A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

 

First Line: The most powerful man in Indiana stood next to the new governor at the Inaugural Ball, there to be thanked, applauded, and blessed for using the nation's oldest domestic terror group to gain control of a uniquely American state.

 

When most of us think of the Roaring Twenties-- the Jazz Age-- we think of flappers and frivolity, but it was also the height of the Ku Klux Klan, a uniquely American hate group. Their membership didn't just reside in the South, they were also strong in the Midwest and West. This group took radical steps to keep Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants "in their place", and one man spearheaded the group's attempt to take over America.

 

D.C. Stephenson was a charismatic charlatan; he knew just what people wanted to hear and was happy to reinforce their fears. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he became the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows. Their message was spread from church pulpits, family picnics, and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors, and senators across the country proudly proclaimed their membership. 

 

But at the height of Stephenson's power, just at the moment he was going to be groomed for President of the United States, it was a seemingly powerless woman-- Madge Oberholtzer-- who would reveal the true D.C. Stephenson and bring the Ku Klux Klan to its knees.

 

~

 

When I came across a photocopied news article from the 1920s in my deceased mother's papers telling of a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan chapter in my own little (population 1700) hometown in central Illinois, my jaw dropped in total shock (just as I imagine my mother's did). I had no idea that the KKK had ever been anywhere near my hometown. When I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Timothy Egan, had written a book about the KKK in the 1920s, I knew I had to read it. To call A Fever in the Heartland eye-opening, compelling, and disturbing is the mere tip of the iceberg when describing the book's effect on me.

 

To learn of the presidents who either condoned or turned a blind eye to this hate group's actions was enlightening. To learn that the KKK had a group for everyone (the KKK for males, the KKK Women's Auxiliary, Ku Klux Kiddies, and Klan Klubs for high school students). To learn that there was a KKK chapter aboard a U.S. battleship and that there was Klan Day at the Indiana State Fair... all this was sobering. The Klan used Indiana's Horse Thief Brigades as its own morality police, and it had its own "poison squads" disseminating fake news. To learn how Indiana became the most saturated Klan state that passed the world's first eugenic sterilization law (which was later picked up by an additional thirty states) was chilling. 

 

The Klan in Indiana had tentacles everywhere, from the governor's mansion to the smallest town, and the Grand Dragon of them all, D.C. Stephenson, was responsible for the huge upsurge in membership across the country. The man was a con man of the highest caliber-- and a violent sexual predator. After each scene in which Stephenson took center stage, I wanted to take a hot shower to wash him off. Repulsive isn't a strong enough word to describe this person. After all that Madge Oberholtzer suffered, it was wonderful to see that she, and she alone, was strong enough to take down this monster.

 

However, after finishing A Fever in the Heartland, I came away with a feeling of dread.

 

"Isn't it strange that with all our educational advantages," noted the Hoosier writer Meredith Nicholson, "so many Indiana citizens could be induced to pay $10 [the KKK membership fee] for the privilege of hating their neighbors and wearing a sheet?" 

 

With the events of recent years, I can't help but think that many of us haven't moved very far away from the emotions that overwhelmed the people of Indiana in the 1920s. May we not be doomed to repeat such a dark chapter of our history.

 

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

by Timothy Egan

eISBN: 9780735225275

Penguin Publishing Group © 2023

432 pages

 

Non-Fiction

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

On My Radar: A Fever in the Heartland!

 

Although the focus of my reading for several years has been crime fiction, I've always loved well-written non-fiction-- the sort with well-stocked bibliographies and facts that read like the best fiction. That's how I first became acquainted with Timothy Egan, who wrote one of my all-time favorite books (of any genre) The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. 

 

I still feel the impact that book had on me, more than fifteen years after I read it. So... is it any wonder that I perked right up when I learned that Egan would have a new book coming out next year? Of course not! Let me tell you more about it before I give you another reason why I want to read his new book.

 

 

Available April 4, 2023!

 

Synopsis:

 

"The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.

Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees." 

 

 

This book is written by one of my favorite authors, and it's about a time period that has always fascinated me. Granted, reading about the Ku Klux Klan is not going to be easy-- organizations like that are bad for my blood pressure-- but I do want to read it because it ties in with something I discovered in some of my mother's papers.

 

My mother and a family friend spent hundreds of hours combing through the various incarnations of our village newspaper back in central Illinois, mostly for their genealogy work on their family trees, but it's amazing the fascinating nuggets of history they uncovered. I well remember them reading many of these nuggets aloud as they turned the pages of those old newspapers.

 

What I found in my mother's papers were photocopies of some old (1920s) articles from the village newspaper-- articles about regular meetings of the Ku Klux Klan that were held in my little hometown (population 1800). It was as if I'd been poleaxed; I couldn't believe that that vile organization had had a home in my village. 

 

That's why I've preordered Egan's book. Yes, I think it will be good, but I want to understand why the KKK became so prominent in a time period that I'd only associated with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jay Gatsby in the past.  Something tells me that my mother was just as stunned as I when she found those newspaper articles, and that she would want to read A Fever in the Heartland, too.