Prominent WASP Families & Individuals

WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (Christian) [draft]

Prominent WASP Families & Individuals. “Boston Brahmin” and other notable New England families with less than 100,000 paternal ancestors (same last name) in the 2020 U.S. Census include: vvv

“WASP” was used famously by a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. The author stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of this group.

These families are often referred to as “The Establishment.” They were listed in the last century in The Social Register. America’s social elite was a small, closed group. The leadership was well-known to the readers of newspaper society pages, but in larger cities it was hard to remember everyone, or to keep track of the new debutantes and marriages. The solution was the Social Register, which listed the names and addresses of about 1% of the population. Most were WASPs, and they included families who mingled at the same private clubs, attended the right teas, worshiped together at prestige churches, funded the proper charities, lived in exclusive neighborhoods, and sent their daughters to finishing schools and their sons away to prep schools.

In the heyday of WASP dominance, the Social Register delineated high society. According to The New York Times, its influence had faded by the late 20th century: “Once, the Social Register was a juggernaut in New York social circles… Nowadays, however, with the waning of the WASP elite as a social and political force, the register’s role as an arbiter of who counts and who doesn’t is almost an anachronism. In Manhattan, where charity galas are at the center of the social season, the organizing committees are studded with luminaries from publishing, Hollywood and Wall Street and family lineage is almost irrelevant.”

WASP families traditionally practiced endogamy, whether consciously or subconsciously, by finding marital partners withing their social circles, especially their mainline church.

Endogamy is the cultural practice of mating within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside of the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.

This tradition often creates ethnoreligious groups such as the Amish (0.5m), Armenian (15m), Assyrians (4m), Balinese Hindus (4m), Copts (10m), Deccan (12m), Druze (1m), Greeks (15m), Jews (15m), Mahar (10m), Maronites (10m), Minangkabau (8m), Sikhs (30m), Tibetans (8m), WASPs (2m), and Yazidis (1m). As a “specific social group,” it is possible to include LGBTQ+ individuals (20m), and Millionaires (20m) as well (U.S. figures).

“Boston Brahmin” and other notable New England families with less than 100,000 paternal ancestors (same last name) in the 2020 U.S. Census include:

See also: Prominent LGBTQ+ Individuals | Prominent WASP Families & Individuals | Prominent Jewish Individuals