While researching the history of my family something has become crystal clear. I cannot view my ancestors only through the lens of dates, births, education, marriages, deaths, census records, geography, and vocation.
All of our lives are lived within the context of what’s happening around us…economics, religion, politics, education, science, technology, art, and culture.
Currently, my research is focused on the 1920s and the cultural upheaval that occurred. I wish I could talk with my grandparents and ask all of the questions I now have about their experiences. What a truly fascinating time of change in American history.
The changes of the 1920s…
- Post WWII Economic BOOM
- STOCK MARKET DOUBLED from 1920 to 1929
- WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE
- FLAPPER FASHION dresses no longer floor length…FREEDOM
- JAZZ was invented and DANCE styles changed dramatically
- PROHIBITION led to speakeasy culture and bootlegging
- MOVIES—SILENT to TALKIES
- URBAN GROWTH with more people living in cities than on farms
- IMMIGRATION from Catholic Countries was limited
- AUTOMOBILES (1919—6.7 million on the road • 1929—23 million)
- RADIO sales (1922—$60 million • 1929—$847 million)
- DETECTIVE NOVELS flourished
- OUIJA BOARDS & SEANCES were popular
- SURREALIST ART of Salvadore Dali
- MARTIANS many believed were sending radio signals
This was too much upheaval for many Americans…the world was moving way too fast and this was disorienting. There was a longing to return to a simpler time.
With that longing in the 1920s came the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
I just finished Timothy Egan’s, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them. The woman was Madge Oberholtzer. Her rape and murder put Indiana’s KKK Grand Dragon, D. C. Stephenson in jail. Marge died in April, the trial began on October 12, 1925. Her own words about the brutal attack were read at the trial.
My paternal greatuncle, Bryton Barron wrote this in the Sioux Falls, SD Argus Leader in 1924, “the KKK is a menace to American Liberty…by the spirit of intolerance and hatred upon which it feeds and fosters…in this light it stands condemned.”
Timothy Egan’s—A Fever in the Heartland was quite an education about the 1920s in America’s Heartland.
Here are a few quotes from his book:
“Fighting Irish” nickname was forever set by the clash of Notre Dame against the Ku Klux Klan on May 17, 1924.” (The KKK was very anti-Catholic.)
“He (D. C. Stephenson, KKK Grand Dragon) understood people’s fears and their need to blame others for their failures. He discovered that if he said something often enough, no matter how untrue, people would believe it. Small lies were for the timid. The key to telling a big lie was to do it with conviction.”
“These people needed to hate something smaller than themselves as much as they needed to have faith in something greater than themselves. The Ku Klux Klan “filled a need,”
“When the grandchildren of these leading citizens later discovered hoods in the attic, or membership lists that included their kin, they could not fathom how such a thing came to pass. They knew the Ku Klux Klan was born in the murk of blood-spilling hate, built around a racial order that would find its most ghastly expression in the laws of Nazi Germany.”
With the use of Artificial Intelligence, drones, information flowing at a dizzying speed, and a need to make sense of our rapidly changing world, perhaps we can somewhat relate to what folks were feeling 100 years ago.
I truly understand the desire to return to a simpler time.
However, we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. All we can do is choose how we respond to it all.
SOURCES & LINKS:
FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558306/a-fever-in-the-heartland-by-timothy-egan
KKK MANUAL: https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/227kkkmanual.html
HISTORY CHANNEL 1920s: https://www.history.com/topics/1920s/roaring-twenties-history
D. C. Stephenson (August 21, 1891 – June 28, 1966) was an American Ku Klux Klan leader, convicted rapist and murderer. In 1923 he was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan and head of Klan recruiting for seven other states. Later that year, he led those groups to independence from the national KKK organization. Amassing wealth and political power in Indiana politics, he was one of the most prominent national Klan leaders. -WIKIPEDIA
I also highly recommend another book by Timothy Egan about the Dust Bowl. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.
INTERVIEW with Timothy Egan: https://www.pbs.org/video/dinnerandabook-a-fever-in-the-heartland
The Roaring Twenties --the Jazz Age -- the height of an American hate group the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and Indiana in particular. They hated everyone who was not white and Protestant. The man who set in motion the Klan's takeover of parts of America was a charismatic charlatan named D. C. Stephenson.
