2001 |access-date=October 20, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226230616/https://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news/releases/display.php?id=381 |archive-date=December 26, 2010 }} Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury,W.L. Kingsley et al., "The College and the Church," New Englander and Yale Review 11 (Feb 1858): 600. [https://books.google.com/books?id=42dJAAAAMAAJ&dq=first%20graduate%20of%20the%20university%20of%20vermont&pg=PA600 accessed 2010-6-16] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413105454/https://books.google.com/books?id=42dJAAAAMAAJ&dq=first%20graduate%20of%20the%20university%20of%20vermont&pg=PA600 |date=April 13, 2017 }} Note: Middlebury is considered the first "operating" college in Vermont as it was the first to hold classes in Nov 1800. It issued the first Vermont degree in 1802; UVM followed in 1804. and Amherst, all were founded by mainline Protestant denominations.

Expensive, private prep schools and universities have historically been associated with WASPs. Colleges such as the Ivy League, the Little Ivies, and the Seven Sisters colleges are particularly intertwined with the culture.{{cite book |first=Joseph |last=Epstein |title=Snobbery: The American Version |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sT2AahBWFIoC&pg=PT73 |year=2003 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |page=73 |isbn=978-0-5475-6164-6}} Until roughly World War II, Ivy League universities were composed largely of white Protestants. While admission to these schools is generally based upon merit, many of these universities give a legacy preference for the children of alumni in order to link elite families (and their wealth) with the school. These legacy admissions have allowed for the continuation of WASP influence on important sectors of the US.{{cite book |last=Useem |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Useem |title=The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. |year=1984 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-1950-4033-3}} pp. 179-180,.

Members of Protestant denominations associated with WASPs have some of the highest proportions of advanced degrees. Examples include the Episcopal Church, with 76% of those polled having some college education, and the Presbyterian Church, with 64%.{{cite news |title=Faith, Education and Income |url=https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/faith-education-and-income/?_r=1 |last=Leonhardt |first=David |date=May 13, 2011 |work=Economix - The New York Times |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201044513/https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/faith-education-and-income/?_r=1 |archive-date=December 1, 2017 |url-access=limited}}{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ |title=America's Changing Religious Landscape |publisher=Pew Research Center |work=Religion & Public Life |date=May 12, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623114225/http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ |archive-date=June 23, 2016 |url-status=live}}{{Citation |url=http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf |title=US Religious Landscape Survey: Diverse and Dynamic |publisher=The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Pew Research Center |page=85 |date=February 2008 |ref=refEducationLevel |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210182326/http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf |archive-date=February 10, 2012 |url-status=dead}}

According to Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States by Harriet Zuckerman, between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American Nobel Prize laureates have come from a Protestant background,{{Cite book|last= J. Feist|first=Gregory|title=The Psychology of Science and the Origins of the Scientific Mind|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2008|isbn= 9780300133486|pages=23|quote=For instance, concerning the religious origins of American laureates, 72 percent are Protestant ...}} mostly from Episcopalian, Presbyterian or Lutheran background, while Protestants made up roughly 67% of the US population during that period.{{cite book |last=Zuckerman |first=Harriet |author-link=Harriet Zuckerman |title=Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HAHCzJfmD5IC |year=1977 |publisher=The Free Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4128-3376-9 |page=68 |quote=Protestants turn up among the American-reared laureates in slightly greater proportion to their numbers in the general population. Thus 72 percent of the seventy-one laureates but about two thirds of the American population were reared in one or another Protestant denomination mostly Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Lutheran rather than Baptist or Fundamentalist.}} Of Nobel prizes awarded to Americans between 1901 and 1972, 84.2% of those in Chemistry, 60% in Medicine, and 58.6% in Physics were awarded to Protestants.

{{main|Protestantism in the United States|Mainline Protestant}}

File:Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D C 1.jpg, the Episcopal cathedral in Washington, D.C.]]

The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant upper class has largely held church membership in the mainline Protestant denominations of Christianity, chiefly the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Congregationalist traditions.{{cite book |last1=Schaefer |first1=Richard T. |title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society |date=March 20, 2008 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-1-4129-2694-2 |page=1378 |language=English}}

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."

From 1854 until about 1964, white Protestants were predominantly Republicans.{{r|Baltzell 1964 9}} More recently, the group is split more evenly between the Republican and Democratic parties.{{cite web |title=A Deep Dive Into Party Affiliation |publisher=Pew Research Center |work=U.S. Politics & Policy |date=April 7, 2015 |url=http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150818034641/http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/ |archive-date=August 18, 2015 |url-status=live}}

Episcopalians and Presbyterians are among the wealthiest religious groups and were formerly disproportionately represented in American business, law, and politics.{{cite news |first=B. Drummond Jr. |last=Ayres |date=December 19, 2011 |title=The Episcopalians: an American Elite with Roots Going Back to Jamestown |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/us/the-episcopalians-an-american-elite-with-roots-going-back-to-jamestown.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714144740/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/us/the-episcopalians-an-american-elite-with-roots-going-back-to-jamestown.html |archive-date=July 14, 2014}} Old money in the United States was typically associated with WASP status,Irving Lewis Allen, "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet", Ethnicity, 2.2 (1975): 153–162. particularly with the Episcopal and Presbyterian Church.{{cite journal |first1=James D. |last1=Davidson |first2=Ralph E. |last2=Pyle |first3=David V. |last3=Reyes |title=Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930–1992 |journal=Social Forces |volume=74 |issue=1 |year=1995 |pages= 157–175|doi= 10.1093/sf/74.1.157|jstor=2580627 }} Some of the wealthiest and most affluent American families such as the Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers,{{cite book|title=Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression|first=Peter|last= W. Williams|year= 2016| isbn= 9781469626987| page =176|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|quote=The names of fashionable families who were already Episcopalian, like the Morgans, or those, like the Fricks, who now became so, goes on interminably: Aldrich, Astor, Biddle, Booth, Brown, Du Pont, Firestone, Ford, Gardner, Mellon, Morgan, Procter, the Vanderbilt, Whitney. Episcopalians branches of the Baptist Rockefellers and Jewish Guggenheims even appeared on these family trees.}} Du Ponts, Roosevelts, Forbes, Fords, Mellons, Whitneys, Morgans, and Harrimans are white primarily mainline Protestant families.

According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Episcopalians ranked as the third wealthiest religious group in the United States, with 35% of Episcopalians living in households with incomes of at least $100,000.{{cite web|url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/|title=How income varies among U.S. religious groups|date=11 October 2016 |publisher= Pew Research Center|first= David|last = Masci}} Presbyterians ranked as the fourth most financially successful religious group in the United States, with 32% of Presbyterians living in households with incomes of at least $100,000.{{cite web|url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/|title=How income varies among U.S. religious groups|date=October 11, 2016}}

File:Beacon Hill and Massachusetts State House P1010887.jpg: a preeminent Boston Brahmin neighborhood.{{cite book|title=The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles|first=Frederic |last=Cople Jaher|year=1982| isbn=9780252009327| page =25|publisher=University of Illinois Press|quote=}}]]

File:Upper East Side NYC.jpg, which has traditionally been dominated by WASP families{{cite book |first1=Dominique |last1=Auzias |first2=Jean-Paul |last2=Labourdette |title=New York 2015 Petit Futé (avec cartes, photos + avis des lecteurs) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90FvBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 |year=2015 |page=133 |publisher=Petit Futé |isbn=978-2-7469-8244-4 |language=fr}}{{cite book |first1=Craig J. |last1=Calhoun |first2=Donald |last2=Light |first3=Suzanne |last3=Keller |author-link3=Suzanne Keller |title=Sociology |publisher=McGraw-Hill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dvQM-npb2akC |year=1997 |page=178 |isbn=978-0-0703-8069-1}}]]

The Boston Brahmins, who were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites, were often associated with the American upper class, Harvard University,{{cite book|title=Visions of Belonging: New England Art and the Making of American Identity|first=Julia |last=B. Rosenbaum|year=2006| isbn= 9780801444708| page =45|publisher=Cornell University Press|quote=By the late nineteenth century, one of the strongest bulwarks of Brahmin power was Harvard University. Statistics underscore the close relationship between Harvard and Boston's upper strata.}} and the Episcopal Church.{{cite book|title=Boston's Wayward Children: Social Services for Homeless Children, 1830–1930|first=Peter|last=C. Holloran|year=1989| isbn=9780838632970| page =73|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press|quote=}}{{cite book|title=Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism|first=Gillis |last=J. Harp|year=2003| isbn= 9780742571983| page =13|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|quote=}}

Like other sociological groups, WASPs tend to concentrate within close proximity to each other. These areas are often exclusive and associated with top schools, high incomes, well-established church communities, and high real-estate values.{{cite news |last=Borrelli |first=Christopher |date=December 5, 2010 |title=The modern, evolving preppy |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2010/12/05/the-modern-evolving-preppy/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120812030214/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-12-05/features/ct-sun-1205-preppy-20101205_1_lisa-birnbach-prep-lives-lillie-alexander |archive-date=August 12, 2012 |url-status=live}}{{Failed verification|date=July 2018}} For example, in the Detroit area, WASPs predominantly possessed the wealth that came from the new automotive industry. After the 1967 Detroit riot, they tended to congregate in the Grosse Pointe suburbs. In the Chicago metropolitan area, white Protestants primarily reside in the North Shore suburbs, the Barrington area in the northwest suburbs, and in Oak Park and DuPage County in the western suburbs.{{cite book |first=Stephen Richard |last=Higley |title=Privilege, Power, and Place: The geography of the American upper class |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1995 |isbn=0-8476-8020-7}} Traditionally, the Upper East Side in Manhattan has been dominated by wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Protestant families.

David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times who attended an Episcopal prep school, writes that WASPs took pride in "good posture, genteel manners, personal hygiene, pointless discipline, the ability to sit still for long periods of time."{{cite book |first=David |last=Brooks |title=The Paradise Suite: Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oGeNl2hYxHgC&pg=PA22 |year=2011 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |page=22 |isbn=978-1-4516-4917-8}} According to the essayist Joseph Epstein, WASPs developed a style of understated quiet leadership.{{cite news |first=Joseph |last=Epstein |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-late-great-american-wasp-1387586625 |title=The Late, Great American WASP |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=December 23, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170720172110/https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-late-great-american-wasp-1387586625 |archive-date=July 20, 2017 |url-status=live}}

A common practice of WASP families is presenting their daughters of marriageable age (traditionally at the age of 17 or 18 years old) at a débutante ball, such as the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.{{cite book |last=Dillaway |first=Diana |title=Power Failure: Politics, Patronage, And the Economic Future of Buffalo, New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UukOHtRoi9EC&pg=PA42 |year=2009 |publisher=Prometheus |isbn=978-1-61592-237-6 |pages=42–43}}

America's social elite was a small, closed group. The leadership was well-known to the readers of newspaper society pages, but in larger cities it was hard to remember everyone, or to keep track of the new debutantes and marriages.{{cite book |first=Karal Ann |last=Marling |title=Debutante: Rites and Regalia of American Debdom |year=2004 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=0-7006-1317-X}} The solution was the Social Register, which listed the names and addresses of about 1 percent of the population. Most were WASPs, and they included families who mingled at the same private clubs, attended the right teas and cotillions, worshipped together at prestige churches, funded the proper charities, lived in exclusive neighborhoods, and sent their daughters to finishing schools{{cite journal |first=Paul M. |last=Pressly |title=Educating the Daughters of Savannah's Elite: The Pape School, the Girl Scouts, and the Progressive Movement |journal=Georgia Historical Quarterly |year=1996 |volume=80 |issue=2 |pages=246–275 |url=http://www.juliettegordonlowbirthplace.org/wp-content/uploads/papeschool-ghq-pressley-1996.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160203165033/http://www.juliettegordonlowbirthplace.org/wp-content/uploads/papeschool-ghq-pressley-1996.pdf |archive-date=February 3, 2016 |url-status=dead}} and their sons away to prep schools.{{cite Q|Q108671720 |oclc=12680970}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}} In the heyday of WASP dominance, the Social Register delineated high society. According to The New York Times, its influence had faded by the late 20th century:

{{blockquote |Once, the Social Register was a juggernaut in New York social circles... Nowadays, however, with the waning of the WASP elite as a social and political force, the register's role as an arbiter of who counts and who doesn't is almost an anachronism. In Manhattan, where charity galas are at the center of the social season, the organizing committees are studded with luminaries from publishing, Hollywood and Wall Street and family lineage is almost irrelevant.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/21/style/the-social-register-just-a-circle-of-friends.html |url-access=limited |work=The New York Times |title=The Social Register: Just a Circle of Friends |last=Sargent |first=Allison Ijams |date=December 21, 1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005075419/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/21/style/the-social-register-just-a-circle-of-friends.html |archive-date=October 5, 2017 |url-status=live}}}}

In 2007, The New York Times reported that there was a rising interest in the WASP culture. In their review of Susanna Salk's A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style, they stated that Salk "is serious about defending the virtues of WASP values, and their contribution to American culture."{{cite news |first=Liesl |last=Schillinger |title=Why, Bitsy, Whatever Are You Reading? |work=The New York Times |date=June 10, 2007 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/fashion/10books.html |url-access=limited}}

By the 1980s, brands such as Lacoste and Ralph Lauren and their logos became associated with the preppy fashion style which was associated with WASP culture.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2010/09/the-new-preppy-201009 |title=The Official Preppy Reboot |first=Lisa |last=Birnbach |magazine=Vanity Fair |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107015839/http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2010/09/the-new-preppy-201009 |archive-date=January 7, 2015 |url-status=live}}

The term WASP became associated with the American upper class due to over-representation of WASPs in the upper echelons of society. Until the mid–20th century, industries such as banks, insurance, railroads, utilities, and manufacturing were dominated by WASPs.{{cite book |last=Pyle |first=Ralph E. |editor1-last=Schaefer |editor1-first=Richard T. |title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society, Volume 3 |date=2008 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1-4129-2694-2 |pages=1377–9 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMUola6pDnkC&q=WASP |chapter=WASP}}

The Founding Fathers of the United States were mostly educated, well-to-do, of British ancestry, and Protestants. According to a study of the biographies of signers of the Declaration of Independence by Caroline Robbins:

The Signers came for the most part from an educated elite, were residents of older settlements, and belonged with a few exceptions to a moderately well-to-do class representing only a fraction of the population. Native or born overseas, they were of British stock and of the Protestant faith.{{cite journal |first=Caroline |last=Robbins |title=Decision in '76: Reflections on the 56 Signers |journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society |year=1977 |volume=89 |pages=72–87 |jstor=25080810}}{{cite journal |first=Richard D. |last=Brown |title=The Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787: A collective view |journal=William and Mary Quarterly |year=1976 |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=465–480 |doi=10.2307/1921543 |jstor=1921543}}

Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest—mostly immigrants and their descendants from Ireland and Germany as well as southern and eastern Europe—came to dominate Democratic Party politics in big cities through the ward boss system. Catholic politicians were often the target of WASP political hostility.{{r|Coming Back}}

Political scientist Eric Kaufmann argues that "the 1920s marked the high tide of WASP control".{{sfnp|Kaufmann|2004|p=66}} In 1965, Canadian sociologist John Porter, in The Vertical Mosaic, argued that British origins were disproportionately represented in the higher echelons of Canadian class, income, political power, the clergy, the media, etc. However, more recently, Canadian scholars have traced the decline of the WASP elite.

According to Ralph E. Pyle:

{{blockquote |A number of analysts have suggested that WASP dominance of the institutional order has become a thing of the past. The accepted wisdom is that after World War II, the selection of individuals for leadership positions was increasingly based on factors such as motivation and training rather than ethnicity and social lineage.{{r|Pyle 2008}}}}

Many reasons have been given for the decline of WASP power, and books have been written detailing it.See {{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DB153EF934A25752C0A967958260 |url-access=limited |first=Christopher |last=Lehmann-Haupt |title=The Decline of a Class and a Country's Fortunes |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 17, 1991 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080616181132/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DB153EF934A25752C0A967958260 |archive-date=June 16, 2008 |url-status=live}} Self-imposed diversity incentives opened the country's most elite schools.{{cite book |first1=Richard L. |last1=Zweigenhaft |first2=G. William |last2=Domhoff |title=Diversity in the power elite: how it happened, why it matters |year=2006 |pages=242–3 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=0-7425-3698-X}} The GI Bill brought higher education to new ethnic arrivals, who found middle class jobs in the postwar economic expansion. Nevertheless, white Protestants remain influential in the country's cultural, political, and economic elite. Scholars typically agree that the group's influence has waned since 1945, with the growing influence of other ethnic groups.

After 1945, Catholics and Jews made strong inroads in getting jobs in the federal civil service, which was once dominated by those from Protestant backgrounds, especially the Department of State. Georgetown University, a Catholic school, made a systematic effort to place graduates in diplomatic career tracks. By the 1990s, there were "roughly the same proportion of WASPs, Catholics, and Jews at the elite levels of the federal civil service, and a greater proportion of Jewish and Catholic elites among corporate lawyers."Kaufmann (2004), p. 220 citing Lerner et al. (1996) American Elites. The political scientist Theodore P. Wright Jr., argues that while the Anglo ethnicity of the U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush is evidence for the continued cultural dominance of WASPs, assimilation and social mobility, along with the ambiguity of the term, has led the WASP class to survive only by "incorporating other groups [so] that it is no longer the same group" that existed in the mid-20th century.{{r|Wright 2004}}

Very few Jewish lawyers were hired by White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ("WASP") upscale white-shoe law firms, but they started their own. The WASP dominance in law ended when a number of major Jewish law firms attained elite status in dealing with top-ranked corporations. Most white-shoe firms also excluded Roman Catholics.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SVoAXh-dNuYC&dq=%22white+shoe%22+%22+Polish+Americans%22&pg=PA29|title=Sharing the Dream: White Males in Multicultural America|first=Dominic|last=Pulera|date=October 20, 2004|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9780826416438|via=Google Books}}{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/01/trumps-use-of-paddy-wagon-insults-irish-americans-like-me/ |title=President Trump's reference to 'paddy wagon' insults Irish Americans like me |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=2017-08-01 |accessdate=2021-09-02}}{{cite web|url=http://lideamagazine.com/italian-americans-the-progressive-tradition-reflections-on-gerald-meyers-presentation-at-the-new-haven-public-library/|title=Italian Americans: The Progressive Tradition-Reflections on Gerald Meyer's Presentation at the New Haven Public Library|date=March 20, 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/raise-a-st-patricks-day-glass-to-wild-bill-donovan-the-greatest-irish-american|title=Raise a St. Patrick's Day glass to 'Wild Bill' Donovan, the greatest Irish American|date=March 17, 2020|website=Washington Examiner}} As late as 1950 there was not a single large Jewish law firm in New York City. However, by 1965 six of the 20 largest firms were Jewish; by 1980 four of the ten largest were Jewish.Eli Wald, "The rise and fall of the WASP and Jewish law firms." Stanford Law Review 60 (2007): 1803–1866; discrimination p. 1838 and statistics p. 1805.

Two famous confrontations signifying a decline in WASP dominance were the 1952 Senate election in Massachusetts, in which John F. Kennedy, a Catholic of Irish descent, defeated WASP Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.,{{cite book |first1=Kathleen A. |last1=Gronnerud |first2=Scott J. |last2=Spitzer |title=Modern American Political Dynasties: A Study of Power, Family, and Political Influence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cxwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 |year=2018 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=37–38 |isbn=978-1-4408-5443-9}} and the 1964 challenge by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—an Episcopalian{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Bart |date=May 30, 1998 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater30.htm |title=Barry Goldwater Dead at 89 |newspaper=The Washington Post |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180803142615/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater30.htm |archive-date=August 3, 2018 |url-status=live}} who had solid WASP credentials through his mother, but whose father was Jewish, and was seen by some as part of the Jewish community{{cite journal |url=https://swja.arizona.edu/content/goldwaters |title=The Goldwaters: An Arizona Story And a Jewish History As Well |journal=Southwest Jewish History |volume=1 |issue=3 |date=Spring 1993 |via=Southwest Jewish Archives, University of Arizona |oclc=32992705 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819182303/https://swja.arizona.edu/content/goldwaters |archive-date=August 19, 2018 |url-status=live}}—to Nelson Rockefeller and the Eastern Republican establishment,{{cite book |editor-first=Gregory L. |editor-last=Schneider |title=Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6hzBFw1ky8C&pg=PA289 |year=2003 |publisher=NYU Press |pages=289– |isbn=978-0-8147-9799-0}} which led to the liberal Rockefeller Republican wing of the party being marginalized by the 1980s, overwhelmed by the dominance of Southern and Western conservatives.{{cite book |first=Nicol C. |last=Rae |title=The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present |year=1989 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-1950-5605-1}} However, asking "Is the WASP leader a dying breed?", journalist Nina Strochlic in 2012 pointed to eleven WASP top politicians, ending with Republicans George H. W. Bush, elected in 1988, his son George W. Bush, elected in 2000 and 2004, and John McCain, who was nominated but defeated in 2008.{{cite news |last=Strochlic |first=Nina |title=George Washington to George W. Bush: 11 WASPs Who Have Led America (PHOTOS) |work=The Daily Beast |date=August 16, 2012 |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/08/16/george-washington-to-george-w-bush-11-wasps-who-have-led-america-photos}} Mary Kenny argues that Barack Obama, although famous as the first Black president, exemplifies highly controlled "unemotional delivery" and "rational detachment" characteristic of WASP personality traits. Indeed, he attended upper class schools such as Columbia and Harvard, and was raised by his WASP mother Ann Dunham and the Dunham grandparents in a family that dates to Jonathan Singletary Dunham, born in Massachusetts in 1640.Mary Kenny, "Obama shaped more by his WASP heritage than the passion of Martin Luther King," [https://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/obama-shaped-more-by-his-wasp-heritage-than-the-passion-of-martin-luther-king-30568999.html Independent.ie (September 7, 2014)]{{cite book |title=St. Mary's Co, MD: ancestry of President Barak Obama (b. 1961) |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/921887130 |oclc=921887130 |publisher=William Addams Reitwiesner |place=San Francisco, CA |author=Charles M Marsteller & William Addams Reitwiesner & Linda Davis Reno & Mike Marshall |year=2015}}Janny Scott, A singular woman: the untold story of Barack Obama's mother (2011) p. 148. [https://archive.org/details/singularwomanunt00jann/page/148/mode/2up?q=WASPs online] Inderjeet Parmar and Mark Ledwidge argue that Obama pursued a typically WASP-inspired foreign policy of liberal internationalism.Inderjeet Parmar and Mark Ledwidge, "...'a foundation-hatched black': Obama, the US establishment, and foreign policy." International Politics 54.3 (2017): 373–388 [https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/12563/1/ online].

In the 1970s, a Fortune magazine study found one-in-five of the country's largest businesses and one-in-three of its largest banks was run by an Episcopalian. More recent studies indicate a still-disproportionate, though somewhat reduced, influence of WASPs among economic elites.{{r|Pyle 2008}}

The reversal of WASP fortune was exemplified by the Supreme Court. Historically, the great majority of its justices were of WASP heritage. The exceptions included seven Catholics and two Jews.{{cite book |first=John Richard |last=Schmidhauser |title=Judges and justices: the Federal Appellate Judiciary |year=1979 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |oclc=654145492 |page=60}} Since the 1960s, an increasing number of non-WASP justices have been appointed to the Court.{{cite web |title=Religious Affiliation of the U.S. Supreme Court |url=http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070107072814/http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=January 7, 2007 |date=2006 |website=Adherents.com |access-date=June 14, 2019}}{{cite news |last=Paulson |first=Michael |title=Catholicism: Sotomayor would be sixth Catholic |date=May 26, 2009 |newspaper=Boston Globe}} From 2010 to 2017, the Court had no Protestant members, until the appointment of Neil Gorsuch in 2017.{{cite news |last=Frank |first=Robert |title=That Bright, Dying Star, the American WASP |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=May 15, 2010 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704414504575244622954114574 |url-access=subscription}}

The University of California, Berkeley, once a WASP stronghold, has changed radically: only 30% of its undergraduates in 2007 were of European origin (including WASPs and all other Europeans), and 63% of undergraduates at the university were from immigrant families (where at least one parent was an immigrant), especially Asian.{{cite web |first1=John Aubrey |last1=Douglass |first2=Heinke |last2=Roebken |first3=Gregg |last3=Thomson |title=The Immigrant University: Assessing the Dynamics of Race, Major and Socioeconomic Characteristics at the University of California |publisher=Center for Studies in Higher Education; University of California, Berkeley |date=November 2007 |url=http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/publications.php?id=291 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719143156/http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/publications.php?id=291 |archive-date=July 19, 2011 |url-status=unfit}} Once also a WASP bastion, as of 2010 Harvard University enrolled 9,289 non-Hispanic white students (44%, of which approximately 30% were Jewish), 2,658 Asian American students (13%), 1,239 Hispanic students (6%), and 1,198 African American students (6%).{{cite web|title=Harvard University Degree Student Enrollment|url=https://provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/Provost_-_FB2010_11_Sec02_1_Enrollments.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119122059/https://provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/Provost_-_FB2010_11_Sec02_1_Enrollments.pdf |archive-date=January 19, 2012 }}{{cite web | title=Hillel's Guide to Jewish Life at Colleges and Universities | url=https://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/harvard-university}}

A significant shift of American economic activity toward the Sun Belt during the latter part of the 20th century and an increasingly globalized economy have also contributed to the decline in power held by Northeastern WASPs. James D. Davidson et al. argued in 1995 that while WASPs were no longer solitary among the American elite, members of the Patrician class remained markedly prevalent within the current power structure.{{r|Davidson & Pyle}}

Other analysts have argued that the extent of the decrease in WASP dominance has been overstated. In response to increasing claims of fading WASP dominance, Davidson, using data on American elites in political and economic spheres, concluded in 1994 that, while the WASP and Protestant establishment had lost some of its earlier prominence, WASPs and Protestants were still vastly overrepresented among America's elite.{{r|Wright 2004}}{{cite journal |last1=Davidson |first1=James D. |title=Religion Among America's Elite: Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment |journal=Sociology of Religion |date=December 1994 |volume=55 |issue=4 |pages=419–440 |doi=10.2307/3711980 |jstor=3711980}}

In August 2012 the New York Times, reviewed the religion of the fifteen top national leaders: the presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the Supreme Court justices, the House Speaker, and the Senate majority leader. There were nine Catholics (six justices, both vice-presidential candidates, and the Speaker), three Jews (all from the Supreme Court), two Mormons (including the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney) and one African-American Protestant (incumbent President Barack Obama). There were no white Protestants.{{cite news |last1=Leonhart |first1=David |last2=Parlapiano |first2=Alicia |last3=Waananen |first3=Lisa |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9505E0D9163BF937A2575BC0A9649D8B63.html |title=A Historical Benchmark |work=New York Times |date=2012-08-14 |accessdate=2023-06-14 }}

Sociologist John W. Dykstra in 1958 described the "white Anglo-Saxon Protestant" as "Mr. Bigot".John W. Dykstra, "The PhD Fetish," School and Society 86.2133 (1958): 237-239, cited in {{harvtxt|Schultz|2010}}. Historian Martin Marty said in 1991 that WASPs "are the one ethnoreligioracial group that all can demean with impunity."Martin E. Marty, "Review", The Christian Century, 108#6 (February 20, 1991) p. 204.

In the 21st century, WASP is often applied as a derogatory label to those with social privilege who are perceived to be snobbish and exclusive, such as being members of restrictive private social clubs.{{r|Pyle 2008}} Kevin M. Schultz stated in 2010 that WASP is "a much-maligned class identity....Today, it signifies an elitist snoot."{{cite journal |last1=Schultz |first1=Kevin M. |title=The Waspish Hetero-Patriarchy: Locating Power in Recent American History |journal=Historically Speaking |date=2010 |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=8–11 |doi=10.1353/hsp.2010.a405435 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/405435/summary |issn=1944-6438 |via=Project MUSE |url-access=subscription}} A number of popular jokes ridicule those thought to fit the stereotype.{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Holly E. |title=Writing Between Cultures: A Study of Hybrid Narratives in Ethnic Literature of the United States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8RkzIPlLj90C&q=WASP&pg=PA117 |year=2011 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=978-0-78-646660-3 |at=p. 117 (footnote)}}

Occasionally, a writer praises the WASP contribution, as conservative historian Richard Brookhiser did in 1991, when he said the "uptight, bland, and elitist" stereotype obscures the "classic WASP ideals of industry, public service, family duty, and conscience to revitalize the nation."{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Brookhiser |title=The Way of the WASP: How It Made America and How It Can Save It, So to Speak |publisher=Free Press |year=1991 |location=New York, N.Y. |isbn=0029047218 }} Likewise, conservative writer Joseph Epstein praised WASP history in 2013 and asked, "Are we really better off with a country run by the self-involved, over-schooled products of modern meritocracy?" He deplores how the WASP element lost its self-confidence and came under attack as "The Establishment".{{cite news |first=Joseph |last=Epstein |title=The Late, Great American WASP |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=December 23, 2013 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304367204579268301043949952 |url-access=subscription}}

American films, including Annie Hall and Meet the Parents, have used the conflicts between WASP families and urban Jewish families for comedic effect.{{cite web |last=Wilmington |first=Michael |title='Meet the Parents' Finds Success by Marrying Classic Themes to Modern Tastes |website=Los Angeles Times |date=November 6, 2000 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-nov-06-ca-47724-story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925100833/http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/06/entertainment/ca-47724 |archive-date=September 25, 2015 |url-status=live}}

The 1939 Broadway play Arsenic and Old Lace, later adapted into a Hollywood film released in 1944, ridiculed the old American elite. The play and film depict "old-stock British Americans" a decade before they were tagged as WASPS.{{cite book |author=Furman, Robert |title=Brooklyn Heights: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of America's First Suburb |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8BUfCgAAQBAJ&q=%22arsenic+and+old+lace%22&pg=PA78 |year=2015 |publisher=History Press |location=Charleston, S.C. |isbn=978-1-62-619954-5 |page=78}}

The playwright A. R. Gurney (1930–2017), himself of WASP heritage, has written a series of plays that have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat".{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cocktail-hour-review-anatomy-of-a-wasp-1452207925 |title='The Cocktail Hour' Review: Anatomy of a WASP |first=Terry |last=Teachout |date=January 7, 2016 |work=The Wall Street Journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171224063201/https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cocktail-hour-review-anatomy-of-a-wasp-1452207925 |archive-date=December 24, 2017 |url-status=live}} Gurney told the Washington Post in 1982:

{{blockquote|WASPs do have a culture – traditions, idiosyncrasies, quirks, particular signals and totems we pass on to one another. But the WASP culture, or at least that aspect of the culture I talk about, is enough in the past so that we can now look at it with some objectivity, smile at it, and even appreciate some of its values. There was a closeness of family, a commitment to duty, to stoic responsibility, which I think we have to say weren't entirely bad.Quoted in {{cite news |first=Matt |last=Schudel |title=A.R. Gurney, playwright who portrayed the fading WASP culture, dies at 86 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 15, 2017 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ar-gurney-playwright-who-portrayed-the-fading-wasp-culture-dies-at-86/2017/06/15/c9d640ea-51d6-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713134934/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ar-gurney-playwright-who-portrayed-the-fading-wasp-culture-dies-at-86/2017/06/15/c9d640ea-51d6-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html |archive-date=July 13, 2018 |url-status=live}}}}

In Gurney's play The Cocktail Hour (1988), a lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter is true."

Filmmaker Whit Stillman, whose godfather was E. Digby Baltzell, has made films dealing primarily with WASP characters and subjects. Stillman has been called the "WASP Woody Allen".{{Cite web |first=Michael |last=Kilian |date=June 7, 1998 |title='THE WASP WOODY ALLEN' |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-06-07-9806070279-story.html |access-date=January 22, 2021 |work=Chicago Tribune}} His debut 1990 film Metropolitan tells the story of a group of college-age Manhattan socialites during débutante season. A recurring theme of the film is the declining power of the old Protestant élite.{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=Trey |date=August 30, 2020 |title=Whit Stillman's 'Metropolitan': An Oral History of the Preppiest, WASPiest, Wittiest Comedy of Heirs Ever |url=https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a33488246/metropolitan-whit-stillman-oral-history/ |access-date=January 22, 2021 |website=Town & Country}}

{{portal|United States|Christianity|United Kingdom}}

• {{Annotated link|American gentry}}
• African-American upper class
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion - opposite concepts

{{Reflist}}

• Aldrich, Nelson, IV. "The upper class, up for grabs," Wilson Quarterly (1993), 18#3 pp 65–72.
• Aldrich, Nelson, IV. Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth (1997)
• {{cite book |last=Allen |first=Irving |title=Unkind words: ethnic labeling from Redskin to WASP |publisher=Bergin & Garvey Distributed to the trade by National Book Network |location=New York |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-89789-220-9 |oclc=21152778}}
• {{cite book |last=Baltzell |first=E. Digby |title=Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a New Upper Class |year=1958}}
• {{cite book |last=Baltzell |first=E. Digby |title=The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & caste in America |publisher=Yale UP |year=1987}}
• {{cite book |last=Beckert |first=Sven |title=The monied metropolis: New York City and the consolidation of the American bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 |year=2003}}
• Beran, Michael Knox. "Five Best: Books on WASPs" [https://www.wsj.com/articles/five-best-books-on-wasps-11625836267 Wall Street Journal July 9, 2021 online]; 3 novels and 2 autobiographies
• Beran, Michael Knox. WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy (Pegasus Books, 2021) [https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/180909 excerpt]
• {{cite book |last=Brooks |first=David |title=Bobos in paradise: The new upper class and how they got there |year=2010}}
• {{cite book |last=Burt |first=Nathaniel |title=The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy |year=1999}}
• {{cite journal |last=Davis |first=Donald F. |title=The Price of Conspicuous Production: The Detroit Elite and the Automobile Industry, 1900–1933 |journal=Journal of Social History |volume=16 |issue=1 |year=1982 |pages=21–46 |doi=10.1353/jsh/16.1.21 |jstor=3786880}}
• {{cite book |last=Farnum |first=Richard |chapter=Prestige in the Ivy League: Democratization and discrimination at Penn and Columbia, 1890-1970 |editor-last2=S. Lewis |editor-first2=Lionel |editor-first=Paul |title=The high-status track: Studies of elite schools and stratification |year=1990 |editor-last=W. Kingston}}
• {{cite book |last=Foulkes |first=Nick |title=High society : the history of America's upper class |publisher=Assouline |location=New York, NY |year=2008 |isbn=978-2-7594-0288-5 |oclc=299582900}}
• {{cite book |last=Fraser |first=Steve |title=Ruling America : a history of wealth and power in a democracy |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass |year=2005 |isbn=0-674-01747-1 |oclc=434595715}}
• {{cite book |last=Friend |first=Tad |title=Cheerful money : me, my family, and the last days of WASP splendor |publisher=Little, Brown and Co |location=New York |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-316-00317-9 |oclc=310097122}}
• {{cite book |last=Fussell |first=Paul |title=Class: A Guide Through the American Status System |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aPbF1kuayJYC |year=1992 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-79225-1 |oclc=27141367}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Ghent |first1=Jocelyn Maynard |first2=Frederic Cople |last2=Jaher |title=The Chicago Business Elite: 1830–1930. A Collective Biography |journal=Business History Review |volume=50 |issue=3 |year=1976 |pages=288–328 |doi=10.2307/3112998 |jstor=3112998|s2cid=144151969 }}
• {{cite book |last=Hood |first=Clifton |title=In Pursuit of Privilege: A History of New York City's Upper Class and the Making of a Metropolis |year=2016}}
• {{cite book |last=Ingham |first=John N. |title=The Iron Barons: A Social Analysis of an American Urban Elite, 1874–1965 |year=1978}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Jaher |editor-first=Frederic Cople |title=The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History |year=1973}}
• {{cite book |last=Jaher |first=Frederick Cople |title=The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Chicago, Charleston, and Los Angeles |year=1982}}
• {{cite book |last=Jensen |first=Richard |chapter=Family, Career, and Reform: Women Leaders of the Progressive Era |editor=Michael Gordon |title=The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective |year=1973 |pages=267–80}}
• Lee, Erika. America for Americans a history of xenophobia in the United States (2019) [https://www.amazon.com/America-Americans-History-Xenophobia-United/dp/1541672615/ excerpt]
• {{cite book |ref=none |last=Kaufmann |first=Eric P. |title=The rise and fall of Anglo-America |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2004}}
• {{cite book |last=King |first=Florence |title=WASP, Where is Thy Sting? |year=1977}}
• {{cite book |last=Konolige |first=Kit and Frederica |title=The Power of Their Glory: America's Ruling Class: The Episcopalians |publisher=Wyden Books |location=New York |year=1978 |isbn=0-88326-155-3}}
• {{cite book |author-link=Ferdinand Lundberg |last=Lundberg |first=Ferdinand |title=The Rich and the Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today |year=1968}}
• {{cite journal |last=McConachie |first=Bruce A. |title=New York operagoing, 1825–50: creating an elite social ritual |journal=American Music |year=1988 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=181–192 |doi=10.2307/3051548 |jstor=3051548}}
• {{cite book |last=Maggor |first=Noam |title=Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth and Populism in America's First Gilded Age |publisher=Harvard UP |year=2017}}
• Marty, Martin E. "Ethnicity: The Skeleton of Religion in America." Church History 41#1 (1972), pp. 5–21. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3164683 online], emphasis on WASP role
• {{cite book |title=Women of the Upper Class |first=Susan A. |last=Ostrander |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-87722-475-4}}
• Parmar, Inderjeet, and Mark Ledwidge. "...'a foundation-hatched black': Obama, the U.S. establishment, and foreign policy." International Politics 54.3 (2017): 373-388 [https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/12563/1/ online].
• {{cite book |last=Phillips |first=Kevin |title=Wealth and democracy : a political history of the American rich |publisher=Broadway Books |location=New York |year=2002 |isbn=0-7679-0534-2 |oclc=48375666}}
• {{cite book |last=Pyle |first=Ralph E. |title=Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment |url=https://archive.org/details/persistencechang0000pyle |url-access=registration |year=1996 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-0-2759-5487-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Salk |first=Susanna |title=A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style |year=2007}}
• Schatz, Ronald W. "The Barons of Middletown and the Decline of the North-Eastern Anglo-Protestant Elite." Past & Present, no. 219, (2013), pp. 165–200. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24543604 online] loss of control of Middletown, Connecticut in late 1930s.
• {{cite book |last=Schrag |first=Peter. |title=The Decline of the WASP |location=NY |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1970}}
• {{cite book |last=Story |first=Ronald |year=1980 |title=The forging of an aristocracy: Harvard & the Boston upper class, 1800–1870}}
• {{cite book |last=Synnott |first=Marcia |title=The half-opened door: Discrimination and admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970 |year=2010}}
• Wald, Eli. "The rise and fall of the WASP and Jewish law firms." Stanford Law Review 60 (2007): 1803–1866. [http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2010/04/Wald.pdf online]
• {{cite book |last=Williams |first=Peter W. |title=Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression |year=2016}}
• {{cite web |title=Yankees |website=Encyclopedia of Chicago |url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1391.html}}

{{wiktionary|Wikisaurus:white person}}

• [https://archive.org/details/socialregisterl00usgoog Social Register Locater compiles all the major cities into one list]
• [https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22social%20register%20%22 35 Social Registers from major US cities early 20th century; online free]

{{White people}}

Category:American upper class

Category:British-American history

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

Category:High society (social class)

Category:Protestantism in the United States

Category:Upper class culture in the United States

Category:English phrases