Principal Refuses to Hire Catholic as Teacher; Faces Charges
William J. Hoffman, principal of Harriman School in Orange County, New York, faced an official investigation on this day for refusing to hire Anna Mulholland as a teacher because she was a Roman Catholic.
When she applied for the position, Hoffman sent her a letter saying, “I am anxious to know whether you are Protestant or Catholic,” with the implication that if she is a Catholic she would not be hired. The ACLU brought the issue to the attention of the New York Commissioner of Education, which investigated.
In the 1920s, even in communities outside the South, the Ku Klux Klan was powerful; Catholics were often barred from teaching due to pressure by the KKK.
Anti-Catholic prejudice was strong across the country, there were many bigoted attacks on Al Smith, Democratic Party candidate for president in 1928, go to April 18, 1927, and September 18, 1928. See the efforts to fight anti-Catholic prejudice by Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State (and both former and future Supreme Court Justice), on April 23, 1922; the formation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews on December 8, 1927; and the national tour of the “Tolerance Trio,” a Priest, a Rabbi, and a Minister, August 29, 1933.
Smith’s defeat by Republican Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election created the myth and a Catholic could not be elected president. That myth was shattered in 1960 with the election of John F. Kennedy as president.
Learn more about the KKK in the 1920s: David Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan, 3rd ed. (1987)
Learn more: Shaun Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960 (2009)
Read about anti-Catholicism in the 1920s here