ABSTRACT
This essay uses the case of German and Irish Catholics in Philadelphia to suggest that contrasting experiences of nationalism and religion could foster quite distinct languages of ethnic difference. It then outlines the very different vocabularies of ethnic difference used by these two groups, as they surfaced in two Philadelphia Catholic newspapers, the Catholic Standard and Times and the German-language weekly Nord Amerika. From their enclaves within the Church, the city's German Catholics contemplated Irish dominance with unconcealed resentment. Philadelphia appears to have avoided the fierce disputes over local hierarchical appointments that German and Irish Catholics waged in the Midwestin the 1880s and 1890s. Nord Amerika's conception of race, in fact, appears to have borne a striking resemblance to today's popular understanding of the term. The clearest evidence of this appeared in the newspaper's advice column, in response to a reader who wrote in to ask how "the difference between the races of men" could be explained.
