AH Challenge: Majority Roman Catholic population in Appalachia.

The challenge I present to you is have a POD that ends up creating an America in which at least 70% of the people living in the region of the US known as Appalachia be Roman Catholic.


A map of the Appalachian region of America.

Appalachian_region_of_United_States.gif
 

wormyguy

Banned
French victory in the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) is the simplest. Assuming they maintain their hold on North America long enough to establish a significant French immigrant population, Appalachia, along with most of the rest of North America is Roman Catholic.
 
One idea I've been toying with is an America in which Appalachia has a large Catholic population, and like OTL the region is very very poor but the idea is based around activits in the Church combined with lay activists and attempts to unionize faceing resistance from wealthy WASPs mine owners and plantation owners and instead of a region being fractured by racial and religous tensions the Church is used as the glue which binds the union movement, turning the Appalachian region into a hot bed for a poltical party born from the struggle that is a combination of being what is considered traditionally right socially and left economically. This party would compete with the Democrats and Republicans.

Another few ideas I had leading up to the Catholic majority in Appalachia are Catholic Irish and Socts are removed in large numbers and forcefully transported to the North American colonies or move on their own, which ever, and due to the hostility towards Catholics in the Colonies they move into the sparsly populated Appalachian region. The region sees over the next 100 years a steady stream of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Southern, and Eastern Europe who instead of settling in the cities end up moving into the Appalachian region and the surrounding foothills which already have a large Catholic population. Granted this is really really sketchy and poorly thouhgt but I'm working on it. Another idea was that large numbers of French Catholics somehow end up in the region after a British victory in the French and Indian war (Americas chapter of the 7 Years War).

Another few ideas I was toying with was having a very large Jewish minority in Savannah Georgia, Cossacks in the Dakotas, Muslims in Texas, and a large influx of Chinese into Britsh Columbia (granted its not part of the US but I thought why should Canada get left out of a major demograhpics shift?).
 
All you need is more Catholicism in Scotland and to have more Scottish people owe other people money, that way when Georgia comes about as a debtor's colony you can have even more poor Scots form the basis of what would become the lower half of Appalachia.
 
You could invent a Great Man who attempts to keep the Scottish peasants Catholic when the leadership becomes Calvinist. Some kind of charismatic priest or something.

Consequently, a lot more Scots stay Catholic, even if they have to be crypto-Catholic. They could end up being deported to North America or go to help out their co-religionists and everybody gets deported to North America.
 
More Eastern European immigration to those areas. Perhaps a more successful Hitler that manages a negotiated peace and keeps Eastern Europe? Perhaps then with Appalachia a declining area economically a US President makes a deal with a Fuhrer to bring Eastern Europeans to the Appalachia region.
 
French victory in the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) is the simplest. Assuming they maintain their hold on North America long enough to establish a significant French immigrant population, Appalachia, along with most of the rest of North America is Roman Catholic.

the Spanish armada makes it to England is the Simplest, America is settled by Spain, or France or Catholic England, Appalachia, along with most of the rest of North America is Roman Catholic. :p
 
the Spanish armada makes it to England is the Simplest, America is settled by Spain, or France or Catholic England, Appalachia, along with most of the rest of North America is Roman Catholic. :p


Well the idea was going for was that most of the US is still Protestant (though with a larger Catholic minority) and the Appalachian region is seen ITTL as a the epicenter of, like in OTL, a unqie culture. Except in ITTL the people of Appalachia are nohwere near as down trodden, poor, and disenfranchised as OTL. Instead its the epicenter of unionization movements and a movement for social justice and equality I even came up with an order of nuns that helps propell womens sufferage and a proto-civil rights movement.
 
Well the idea was going for was that most of the US is still Protestant (though with a larger Catholic minority) and the Appalachian region is seen ITTL as a the epicenter of, like in OTL, a unqie culture. Except in ITTL the people of Appalachia are nohwere near as down trodden, poor, and disenfranchised as OTL. Instead its the epicenter of unionization movements and a movement for social justice and equality I even came up with an order of nuns that helps propell womens sufferage and a proto-civil rights movement.

That does sound very interesting.
 
I was tinkering with the idea of a two kinds of socialsim developing at the same time, American socialism and European socialism.
 
I was tinkering with the idea of a two kinds of socialsim developing at the same time, American socialism and European socialism.

I would definitely read the TL if you put it out. Intellectual development timelines are always interesting. I think though that from the sound of it there will be more to this time line then just intellectual changes. Demographic changes in certain areas often means changes in deeper historical trends.

American socialism developing at the same time as European socialism would be more difficult. Socialism is essentially an industrial ideology, that is the only thing that differentiates it from prior egalitarian movements. Although earlier American industrial developments would be really interesting to see.
 
I would definitely read the TL if you put it out. Intellectual development timelines are always interesting. I think though that from the sound of it there will be more to this time line then just intellectual changes. Demographic changes in certain areas often means changes in deeper historical trends.

American socialism developing at the same time as European socialism would be more difficult. Socialism is essentially an industrial ideology, that is the only thing that differentiates it from prior egalitarian movements. Although earlier American industrial developments would be really interesting to see.


I'm waffeling of the idea of wrtting the TL, most likely not going to write one and I'm gonna put this idea away in my idea box. If someone wants to use some of my ideas go right on and do so since I'm not going to use them any time soon.

But I will keep this thread bumped with ideas on the knock off effects of major social and demographics changes in the US and Cannada.

One idea I had was a scene in which a young British buisness man travling by train from New York to Atlanta so that he could enjoy the American country side stops at a major historical site to see a famous statue. He stops and looks up and before is a massive bronze statue of a Priest clutching a bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other his arms streached out as if he was nailed to a cross and he is flanked on both sides by two miners one armed with a pickax the other with a rifle and they have a look on their faces that says "We fear neather death nor pain." and on a large bronze plaque is one simple pharse "As he died to make men holy so we shall die to make me free.". The statue is dedicated to a epic battle in 1889 in which over 5,000 miners lead by the radical priest Father O'Brian against the mining comapny guards and the state millitia dealing a decisive blow to the comapny and government forces. They would latter lay down their arms and return to their homes and places of work after they forced the state and the federal government to recognize the kind of poverty and conditions in which they lived and using popular support force the government to pass labor laws protecting unions, workers, and children.

The irony is in this world the, atleast in America, unions and socialism aren't so closely tied in fact the pro-labor party born out of the blood and coal of the Appalachian mountains is actually opposed to the American socialist who have major support in New England. In fact it comes to pass that both in the strongly Catholic parts of the US and in Catholic Europe socialism comes to be seen as "A protestant thing, which we have no need of."
 
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