History of Anti-Semitism in America: Collections

Anti-Semitism has been a constant presence throughout American Jewish history, and that presence can be explored using Gale's Political Extremism and Radicalism series. America's founders imagined a country free from religious persecution, guaranteed in the religious freedoms promised by the Bill of Rights upon its approval in 1791. States’ rights would trump this vision of religious freedom, however, as limitations were imposed against religious minorities, including Jews. From the moment they first arrived at the colony of New Amsterdam (New York), Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant petitioned to have them removed, but the financial benefits of Jewish mercantile networks prevailed. They were publicly denied worship unless they embraced Christianity and the church; however, as synagogues began to spring up, out of economic necessity, Judaism was quietly tolerated.

Despite their early success in the Americas, Jewish people continued to live as outsiders, religiously condemned by Christians, and became the target of racial tropes that persist even today. Their religious practice, unique accents, and surnames led to scapegoating based on age-old stereotypes that found their origins in Europe long ago. During the Civil War conflict, anti-Jewish intolerance was rampant among the Union and the Confederacy, with accusations that Jewish people were helping the opposing side of the conflict as well as selling military supplies at inflated prices to make a profit.

Despite the undercurrent of anti-Semitism that persisted in American life, Jewish communities flourished. Two million Jews entered the country between 1881 and 1914, escaping poverty and numerous Pogroms in Europe that proved to be financially and personally devastating. Upon their arrival, they were often met with fear and resentment, for their mannerisms, customs, way of life, and perceived successes as they rose both personally and professionally. So, naturally, during economic downturns conspiracy theories surfaced of financial markets and government exploitation by Jews, who were believed to be corrupt international financiers.

These tensions continued to grow, resulting in very public displays of American anti-Semitism, as declarations of Aryan superiority grew louder. In 1913, an angry mob looked to Jewishness to convict Leo Frank, a 29-year-old Jewish factory superintendent, of murdering a young female coworker in Atlanta, Georgia. After the governor reduced his sentence to life imprisonment, the mob, riding a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment, abducted Frank and lynched him. American Jewish citizens were becoming increasingly anxious over society’s unwillingness to protect them from extreme prejudice. Mob violence escalated during World War I as Americans feared the influence of foreign nations and the spread of Bolshevism, attributing these negative influences on Jewish citizens.

American anti-Semitism post-World War I inspired quotas restricting Jewish students from attending institutions of higher learning, despite their qualifications, and also led to their exclusion from certain universities, neighborhoods, hotels, and clubs. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other institutions of higher learning limited the enrollment of Jews to discourage the rise of anti-Semitism. Prominent figures also came forward. Henry Ford, known for his anti-Semitism, published a newspaper in the 1920s in Dearborn, Michigan called The Dearborn that was riddled with anti-Semitic tropes and propaganda. He believed Jewish people sought to control the world by commerce and exchange, beliefs which were praised in Hitler’s treatise, Mein Kampf.

In the 1930s the attacks increased, as neo-Nazis were allowed to openly speak hatred over radio airwaves, justifying and inspiring physical assaults against Jewish citizens both in the United States and abroad. American followers of Hitler, or Nazi sympathizers, were inspired to paint swastikas on Jewish-owned businesses and terrorized them as they rallied in the streets. During Hitler’s reign, America also maintained highly restrictive immigration laws, turning away hundreds of immigrants daily. In 1939, for example, the USS St. Louis was turned away from a Miami port, ultimately returning 900 refugees to Nazi Germany, where one-third would be murdered in the Holocaust.

In the 1940s, approximately 550,000 American Jews fought in World War II. Initially, isolationists blamed them for participation in this devastating conflict. Once the war was over, the awareness of America’s victory over the Nazis coupled with the witnessed atrocities of the Holocaust was jarring enough to result in a noticeable public decline in anti-Semitism in America. Post-conflict criticism of Jewish Americans dropped from 64 percent to 16 percent in 1951, and Judaism was considered a prominent religion in public discourse. This trend would continue through the 1970s, as restrictions loosened, and anti-Semitism faded from view.

Today, complex social change, including anxiety about globalization, economic inequality, the COVID-19 pandemic, and changing demographics, has inspired a resurgence of bigotry, scapegoating, and mistrust. For some, including prominent conservative leaders surrounding former President Donald Trump, the Jewish community once again became the “globalists” responsible for complex social change. As Trump rallied behind the slogan “America First,” echoing prominent anti-Semites during World War II, his words found power in the alt-right and hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, QAnon, and the Proud Boys. He stood mute as prominent journalists were attacked for their Jewishness, trafficking stereotypes in the media and among his own supporters, and condoned violence in Charlottesville as mobs of white men marched chanting “You will not replace us.”

Gale’s Political Extremism and Radicalism series offers researchers insight through primary source materials, helping them make sense of our contemporary struggles with anti-Semitic rhetoric. It examines the ideology and social forces behind the rise of Far Right groups, conspiracy theories, and the political movements that support them, identifying the major figures and events of these groups that are behind our modern-day discourse.

  • Christian Identity and Far Right-Wing Politics

    This collection consists of periodicals, pamphlets, programs, and other printed ephemera regarding American Christian conservative groups' philosophies as well as far right-wing politics and election propaganda. It includes both ephemera and periodicals through which researchers can explore the intersection of Christian conservatism and the Far Right. Some notable newspapers included in this collection are Attack!, Christian Beacon, Christian Defense League, Citizens Informer, Instauration, Michael, The Confederate Leader, The Councilor, The Crusader, The Klansman, The New Order, The Thunderbolt, The Truth at Last, White Knight, White Patriot, and White Power.

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  • Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlet Collection

    The Library at the University of California, Davis established the Radical Pamphlet Collection in 1966 with a collection of pamphlets purchased from Walter Goldwater, a book dealer who specialized in radical politics and who was also one of the first book dealers to specialize in African American studies. Through the material in this collection researchers can explore the role that the Far Right plays in the United States, with titles authored by both those in support of and criticizing Far Right viewpoints, and which cover topics such as the Ku Klux Klan, communism, politics, racism, and fascism.

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  • Social Documents Collection

    The Social Documents Collection contains a large accumulation of materials published by conservative organizations; groups generally considered to be to the right on the political spectrum.

    Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far Right Groups in America includes a number of pamphlets, publications, leaflets, correspondence and ephemera focusing specifically on material related to Far Right groups that have been selected from the wider Social Documents Collection. Materials concern a range of right-wing and Far Right thinking, from Second Amendment gun rights and tax protest to anti-communist, racist, anti-Semitic, Neo-Confederate thinking, and much more.

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  • James Aho Collection

    The James Aho Collection is comprised of a variety of materials documenting right-wing extremism in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. Materials consist of printed matter, recordings, and ephemera with the bulk of the collection consisting of newsletters from various churches and organizations promoting their beliefs. Some notable publications featured in this collection include The Page, Destiny Magazine, Aryan Nations, The Covenant Message, Civil Liberties Review, Northwest Beacon, Christ is the Answer, and Youth Action News.

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  • FBI File on the Posse Comitatus

    This FBI file is an excellent case study of the tracking of a hate group. A group of right-wing extremists, the Posse Comitatus was formed in Oregon in the early 1970s. Established as a group of citizens “voluntarily acting in the name of the local sheriff to enforce the law,” the Posse Comitatus hated Jews, African Americans, and government officials above the rank of sheriff. Holding the federal government in contempt as illegitimate, and recognizing lawful authority only on the county level, the Posse also advocated tax rebellion. Covering the period 1973–1977 and 1980–1996, this collection contains copies of hate literature, details of a bombing, and notes from several income tax evasion trials. This file will be of interest to those studying hate groups and the government's efforts to monitor them.

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  • The American Radicalism Collection

    Since 1970, the American Radicalism Collection at Michigan State University has been collecting ephemera on radical political groups across a range of extremist movements, including those involved in religion, race, gender, the environment, and equal rights. The collection covers four general categories, each with a different focus: leftist politics and anti-war movements; religion and the radical Right; race, gender, and equal rights; and social, economic, and environmental movements. The collection also includes materials on such topics as survivalism, Holocaust denial, creationism, and anti-Catholicism from groups like the John Birch Society and the Black Panther Party. The materials represent a wide range of viewpoints, from the Far Right to the Far Left, on political, social, cultural, sexual, and economic issues in the United States.

    The aggregation process did not end with materials from the late 1960s and 1970s. The collection includes materials from the 1980s, the 1990s, and the beginning of the twenty-first century. As a totality, the American Radicalism Collection provides a non-idealized and minimally brokered snapshot of social change concerns in the United States from 1970 to the present.

    This expansive collection offers researchers the opportunity to study, as well as compare, multiple fringe political movements in the United States and to examine what impact they have had on today’s society.

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  • HO 283 Home Office: Defence Regulation 18B, Advisory Committee Papers

    Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet of Ancoats, was a British politician and member of Parliament. In 1932, Mosley formed and became the leader of the British Union of Fascists. The party was renamed the National Socialists in 1936 and British Union in 1937 and was said to be modelled on Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers' Party. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the British Security Service and Special Branch became increasingly worried that the British Union of Fascists was gathering public support that might undermine the war effort. Mosley was therefore interned under Defence Regulation 18B in 1940.

    Papers of the Advisory Committee on Defence Regulation 18B is comprised mainly of transcripts of its hearings of individual cases of detainees. This collection concerns Sir Oswald Mosley's appeal against his detention during the Second World War and includes papers of Norman Birkett, K.C., concerning the British Union of Fascists.

    The records in this collection provide unique insight into the founding of the British Union of Fascists and how it operated within the British political system.

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  • HO 45 Home Office: Registered Papers. Registered Papers, 1920 onwards

    This collection comprises of Home Office papers on individuals detained during the Second World War because of their involvement with right-wing groups, such as the British People's Party, the British Union, the Fascist January Club, the Imperial Fascist League, the Link, the National Socialist League, the Nordic League, and the Right Club.

    Defence Regulation 18B was one of the Defence Regulations used by the British Government during the Second World War that allowed the internment of people suspected of being Nazi sympathizers. Individuals could be detained without being formally charged with a crime.

    This collection is essential for researchers examining Second World War Britain and twentieth-century political movements.

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  • FBI File on Charles Lindbergh

    Charles Lindbergh thrilled the American public when he became the first man to fly an airplane solo over the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. However, Lindbergh's life was also marked by tragedy and controversy. In 1932, the infant child of Lindbergh and his wife, Anne, was kidnapped and murdered. Lindbergh was impressed by the power of the Nazi war machine—particularly the Luftwaffe—and advocated American neutrality in the volatile years before World War II. Covering the 1930s and 1940s, this FBI file focuses mainly on Lindbergh's activities as a Nazi sympathizer. This collection will appeal to anyone interested in American social history as well as to those studying the decades leading up to World War II.

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  • Searchlight Magazine

    Searchlight was founded in 1964 as an occasional newspaper publication, but from 1975 to present it has been published as a monthly magazine. Its primary purpose is to investigate and publish exposes on fascist, anti-Semitic, and racist groups operating both in Britain and abroad.

    The 62 Group, an anti-fascist coalition set up in 1962 in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain, appointed Gerry Gable to work with their intelligence operation. In 1964, he established a press agency to make the information they were gathering available to the public in the form of the Searchlight newspaper, under the editorship of Reginald Freeson, MP. It was relaunched as a monthly magazine in 1975 and continues to publish today.

    Coverage has included a number of British Far Right groups, including the British National Party (BNP), Combat 18, and the English Defence League (EDL), as well as international fascist and racist organizations, such as the Norwegian Nazi Party and the Australian National Socialist Party. Searchlight’s network includes several anti-racist organizations from around the world and it has published many notable journalists, including Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, whose magazine Expo is often considered Searchlight’s sister publication.

    Researchers interested in the evolution of Far Right groups around the world during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century will find this publication indispensable for its coverage of a wide range of groups, individuals, and topics.

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  • Far Right Ephemera

    The 62 Group, an anti-fascist coalition set up in 1962 largely in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain, appointed Gerry Gable to work with their intelligence operation. This led to the formation of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, alongside Searchlight Associates, an information service aimed at exposing racist and fascist groups. Searchlight Associates collected material from a wide range of radical Right groups, primarily in Britain but also internationally. They especially focused on the British National Party, Combat 18, and the English Defence League as well as the activist groups that opposed them. The results of these investigations formed the Searchlight Archive, which is a major body of material documenting the activities of British and international fascist and racist organizations. It is also a unique archive, and is one of the most extensive and significant resources of its type in Europe. The archive features an array of material and documents related to the history of the extreme right.

    This collection contains leaflets, stickers, posters, and electoral ephemera from Far Right groups, such as the British Movement, British National Party, Combat 18, England First, International Third Position, National Front, National Socialist Movement, and the National Socialist Party of Australia. These materials offer a unique insight into the beliefs, actions, and campaigning strategies of several fascist and racist groups as well as mapping the evolution of Far Right movements throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century.

    This collection is highly important, not only for those interested in the history of Far Right movements in Britain and abroad, but any researcher trying to understand global politics in the twentieth century.

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  • The Hall-Hoag Collection

    The Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda from the John Hay Library at Brown University began as a collection of material gathered by Gordon Hall. After returning from World War II, Hall investigated hate groups in the United States for Friends of Democracy, an anti-totalitarian group. He built a substantial collection of propaganda materials, mainly focused on anti-integrationist, anti-Semitic, and racist groups, such as the American Fascist Union and Ku Klux Klan organizations.

    The Hall-Hoag Collection is a treasure trove of primary source materials for academic researchers of modern American extremism. Extremist literature has always been difficult to find because its authors intend the material to be read by a limited number of true believers. Consequently, print runs tend to be small and erratic. It takes a dedicated effort to amass and organize collections of this type. Most of the extremist literature in this collection ranges from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s—the most heated days of the civil rights movement. Publications in this collection represent a cross-section of extremist opinion towards integration and civil rights activism, but it also contains materials on American anti-Semitism, Christian Identity theology, neo-Nazi groups, and white supremacy movements.

    This collection is the product of decades of collaboration between Gordon Hall and his research assistant, Grace Hoag. Hoag first worked with Hall as a volunteer and later as a collaborator. They were able to collect difficult-to-obtain materials from major American extremist organizations and groups from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s.

    Hall and Hoag gathered a representative sample of literature from a variety of extremist groups. In examining the organization of the Hall-Hoag materials, the groups that had a particularly significant impact will be discussed in some depth. Hall and Hoag divided their collection into the following categories: Anti-Integrationist Organizations, Anti-Jewish Racist Organizations, Hate Groups Extreme Right, and Ku Klux Klan Organizations. Each of these groups shared a belief in, and a commitment to, white supremacy.

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  • Fascist and Anti-Fascist Booklets

    The 62 Group, an anti-fascist coalition set up in 1962 largely in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain, appointed Gerry Gable to work with their intelligence operation. This led to the formation of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, alongside Searchlight Associates, an information service aimed at exposing racist and fascist groups. Searchlight Associates collected material from a wide range of radical Right groups, primarily in Britain, but also internationally. They especially focused on the British National Party, Combat 18, and the English Defence League as well as the activist groups that opposed them. The results of these investigations formed the Searchlight Archive, which is a major body of material documenting the activities of British and international fascist and racist organizations. It is also a unique archive, and is one of the most extensive and significant resources of its type in Europe. The archive features an array of material and documents related to the history of the extreme right.

    This collection contains booklets from both fascist and anti-fascist activist groups from as early as 1918. Coverage includes a broad spectrum of political propaganda penned by notable individuals, such as Arnold Leese and William Joyce, as well as the output of their opposition, such as the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

    The collection is vital for those researching Far Right movements, anti-fascist activism, racism, anti-Semitism, and radical politics as well as British and European history in general throughout the twentieth-century.

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  • Searchlight Oral Histories Collection

    The 62 Group, an anti-fascist coalition set up in 1962 largely in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain, appointed Gerry Gable to work with their intelligence operation. This led to the formation of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, alongside Searchlight Associates, an information service aimed at exposing racist and fascist groups. Searchlight Associates collected material from a wide range of radical Right groups, primarily in Britain, but also internationally. They especially focused on the British National Party, Combat 18 and the English Defence League as well as the activist groups that opposed them.

    In 2015, in collaboration with Gerry Gable and using Searchlight’s network, researchers from the University of Northampton recorded interviews with anti-fascist activists active from the 1940s to the 1990s. These are exclusive recordings with anti-fascists about their experiences, discussing the post-war history of anti-fascism and what caused them to get engaged in the movement.

    The oral history project’s collection includes recordings taken during interviews with members of the original 43 Group (Jewish anti-fascists who opposed Mosley after the war), informants who acted as anti-fascist moles infiltrating groups such as the British National Party, and anti-racist campaigners who formed advocacy groups in response to racial violence like the Stephen Lawrence murder.

    This collection is an important resource for researchers of British history and politics in the twentieth century as well as fostering new research into Britain’s current multicultural society and extreme right politics.

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