<P> Nativist movements included the Know Nothing or American Party of the 1850s, the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s, the anti-Asian movements in the West, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the "Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907" by which Japan's government stopped emigration to the United States . Labor unions were strong supporters of Chinese exclusion and limits on immigration, because of fears that they would lower wages and make it harder for workers to organize unions . </P> <P> Historian Eric Kaufmann has suggested that American nativism has been explained primarily in psychological and economic terms due to the neglect of a crucial cultural and ethnic dimension . Furthermore, Kauffman claims that American nativism cannot be understood without reference to an American ethnic group which took shape prior to the large - scale immigration of the mid-eighteenth century . </P> <P> Nativist outbursts occurred in the Northeast from the 1830s to the 1850s, primarily in response to a surge of Irish Catholic immigration . In 1836, Samuel Morse ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City on a Nativist ticket, receiving 1,496 votes . In New York City, an Order of United Americans was founded as a nativist fraternity, following the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of the preceding spring and summer, in December, 1844 . </P> <P> In 1849--50 Charles B. Allen founded a nativist society called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner in New York City . In order to join the Order, a man had to be twenty - one, a Protestant, a believer in God, and willing to obey without question the dictates of the order . Members of the Order became known as the Know Nothings (a label applied to them because if asked they said they "know nothing about" the secret society). </P>

What led to the rise of nativism in the mid 1800s