Editing Presbyterian Church (USA) (section)

==Influence==
{{Further|White Anglo-Saxon Protestant}}
[[File:Roxbury Presbyterian Church, Roxbury MA.jpg|thumb|[[Roxbury Presbyterian Church]], [[Boston]]]]
[[Presbyterians]] are among the wealthiest religious groups and are disproportionately represented in American [[business]], [[law]], and [[politics]].<ref name="Hacker 1957">{{cite journal |first=Andrew |last=Hacker |title=Liberal Democracy and Social Control |journal=[[American Political Science Review]] |year=1957 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=1009–1026 |jstor=1952449|doi=10.2307/1952449|s2cid=146933599 }}</ref><ref name="THE EPISCOPALIANS">{{cite news|first=B. Drummond Jr.|last=Ayres|date=December 19, 2011|title=The Episcopalians: an American Elite with Roots Going Back to Jamestown|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/us/the-episcopalians-an-american-elite-with-roots-going-back-to-jamestown.html|url-status=live|access-date=August 17, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714144740/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/us/the-episcopalians-an-american-elite-with-roots-going-back-to-jamestown.html|archive-date=July 14, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Layman.org-2016" /> Many of the nation's oldest [[Universities in the United States|educational institutions]], such as [[Princeton University]], were founded by Presbyterian clergy or were associated with the Presbyterian Church.<ref>{{cite book|title=Standing Against the Whirlwind: Evangelical Episcopalians in Nineteenth-Century America|first=Diana |last=Hochstedt Butler|year= 1995| isbn=9780195359053| page =22|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote= Of all these northern schools, only Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania were historically Anglican; the rest are associated with revivalist Presbyterianism or Congregationalism.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Khalaf |first=Samir |title=Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans, 1820–1860 |publisher=Routledge |year=2012 |isbn=9781136249808 |page=31 |quote=Princeton was Presbyterian, while Columbia and Pennsylvania were Episcopalian.}}</ref>

Historically, Presbyterians were overrepresented among American scientific elite and [[Nobel Prize]] winners.<ref name="Sociology of Religion">{{cite book|editor-last1=Kivisto|editor-first1=Peter|editor-last2=Swatos J.|editor-first2=Willaiam H.|last1= Kivisto|first1=Peter|last2=Swatos J.|first2=William H.|last3=Christiano |first3=Kevin J.|title=Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2015|page=97|isbn=9781442216938}}</ref><ref name="Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United Statesh" /> According to ''Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States'' by [[Harriet Zuckerman]], between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American [[Nobel Prize]] laureates have come from a [[Protestant]] background, mostly from Episcopalian, [[Presbyterian Church in the United States of America|Presbyterian]] or Lutheran background.<ref name="Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United Statesh">{{cite book |last=Zuckerman |first=Harriet |author-link=Harriet Zuckerman |title=Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HAHCzJfmD5IC |year=1977 |publisher=The Free Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4128-3376-9 |page=68 |quote=Protestants turn up among the American-reared laureates in slightly greater proportion to their numbers in the general population. Thus 72 percent of the seventy-one laureates but about two thirds of the American population were reared in one or another Protestantone denomination mostly Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Lutheran rather than Baptist or Fundamentalist. |access-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-date=October 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231012223357/https://books.google.com/books?id=HAHCzJfmD5IC |url-status=live }}</ref>

The ''[[Boston Brahmin]]s'', who were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites, were often associated with the [[American upper class]], [[Harvard University]];<ref>{{cite book|title=Visions of Belonging: New England Art and the Making of American Identity|first=Julia B. |last=Rosenbaum|year=2006| isbn= 9780801444708| page =45|publisher=Cornell University Press|quote=By the late nineteenth century, one of the strongest bulwarks of Brahmin power was Harvard University. Statistics underscore the close relationship between Harvard and Boston's upper strata.}}</ref> and the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Church.<ref>{{cite book |last=Holloran |first=Peter C. |title=Boston's Wayward Children: Social Services for Homeless Children, 1830–1930 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=1989 |isbn=9780838632970 |page=73 |quote=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism|first=Gillis J. |last=Harp|year=2003| isbn= 9780742571983| page =13|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|quote=}}</ref> [[Old money]] in the United States was typically associated with [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestant]] ("WASP") status,<ref>{{cite journal |first=Irving Lewis |last=Allen |title=WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet |journal=Ethnicity |volume=2 |issue=2 |year=1975 |pages=153–162}}</ref> particularly with the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] and Presbyterian Church.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=James D. |last1=Davidson |first2=Ralph E. |last2=Pyle |first3=David V. |last3=Reyes |title=Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930–1992 |journal=[[Social Forces]] |volume=74 |issue=1 |year=1995 |pages= 157–175|doi= 10.1093/sf/74.1.157|jstor=2580627 }}</ref>

Many Presbyterians have been Presidents, the latest being [[Ronald Reagan]];<ref name="PewResearch">{{cite web |title=The Religious Affiliations of U.S. Presidents |url=https://www.pewforum.org/2009/01/15/the-religious-affiliations-of-us-presidents/ |work=Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project |access-date=June 3, 2020 |date=January 15, 2009 |archive-date=May 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200501123326/https://www.pewforum.org/2009/01/15/the-religious-affiliations-of-us-presidents/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and they represent 13% of the [[U.S. Senate]], despite being only 2.2% (under 0.4% as of 2021) of the general population.<ref name=pew2014>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/|title=America's Changing Religious Landscape|date=May 12, 2015|publisher=Pew Research Center|access-date=January 28, 2021|archive-date=November 15, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201115205812/https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Presbyterians are [[American upper class|among the wealthiest]] Christian denominations in the United States,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/faith-education-and-income/|title=Faith, Education and Income|work=The New York Times|access-date=May 13, 2011|first=David|last=Leonhardt|date=May 13, 2011|archive-date=October 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011175936/https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/faith-education-and-income/|url-status=live}}</ref> Presbyterians tend also to be better educated and they have a high number of [[Academic degree|graduate]] (64%) and [[post-graduate]] degrees (26%) per capita.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf|title=US Religious Landscape Survey: Diverse and Dynamic|publisher=The Pew Forum|page=85|date=February 2008|access-date=September 17, 2012|ref=refEducationLevel|archive-date=October 9, 2022|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> According to a 2014 study by the [[Pew Research Center]], Presbyterians ranked as the fourth most financially successful religious group in the United States, with 32% of Presbyterians living in households with incomes of at least $100,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/|title=How income varies among U.S. religious groups|date=October 11, 2016|publisher=Pew Research Center|access-date=October 24, 2016|archive-date=February 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180221015534/http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/|url-status=live}}</ref>