Question

What were the primary reasons nativism became widespread ???

Answer 1

Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in November 1917, the sense of an inevitable foreign or communist threat grew among those already predisposed to distrust immigrants. The sense of fear and anxiety over the rising tide of immigration came to a head with the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

Answer 2

The Nativists went public in 1854 when they formed the “American Party,” which was especially hostile to the immigration of Irish Catholics, and campaigned for laws to require a longer wait time between immigration and naturalization (the laws never passed).