Ku Klux Kulture

“A superb piece of scholarship. . .[Harcourt] is particularly good at showing how anti-Klan cultural productions helped legitimatize the Klan’s views.”

“Ku Klux Kulture is an impressive work of scholarship. The author has thoroughly mined a wealth of primary sources and successfully demonstrated how the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s should be considered not just from a narrow organizational point of view but in a richer cultural context. All future scholars of this notorious organization will need to consider the important arguments presented here.”

“An impressive work of archival history. . . .The book is essential reading, because it shows that, rather than a radical fringe group, the 1920s KKK was a central, well-respected part of white Protestant culture.”

“A valuable addition to the historiography of the Invisible Empire. . . . Harcourt has extensively mined the secondary literature to create the context of Klannishness and provide diverse examples of Klan marketing
and sales. . . . This book advances our understanding of the Invisible Empire both as a cultural movement and as an American institution.”

“An intriguing exploration of the rise and fall of the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan. . .Recommended.”

“An exhaustive survey of Klansmen’s appearances, variously as heroes or villains, in the era’s novels, movies, songs, plays, musicals, and more.” 

“A valuable resource for anyone researching American culture during the 1920s.”

“An outstanding book that will appeal to laypersons and scholars alike. It deserves a wide readership . .With sharp analysis and clear writing, Harcourt has substantially increased our understanding of racism and xenophobia in the 1920s and identified new directions for further inquiry.”

“Ku Klux Kulture breaks new ground. . .A handy reference work that will be much used. . .Harcourt piles on the evidence to support the book’s thesis that the Klan, both as subject and consumer, was at the center of American popular culture in the 1920s.”

“In this detailed and impressively researched book, Harcourt demonstrates that the Ku Klux Klan was embedded in the popular culture of the 1920s, showing that the Klan absorbed and took part in distinctive aspects of American popular culture, including movies, music, print media, radio, and sports. The book clearly establishes the Klan’s presence in American popular culture during the 1920s, which in itself is an important contribution to the debates concerning the representativeness, relative modernity, and impact of the Klan on American life, despite its political failures. This is an important and original book in Klan historiography.”

“This sobering and important book powerfully explains the relationship of Ku Klux Klan members and the broader ‘Klannish’ movement to the emergence of modern American culture in the 1920s. In a time when white supremacy was widespread and unapologetic, the Ku Klux Klan was enormously popular. Drawing on an impressive body of research, Harcourt shows us the remarkable extent to which the Klan became central to American culture of the day. Klan newspapers proliferated nationally and gained huge circulations. Klannish Americans played songs like ‘Onward Christian Klansman’ and ‘Daddy Swiped our Last Clean Sheet and Joined the Ku Klux Klan’ on their phonographs and radios; indeed, a Klan-controlled radio station became the fifth most powerful in the nation. Popular books catered to cultural fascination with the Klan. Major publishers nudged authors to take a pro-Klan tone, as readers cancelled subscriptions to publications critical of the Klan. Klan baseball teams and basketball teams were widespread, and sometimes sensationally competed against Catholic, Jewish, and African-American rivals. While Harcourt shows that many found the Klan profoundly un-American, it was very much present at the creation of, and influenced the shape of modern popular culture.”

“An impressive work of scholarship. Harcourt has thoroughly mined a wealth of primary sources and successfully demonstrated how the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s should be considered not just from a narrow organizational point of view but in a richer cultural context. All future scholars of this notorious organization will need to consider the important arguments presented here.”