Levin, Lewis C. (Lewis Charles), 1808-1860

Lewis Charles Levin (November 10, 1808 – March 14, 1860) was an American politician, Know Nothing, and anti-Catholic social activist of the 1840s and 1850s. He served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district between 1845 and 1851. He was the first Jewish man elected as a U.S. Representative though Florida's David Levy Yulee had previously served as a territorial delegate.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he graduated from South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina) in 1828. After graduating, Levin briefly taught school in Woodville, Mississippi before leaving after being wounded in a duel. He then practiced law in Maryland and Kentucky before settling in Philadelphia around 1838. In Philadelphia, Levin founded and edited a journal called the Temperance Advocate and campaigned against Catholic political power. Though not Protestant himself, he supported the concept of nativist Americanism supported by northern Protestants ideologically against Catholics and co-founded the American Party in 1842. Levin was famous as a political orator and a mouthpiece of xenophobia, playing a leading role in inciting the Nativist Riots of 1844 in Philadelphia, which led to the killing of over 20 Irish Americans, the burning of many of their homes and the destruction of three Catholic churches associated with their community.

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