Preferred Name
Ashley Ina Tokarz
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Date of Graduation
5-9-2024
Semester of Graduation
Spring
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Department of History
Advisor(s)
Margaret M. Mulrooney
Gabrielle M. Lanier
Jessica Davidson
Abstract
The Ku Klux Klan of the post-Reconstruction era in American history is a well-known and frequently studied domestic terrorist organization. The KKK was born of lost cause ideology, and their intended purpose was to preserve southern society as it had been – that is, a society founded on white supremacy – through racial terror and violence. Although the KKK dissolved in less than a decade, the terrorist organization was ‘born again’ during the 1920s. This Klan was markedly different from the first. It grew to include millions of members, including elected officials, and was nationwide at its height. Yet, perhaps the biggest shift from the first Klan to the second was the role of women. The women in the Women’s Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) had become much more than symbols of hateful ideology – they were political agents of hate. These women occupied neither an entirely masculine or feminine role, but both. The Klan of the 1920s would rapidly decline before 1930, yet the third wave of the KKK would begin in the 1960s, coinciding with the Civil Rights Movement. This iteration of the KKK would never grow to the membership levels of the second Klan, but it has been in the background of America’s far-right ideology up to the present day. Like the women of the KKK, the women of the third Klan occupied a dual role – one both masculine and feminine. This thesis studies the continuities of gender in the KKK through the second and third iterations of the Klan through analysis of different media types – newspapers, magazines, and photographs. The way in which these women were depicted reveals the contradictory role they played in the promotion of the Klan’s hateful ideology.
Recommended Citation
Tokarz, Ashley, "Hatred unveiled: Femininity, masculinity, and the duality of the female Klanswoman from 1923 – 1987" (2024). Masters Theses, 2020-current. 293.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/masters202029/293
