Behind the mask of chivalry: Gender, race, and class in the making of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s in Georgia

This case study of the Clarke County, Georgia chapter of the second Ku Klux Klan, is based on a unique collection of internal Klan records. It combines social history of the area, demographic profiles of Klan members, and analysis of the ideology and practice of the Klan. It offers the first gender analysis of the second Ku Klux Klan, showing that its gendered vision and program helped to make the second Klan the most powerful right-wing movement in American history. I also argue that the order espoused the ideological traditions of republicanism and populism, finding in these solutions for the plight of economically independent white men in the 1920s and ideas with which to combat both the expanding power of national capital and the rise of overt resistance from Blacks, unskilled workers, women and youth.;The work is organized thematically. Chapter 1 reviews the historiography of the second Klan and introduces the Klan's ties to the Populist tradition in Georgia. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the movement, with an emphasis on its fraternalism and militarism. Chapter 3 examines the changes in local social relations that gave rise to the Klan. Chapter 4 explores the meaning of the Klan's anti-Communism and anti-Catholicism, and its own alternative to these, Protestant fundamentalism. Chapter 5 focusses on the Klan's commitment to extreme male dominance and paternal power as these were expressed in the order's ideology and in local social purity activities. Chapter 6 looks at the class ideology of the national Klan and the composition of the local chapter, connecting the order's antipathy to labor and large capital to the situation of members. Chapter 7 demonstrates the Klan's apocalyptic version of white supremacy and anti-Semitism and shows how these were part of a larger disdain for modern concepts of democracy. Chapter 8 explores the local Klan's vigilantism, with particular attention to the encouragement given to this practice by white women who looked to the Klan for aid in controlling their spouses and other community members. Chapter 9 contrasts different forms of opposition to the Klan and discusses the reasons for its decline.