Know Nothings

Know-Nothings, a name, derived from their affectation of mystery, given to the Americans, the members of the Native American Party, an association based on hostility to foreign immigrants and to Roman Catholics, which in 1844 gained some political success in New York and Philadelphia, but after some riotous attacks on Roman Catholics in the latter city soon sank into oblivion. The name was also applied to the party which, in 1889, wrested the municipal government of Boston from Irish control.