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Unsatisfied curiosity: " Break the Pope's neck" game

 
 
jbruce
 
Reply Sun 20 Nov, 2005 07:03 pm
A friend of mine in an Intro to American History course at a local University recently e-mailed me about help on an extra credit project.The assignment was to find the rules of the old children's game " Break the Pope's neck". Now, history has always been an amuteur passion of mine so I was quick to agree. How hard could it be to find,anyway?
Well as it turns out, very hard. I've found references on who played this game and when and why it came about. But not how it was played. I've come fairly close to exhausting the Internet and my own area of interest and library ends around 1400s, so thats no help. What I need is people ( I think) and not more search engines. This has(for me) gone beyond helping out my friend and entered the realm of burning curiosity. I hate an unsatisfied curiosity. If anyone knows the rules of how this game was played I would greatly appreciate it.
Taken from Digital History here is a brief explanation on the why and when this game was first played.

"No European ethnic group exhibited a stronger degree of ethnic solidarity in the United States than Irish Catholics. In politics, Irish Catholics were consistent supporters for the Democratic party from the 1840s onward. As recently as 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate, Lyndon B. Johnson, received 78 percent of the Irish Catholic vote.

In the economic sphere, Irish Catholics, more than any other European ethnic group, emphasized economic solidarity, collective action, and politics as keys to improving their economic position and resisting discrimination. Instead of emphasizing individual upward mobility, many Irish men found work in more egalitarian situations, on labor gangs or construction crews or as longshoremen. Irish Catholic men were also especially likely to seek government employment (especially as police officers) or to find jobs under contractors who held city contracts or in public utilities, such as street railways. During the 19th century, Irish Catholics often took the lead in forming and supporting labor unions.

This high degree of ethnic solidarity reflected both the discrimination that Irish Catholics faced as well as their belief that their job security and economic well-being depended on ethnic unity in the face of hostility from the nation's Protestant majority. From the early nineteenth century onward, Irish Catholics faced recurrent waves of anti-Catholic sentiment. The evangelical revivals of the early nineteenth century produced a "No Popery" movement. A popular children's game was "Break the Pope's Neck."

Mass Irish Catholic immigration in the mid- and late-1840s led to the rise of the viciously anti-Catholic Know Nothing party, which drew support from many native-born white workingmen. But anti-Catholicism was not confined to a particular social class.

Anti-Irish Catholic sentiment could also be found in the liberal press of the late-nineteenth century, especially through Harper's Weekly, where anti-Catholic fervor was particularly intense during the 1870s. Articles in liberal magazines claimed that Irish Catholics were more loyal to the Pope than other Catholic immigrants, and were hostile toward democracy. Liberal opinion was particular worried by late 19th century papal pronouncements against liberalism and modernism, especially the declaration of the doctrine of Papal infallibility.

Republicans regarded Irish Catholics as a core constituency of the Democratic party. They associated Irish Catholics with corrupt urban political machines, like New York's Tammany Hall.

The Progressive era saw yet another wave of anti-Catholic sentiment. In 1914, Florida's Governor, Sidney J. Catts, claimed that the Pope planned to invade the state. The state legislatures in Michigan and Nebraska debated constitutional amendments banishing parochial schools.

The 1920s witnessed a renewed outburst of anti-Catholic sentiment. Legislatures in the South, Midwest, and West, influenced by the staunchly anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan, sought to require daily Bible readings from the Protestant version of the Bible.

As late as 1960, anti-Catholic sentiment was still strong enough to threaten John Kennedy's presidential candidacy. But the Pope's visit to the United States in 1986 demonstrated a decisive decline in the prevalence of anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States. The Papal visit was celebrated as a symbol of the spread of religious tolerance in the United States."
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bishbeast
 
  1  
Reply Fri 2 Dec, 2005 09:06 pm
have you found any information yet??
Sir,
I am the corresponding secretary of the Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors. I am also in search of the rules to 'Break the Pope's Neck'. I was wondering if you had had any luck yet with finding them.
I received a question from our web site regarding this game and have looked extensively on the net with only an increase in curiosity as the result.
Any help would be appreciated.

sydney J.
0 Replies
 
boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Fri 2 Dec, 2005 09:18 pm
I've been reeling from curiosity since this question was posted.

Finally a response!

Arrrggggghhhhh.
0 Replies
 
jbruce
 
  1  
Reply Fri 9 Dec, 2005 02:23 pm
Sorry, havn't been able to find it either. I've gone through every search option and engine I could think of...and nothing but a reference to it. A check with the local University Library turned up a couple more mentions of the game being played but no rules. Samething with the Historic Society, mentions only. Even in diary accounts I've found the writers make no mention of the rules,writing for the times,assumed the game was understood. Published accounts of the rules may not have seen alot of publishing due to the anti- catholic connotations to it. Was hoping to run across a surviving oral history by posting on this forum. I'll keep looking as there are few things I hate as much as an unsatisfied curiosity. If I do find it I'll post them.
0 Replies
 
DevonShea5
 
  1  
Reply Sat 31 Dec, 2005 10:45 pm
A quick search I did turned up something about it being a parlor game played by southern colonists before the Revolution. Maybe a southern historical society might have some old kids' game books with the rules in them?
0 Replies
 
wmryan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 8 May, 2006 08:37 pm
Break the Pope's neck
From a journal of Philip Vickers Fithian regarding a visit to the estate (Stratford) of Henry Lee in 1773: "So as soon as we rose from supper, The Comapny formed into a semi-circle round the fire, and played "break the pope's neck." Here we had great Diversion in the respective judgments upon the offenders, but we were all dismissed by ten and retired to our several rooms." maybe with pieces like this the game can be figured out.
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