Why are they named after Christopher Columbus?
Christopher Columbus was very popular among the powerful Anglo-Saxon community of the nineteenth century. Yet this same group tended to be antagonistic toward the numbers of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and southern/eastern Europe that were landing on New England’s shores. Christopher Columbus, an Italian and a Catholic who was himself an immigrant (to Spain) seemed an ideal symbol. In his name the founders of the Knights of Columbus said “We have something in common! “. While opinions about this man have changed in the past century, we admire Christopher Columbus because of his desire (which we share) to expand the world’s horizons.
