<p>Across the twentieth century, sociologist Emory Bogardus conducted several pioneering national surveys of social distance attitudes in the United States, documenting how various ancestry groups were viewed by those in the larger society as desirable candidates for close social relationships. These surveys hint that the English, Scots, and Irish — ancestries that respondents viewed as most desirable in the early twentieth century — declined in favorability by the late twentieth century. This decline infers that the relatively high status of these British Isles ancestry groups was moderated by group-identity shifts and modernization. The present study’s ANOVA explores this possibility, neglect in past research, with Bogardus’ data. As expected, Scottish or Irish ancestry persons were viewed less favorably than White Americans in later surveys. Yet, unexpectedly, English ancestry persons’ favorability equaled that of White Americans across all surveys. The study concludes that uniquely favorable views of English ancestry are more firmly ingrained into U.S. culture than group-identification and societal modernization theories suggest.</p>