How do nation states build a common identity and how do citizens slowly grow together to be one people? While we know a lot about elite behavior and the conditions that enable or prevent the transition from a local to a national identity, we know considerably less about how this process played out for the masses in the 19th century. Based on archival work we leverage detailed municipality voting records from all initiatives and referendums in 19th century Switzerland together with a host of other historic data to show how economic and religious factors played out differently in different parts of the country. This dataset allows us to analyze under what conditions minority elites (here Catholic Conservatives) can lead their people into a nation. These results provide new insights into the growth of the modern nation state.