jan 15, 1850 - Know Nothing Party

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The Know Nothing movement, formally known as the Native American Party (at the time meaning descendants of colonists or settlers, rather than Indigenous Americans) before 1855 and the American Party after 1855, was a nativist political party and movement in the United States, which operated nationwide in the mid-1850s, originally starting as a secret society. It was primarily an anti-Catholic, Anti-Irish, anti-immigration, populist and xenophobic movement, although it was also progressive in its stances on "issues of labor rights, opposition to slavery, and the need for more government spending" as well as for its "support for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures designed to improve the status of working people." It was also a forerunner to the temperance movement in the United States. The Know Nothing movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to simply reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its common name.

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