Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2012 Aliens Found in Waiting: Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Suburban Chicago, 1870-1930 Sarah Elizabeth Doherty Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Doherty, Sarah Elizabeth, "Aliens Found in Waiting: Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Suburban Chicago, 1870-1930" (2012). Dissertations. 345. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/345 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2012 Sarah Elizabeth Doherty LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO “ALIENS FOUND IN WAITING”: THE WOMEN OF THE KU KLUX KLAN IN SUBURBAN CHICAGO, 1870-1930 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY SARAH E. DOHERTY CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2012 Copyright by Sarah E. Doherty, 2012 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am eternally indebted to my master’s advisor at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Jasmine Alinder, for recognizing my potential and encouraging me to pursue an additional degree. I sincerely thank Loyola University Chicago for awarding me the Deans’ Fellowship which has allowed me to efficiently pursue and complete a doctoral degree. I thank my advisor Timothy Gilfoyle for offering his support, encouragement and time reading drafts of my dissertation. I thank my committee members Susan Hirsch and Christopher Manning for the guidance and direction I received while taking their courses and from the time they spent reading and commenting on my dissertation. I thank my friends and colleagues at the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest for allowing me open access to the institution’s collections and for aiding my development as a public historian. I especially thank Frank Lipo for his support of my project, depth of knowledge of the Oak Park area, expertise in community/local history, and suggestions for additional avenues of inquiry in my dissertation. I also thank so very dear and kindly Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest board members Laurel McMahon, Kelli Kline, Peggy Tuck Sinko, and Jan Dressel for their support, enthusiasm, and encouragement. Additionally, I want to thank Jerry Jacobson, Kathleen Jacobson, Julie Patterson, and Fr. Carl Morello for sharing oral history stories with me about their experiences growing up Catholic in the suburbs of Oak Park and Forest Park. I also want iii to thank Julia Hickey for her friendship and support throughout my graduate career and for helping me format data and generate maps from the data. I additionally thank my brother David Doherty for helping me organize, interpret and format data and for offering keen insights about academia. I thank my parents Dominic and Dorothy Doherty for being living examples to my brother, sister, and I of the value of education and for giving us the opportunity, support and encouragement to pursue higher education. I appreciate being raised with the notion that graduate education should commission us to serve the public good. Last, but not least, I thank my beloved husband Jonathan Essenburg whom I met, courted and married while pursuing my doctoral degree. You have been a pillar of love, support, patience, understanding, and positivity through this endeavor and I hope that someday I will have the opportunity to return the favor. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF TABLES viii INTRODUCTION: “ALIENS FOUND IN WAITING” 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE MAKING OF A SUBURBAN KLANHAVEN 32 CHAPTER TWO: PORTRAIT OF A SUBURBAN KLANSWOMAN 73 CHAPTER THREE: A KLANSWOMAN’S WORK 116 CHAPTER FOUR: THE KLANSWOMAN IN A CLUB WOMAN’S WORLD 157 CONCLUSION 187 APPENDIX A: COMPILED DATA FROM U.S. FEDERAL CENSUSES 1910, 1920, & 1930 FOR WALOSAS CLUB KLANSWOMEN 201 APPENDIX B: MAP OF CHICAGO AND SUBURBS, 1921 242 APPENDIX C: MAP OF OAK PARK STREETSCAPE, c. 1970 244 APPENDIX D: OVERLAY MAPS OF APPENDICES B & C WITH GOOGLE EARTH SATELLITE IMAGE OF OAK PARK AREA 246 APPENDIX E: ENLGARDED IMAGE OF OAK PARK AND SURROUNDING SUBURBS, 1921 248 BIBLIOGRAPHY 250 VITA 276 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Oak Leaves Newspaper Advertisement for Ku Klux Klan 29 Figure 2. Image of Chicago & Oak Park Elevated Railroad 36 Figure 3. Map of Chicago and Suburbs, 1921 44 Figure 4. Oak Park Development Poster 45 Figure 5. Oak Park Annexation Poster 47 Figure 6. Oak Park Political Cartoon 51 Figure 7. A Bird’s Eye View of Oak Park & Harlem 52 Figure 8. Map of Distribution of Klanswomen in Oak Park 79 Figure 9. Map of Oak Park Klanswomen Residences 80 Figure 10. Image of Petersen’s Ice Cream 91 Figure 11. Map of Homes of Walosas Club Members 1 to 100 97 Figure 12. Map of Homes of Walosas Club Members 101 to 200 99 Figure 13. Map of Homes of Walosas Club Members 201 to 313 100 Figure 14. Map of Homes of Walosas Club Members 1 to 313 101 Figure 15. WKKK Pamphlet 174 Figure 16. Image of First Oak Park Masonic Hall 179 Figure 17. Image of Interior of First Oak Park Masonic Hall 180 Figure 18. Image of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church 181 Figure 19. Image of Second Masonic Hall 182 vi Figure 20. Image of Nineteenth Century Woman’s Club Clubhouse 184 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Oak Park’s Population Growth, 1880-1930 37 Table 2. U.S. Presidential Election National & Oak Park Results 49 Table 3. Growth of Catholic Parishes in Near West Chicago Suburbs 55 Table 4. Membership in Oak Park Women’s Clubs 167 viii INTRODUCTION “ALIENS FOUND IN WAITING” Ten aliens were found in waiting, and no objections appearing, were duly naturalized and instructed in the work of our order.1 In the early twentieth century, the revived Ku Klux Klan (KKK) greatly feared “aliens” and was alarmed by the number of aliens in their midst.2 Aliens were in the government, they were neighbors, they were in the workplace, they passed daily in the streets, and in some cases they were in their own families. The word alien had multiple meanings in Klan terminology, including non-native born Americans (immigrants), those in favor of aggressive secular reform, and qualified individuals who had yet to be naturalized into the realm of the KKK.3 The Klan’s fear of the unknown was fueled by uncertainty and the threats of a quickly changing American society post-World War I. Members of the Ku Klux Klan perceived themselves as exemplars of the highest standards of morality, citizenry and “pure Americanism.” However, this brand of pure Americanism was reserved only for the select Americans that met all the membership 1 Klanswomen Margaret Roth, Gertrude Shaner, Edna Forbes & Viola Brown, Walosas Club Minutes Book 1925-1929, Collections of the Historical Society of Oak Park & River Forest; Klanswoman Margaret Roth, Walosas Club Minutes Book, 2 April 1925. Specific reference to the Walosas Club Minutes will appear as the name of one of the four secretaries followed by Walosas Club Minutes Book and the date. General references to the Walosas Club appear as Klanswomen Roth, Shaner, Forbes & Brown, Walosas Club Minutes Book. 2 Any references to the Klan, male and female participants, or “Klanguage” will have capitalized “Ks” in keeping with the original source material. 3 Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 21; Thomas R. Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 23. 1 2 requirements and promised to uphold the tenets of the Invisible Empire.4 The Klan’s vision of a pure American citizenry was rooted in an exclusive native-born Protestant membership that swore to uphold beliefs in Protestantism, white supremacy and nativism. Additionally, members of the Invisible Empire promised to defend the great American nation and the Klan organization against any alien threat of corruption, impropriety, immorality, or conspiracy.5 Although the revived KKK of the 1910s to 1920s was born in the American South, its influence extended far beyond the region and former Confederate states. The Klan chameleon successfully adapted its message and expanded its dominion across the entire nation and particularly in the urban North. Forty percent of Klansmen hailed from the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.6 The revived Klan was no longer a southern fringe extremist group that targeted African-Americans and the perceived invasion of Yankee carpetbaggers. The 1920s Klan was a mainstream movement that appealed en masse to average white native-born Protestant middle-class Americans. In the almost 150 years since the founding of the Invisible Empire, the Ku Klux Klan has produced a scholarly fascination with trying to understand the organization’s 4 The term “Invisible Empire” was coined by the Ku Klux Klan as an alternative name for the organization. The Klan utilized the word “invisible” since the order was envisioned as a secret society. The “empire” portion of the name was to give the impression that the Klan’s reach was expansive. 5 “Principles and Purposes of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” Michigan State University Special Collections, 3-4 [HS2330.K63 A34]; See Kelly J. Baker, Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2011); Thomas R.