Person/Organization: Bapst, John
Item 35333
Contributed by: John Bapst Memorial High School Date: circa 1860 Location: Bangor Media: Photographic print
Item 35332
First Communion Souvenir, St. John's Church, Bangor, 1859
Contributed by: John Bapst Memorial High School Date: 1859-03-06 Location: Bangor Media: Ink on paper
Exhibit
Father John Bapst: Catholicism's Defender and Promoter
Father John Bapst, a Jesuit, knew little of America or Maine when he arrived in Old Town in 1853 from Switzerland. He built churches and defended Roman Catholics against Know-Nothing activists, who tarred and feathered the priest in Ellsworth in 1854.
Exhibit
In Maine, like many other states, a newly formed Ku Klux Klan organization began recruiting members in the years just before the United States entered World War I. A message of patriotism and cautions about immigrants and non-Protestants drew many thousands of members into the secret organization in the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, the group was largely gone from Maine.
Story
Anti-immigrant violence
by Matthew Jude Barker
Prejudice in Maine against immigrants dates back to at least the mid-1700s
