One Hundred Percent American (eBook)

The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s

Thomas R. Pegram (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2011
304 Seiten
Ivan R. Dee (Verlag)
978-1-56663-922-4 (ISBN)

Infos

One Hundred Percent American is a new, comprehensive history of the 1920s Invisible Empire that recognizes the diversity of the Klan movement while charting the patterns that determined the organization's rise and fall. Enlivened by sharp detail, it situates the Klan within mainstream developments in American postwar life but also explains why the Klan failed to achieve mainstream status and influence in the 1920s. The 1920s struggle to define American identity restrictively or expansively remains relevant today.

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In the 1920s, a revived Ku Klux Klan burst into prominence as a self-styled defender of American values, a magnet for white Protestant community formation, and a would-be force in state and national politics. But the hooded bubble burst at mid-decade, and the social movement that had attracted several million members and additional millions of sympathizers collapsed into insignificance. Since the 1990s, intensive community-based historical studies have reinterpreted the 1920s Klan. Rather than the violent, racist extremists of popular lore and current observation, 1920s Klansmen appear in these works as more mainstream figures. Sharing a restrictive American identity with most native-born white Protestants after World War I, hooded knights pursued fraternal fellowship, community activism, local reforms, and paid close attention to public education, law enforcement (especially Prohibition), and moral/sexual orthodoxy.No recent general history of the 1920s Klan movement reflects these new perspectives on the Klan. One Hundred Percent American incorporates them while also highlighting the racial and religious intolerance, violent outbursts, and political ambition that aroused widespread opposition to the Invisible Empire. Balanced and comprehensive, One Hundred Percent American explains the Klans appeal, its limitations, and the reasons for its rapid decline in a society confronting the reality of cultural and religious pluralism.

Autor

Thomas R. Pegram is professor of history at Loyola University Maryland. Born in Hammond, Indiana, he grew up in the Midwest and California, then studied at Santa Clara University and Brandeis University, where he received a Ph.D. in American history. He has also taught at the Ohio State University. He is also the author of Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933, and Partisans and Progressives: Private Interest and Public Policy in Illinois, 1870–1922. He lives with his family in Baltimore County, Maryland.

Inhalt

PrefaceChapter 1: The Klan in 1920s SocietyChapter 2: Building a White, Protestant CommunityChapter 3: Defining Americanism: White Supremacy and Anti-CatholicismChapter 4: Learning Americanism: The Klan and Public SchoolsChapter 5: Dry Americanism: Prohibition, Law, and CultureChapter 6: The Problem of Hooded ViolenceChapter 7: The Search for Political Influence and the Collapse of the Klan MovementChapter 8: EchoesAfterword: Historians and the Klan

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.10.2011
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• ISBN-10: 1-56663-922-0 / 1566639220
• ISBN-13: 978-1-56663-922-4 / 9781566639224