@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar No, I found that it goes back to at least the 1880s, & was popularized by Wilson in 1915 in a speech he gave to the DAR over debates re “hyphenate Americans". I trace all of this in my book on the history of the phrase.
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar The first is from 1888. It was used to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. 
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar Wilson campaigned on it in 1916. So did Charles Evans Hughes, his GOP opponent. Hearst flew it above his masthead throughout WWI, the first Red Scare, and against League of Nations & Treaty of Versailles.
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar By 1919, it was in popular patriotic doggerel verse with anti-communist and anti-Semitic texts and subtexts.
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar Then Harding ran on it. The Second Klan took it up by 1921. It was frequently used in debates over the Johnson-Reed Act. (For, obv.)
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar Then Lorimer took it up, and it pervaded the Saturday Evening Post and its anti-immigrant crusade throughout the 20s. I touch on that in the book and write about it at more length here. nybooks.com/articles/2019/…
@ClementsAustinJ @SethCotlar By 1919 it was deeply embedded in American political & popular discourse, in sum. In the 1930s it was taken up by (self-styled) American fascists. One of the things I argue in the book is that by the 1930s it was so deeply encoded everyone knew what it meant when AFC revived it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
