# E. Digby Baltzell
**E. Digby Baltzell** (Edward Digby Baltzell, 1915–1996) was an American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studied the [American upper class](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-upper-class) and is best known for popularizing the term "WASP" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and for his book *The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America* (1964).[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) • [2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/) He built a career studying the nation's elite at a time when colleagues were more likely to lavish attention on the downtrodden.[2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | Born in Philadelphia in 1915; died 1996[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) • [3](https://www.routledge.com/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class/Baltzell/p/book/9781003578062) |
| Education | B.S., Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1940; Ph.D. in sociology, Columbia University, 1952[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) |
| Academic post | Faculty of sociology at Penn from 1947 to 1986; Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology thereafter[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) |
| Signature books | *Philadelphia Gentlemen* (1958), *The Protestant Establishment* (1964), *Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia* (1979)[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) |
| Term he popularized | "WASP"; an acronym that, in Irving Louis Horowitz's words, "meant dominance"[2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/) |
| Fellowships | Danforth Fellow, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1967–1968; Charles Warren Research Fellow, Harvard, 1972–1973; Guggenheim Fellow, 1978–1979[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) |
| Honored by | *Social Class and Democratic Leadership: Essays in Honor of E. Digby Baltzell* (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), edited by Harold J. Bershady[4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4t80mq) |
## Life and career
Baltzell was born in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, a scion of the upper class that later became the object of his study, though he described himself as among the "impecunious genteel."[5](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/) He graduated with a B.S. from the [Wharton School](https://www.edgepedia.org/wharton-school) of the University of Pennsylvania in 1940 and took a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1952.[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) He served on the Penn sociology faculty from 1947 until his retirement in 1986, and was later Emeritus Professor of History and [Sociology](https://www.edgepedia.org/sociology); he also held visiting professorial roles at [Princeton Theological Seminary](https://www.edgepedia.org/princeton-theological-seminary) and Harvard University.[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) • [3](https://www.routledge.com/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class/Baltzell/p/book/9781003578062)
His papers, held at the University Archives and Records Center, include manuscripts and research sources for two of his books, *Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia* (1979) and *Sporting Gentlemen* (1995), the latter accompanied by an extensive documentation of the [history of tennis](https://www.edgepedia.org/history-of-tennis) in the United States and Europe.[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf)
## The WASP coinage
Baltzell is widely credited with defining, and stinging, the group he named. "The term took off," said Frank Furstenberg, a fellow sociologist at Penn.[2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/) Irving Louis Horowitz, a sociology professor at [Rutgers University](https://www.edgepedia.org/rutgers-university) and president of Transaction Publishing, which published Baltzell, said the acronym "meant dominance."[2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/) A legal-history account likewise identifies the sociologist who popularized the term WASP as the one who also popularized the concept of "the Establishment" in *The Protestant Establishment*.[6](https://openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/295b6793-b6c9-4b52-a0ff-c71d5cce4a74/content) • [14](https://wordhistories.net/2018/02/02/wasp-american-sociology/)
## Philadelphia Gentlemen
His first major book, *Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class* (1958), is a classic study of Philadelphia's business aristocracy of colonial stock with Protestant affiliations, and an analysis of how wealthy nineteenth-century family founders produced a national upper-class way of life.[3](https://www.routledge.com/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class/Baltzell/p/book/9781003578062) Writing in *The New Yorker*, a later observer described the book's picture of a city tightly controlled by a defined coterie blending social and economic prestige, engaged in "the exercise of power over other men in making the decisions which shape the ends of a predominately business-oriented social structure."[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/05/no-mans-town) Baltzell framed the book as an analysis of the adequacy of American institutions in fostering, among the rich and powerful, a sense of noblesse oblige, and he criticized what he called the "time-provincialism" of recent social science: sociology without history and psychology without biography.[8](https://www.everand.com/book/871593304/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class)
## The Protestant Establishment
*The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America* (1964) is the work for which he is best remembered. A contemporary review by H. Stuart Hughes in *The New York Review of Books* said the book had "many virtues that lift it above the level we have come to expect in works of contemporary social and cultural analysis," and a [Yale University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/yale-university-press) description credits it with exposing the connections between high social status and political and economic power.[9](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/12/17/the-wasps/) • [10](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300038187/the-protestant-establishment/) The book was highly critical of the WASP establishment and proposed the development and need for some sort of upper-class ruling-group.[11](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ152935) Its most quoted line, "Affluence without authority breeds alienation," has been cited decades later as prophetic.[12](https://time.com/6335816/end-of-wasp-values-essay/)
**A changing verdict.** In 1976, in a little noticed essay, "The Protestant Establishment Revisited," in *The American Scholar*, Baltzell re-evaluated his book, then thirteen years old, and all but acknowledged the defeat of his hopes for a resurgence of Protestant leadership, noting that [Ivy League](https://www.edgepedia.org/ivy-league) universities and publications founded by older-stock elements were rushing to join the assault on American society, and that "the lack of, or declining faith in, an establishment soon spills over into a lack of faith in, and antipathy toward, all institutions."[11](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ152935) • [13](https://www.commentary.org/articles/murray-friedman-2/puritan-boston-and-quaker-philadelphia-by-e-digby-baltzell/) He had earlier expressed concern that the Protestant establishment had entered a period of decline beginning in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century and was on the verge of becoming a mere caste system.[13](https://www.commentary.org/articles/murray-friedman-2/puritan-boston-and-quaker-philadelphia-by-e-digby-baltzell/)
## Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia and later work
*Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership* (1979) compared the legacies of the two cities' founding religious cultures and their continuing influence on the upper classes and on America itself.[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) • [13](https://www.commentary.org/articles/murray-friedman-2/puritan-boston-and-quaker-philadelphia-by-e-digby-baltzell/) His later books include *The Protestant Establishment Revisited* (1991), *Judgment and Sensibility: Religion and Stratification* (1994), and *Sporting Gentlemen: Men's [Tennis](https://www.edgepedia.org/tennis) from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar* (1995).[1](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf) A reviewer of *Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia* described him as the distinguished Penn sociologist who had made a specialty of examining the role of leadership elites in American life.[13](https://www.commentary.org/articles/murray-friedman-2/puritan-boston-and-quaker-philadelphia-by-e-digby-baltzell/)
## Interpretation and legacy
Fred Block, in the 1989 festschrift, read Baltzell's writings as an extended commentary on the problem of authority in modern societies: shaped by the horrors of European fascism, his central concern was how legitimate and effective political authority is possible in a secular era of continuous social change, with a solution grounded in his interpretation of several centuries of English and American history.[4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4t80mq) Michael Zuckerman, in the same volume, placed him among a diminishing band of sociologists who maintained the ethical faith of their discipline's founders, wringing illumination from directories of the American establishment such as *Who's Who*.[4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4t80mq) The festschrift's essays address themes he opened, including education for leadership, conditions of upper-class maintenance, and the social meaning of democracy.[4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4t80mq) His influence outlasted him: writers on the end of WASP dominance still quote his diagnosis that affluence without authority breeds alienation.[12](https://time.com/6335816/end-of-wasp-values-essay/)
## References
1. [Guide, E. Digby Baltzell Papers (UPT 50 B197), University of Pennsylvania Archives](https://archives.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/upt50b197.pdf)
2. [He Defined the WASP, and Stung It, The Washington Post (1996)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/20/he-defined-the-wasp-and-stung-it/bf53c1d8-f45a-49a8-a38a-4059a59f17a9/)
3. [Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class, Routledge](https://www.routledge.com/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class/Baltzell/p/book/9781003578062)
4. [Social Class and Democratic Leadership: Essays in Honor of E. Digby Baltzell, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4t80mq)
5. [Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites, American Affairs (2021)](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/)
6. [The Legal Imagination and The Protestant Establishment, Yale Law School](https://openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/295b6793-b6c9-4b52-a0ff-c71d5cce4a74/content)
7. [No Man's Town, The New Yorker (2000)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/05/no-mans-town)
8. [Philadelphia Gentlemen, ebook preview, Everand](https://www.everand.com/book/871593304/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-The-Making-of-a-National-Upper-Class)
9. [The Wasps, by H. Stuart Hughes, The New York Review of Books (1964)](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/12/17/the-wasps/)
10. [The Protestant Establishment, Yale University Press](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300038187/the-protestant-establishment/)
11. [The Protestant Establishment Revisited, ERIC record, American Scholar (1976)](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ152935)
12. [What We Lost with the End of the WASPocracy, Time (2022)](https://time.com/6335816/end-of-wasp-values-essay/)
13. [Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, review by Murray Friedman, Commentary (1979)](https://www.commentary.org/articles/murray-friedman-2/puritan-boston-and-quaker-philadelphia-by-e-digby-baltzell/)
14. [origin of ‘Wasp’ (‘white Anglo-Saxon Protestant’)](https://wordhistories.net/2018/02/02/wasp-american-sociology/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Life and health › Animals › Invertebrates › Arthropods › Insects › Bees, wasps, and ants › Bees, wasps, and hornets in human culture › Applied names: military, technical, acronymic, and place/person names › WASP acronyms, organizations, and exoplanets › White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP)*
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