*who was this group that they had that much political influence so quickly?

This is Laura's question and also ours. We lack the time to do a collective biography, but we can read excerpts from the Know-Nothing newspaper in Worcester, the Daily Evening Journal. These give us a laundry list of issues: opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, support for temperance, suspicion of immigrants who were Catholic, concern over disorder and crime. At this time, we should recall, the only source of order on the East Side of the city was the Jackson Guard, and they answered only to themselves.

We also have newspaper accounts of the great Merrifield fire of June 1854. George Merrifield, whose factory buildings burned to the ground, was a successful Know-Nothing candidate in the December election. This might simply be coincidence, were it not for the speculation around town that the fire had been deliberately set. So, one thing we know is that the election campaign took place in the context of Worcester's business leaders and many of its skilled mechanics all working together to rebuild the city and its industries.

We also know that Know-Nothingism was strong throughout several northern states and was especially strong in Massachusetts. This means that we cannot explain its success in Worcester merely in terms of local conditions. We might, on the other hand, speculate on the extent to which factors which underlay Know Nothing success elsewhere were especially salient in Worcester. One of these factors clearly was a breakdown in voter confidence in the older parties, especially the Whigs (increasingly, native-born voters in the North turned away from the Democrats because of the strength of the southern wing of the party). The key here was the Compromise of 1850 which northern Whigs backed. The most prominent of these supporters was Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster. In 1854, about the time of the Merrifield Fire, U.S. Marshalls seized a fugitive slave named Anthony Burns in Boston. Worcester minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson led an unsuccessful rescue which eventuated in the killing of one of the marshalls. One of Higginson's parishioners, Martin Stowell, was accused of murder and jailed. The following Sunday Higginson preached this sermon. It will give you some feeling for the strength of anti-slavery feeling and for the disgust with the established parties. There is also a whiff of anti-Irish sentiment you may want to think about.

How influential were Higginson's views in Worcester? When another U.S. marshall, Asa Butman, came to the city to investigate the minister's role in the Burns' affair, a mob surrounded his hotel and threatened his life. Even after Butman was moved to the jail, the crowd did not disperse. Eventually they permitted the marshall to leave the city, on the promise of his never returning. Higginson actually escorted him to the train.

TOPIC: Based on the materials available to you, what were the sources of Know-Nothingism in Worcester? Papers should be around 1000 words. Please cite sources.