Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Ku Klux Klan, Realm of California Records
SC.KRC
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Realm of California Records
Creator:
Ku Klux Klan
Identifier/Call Number: SC.KRC
Extent:
0.21 linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1921-1947
Abstract: During the 1910s, the Klan, which had
been defunct since the concluding decades of the 19
th century,
was revived in Atlanta, Georgia and spread across the country within a decade. The Klan's
revival was due in part to urbanization and industrialization. Many Klansmen in the 1920s –
1940s were lower to middle class whites who sought to protect their jobs and neighborhoods,
both from black migrants moving out of the South and new immigrants arriving in industrial
cities, particularly those from Southern and Eastern Europe who tended to be Catholic and
Jewish. This collection of materials from the Realm of California primarily includes
by-laws, correspondence, and publications.
Language of Material: English
The Ku Klux Klan is a far-right organization which advocates extremist reactionary currents
such as white supremacy and white nationalism, and is opposed to immigration. The first Ku
Klux Klan, founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, was primarily made up of Confederate
veterans of the American Civil War and operated under a decentralized structure in which
local chapters and bands were highly independent. The first Klan was essentially defunct by
the late 19th century.
In 1915, the second Ku Klux Klan was founded by William J. Simmons in Atlanta, Georgia. By
the 1920s, social tensions brought on by rapid industrialization and increased immigration
in urban areas had set the stage for the Klan's expanding popularity. Unlike the first Klan,
the second Klan was a centralized fraternal organization, with a national and state
structure, which had rapidly spread from the South to the Midwest and Western states. The
purification of politics, anti-Catholicism, the enforcement of prohibition, and nativism
formed the nucleus of the second Klan's objectives and goals, summed up by their credo, "One
Hundred Percent Americanism." Membership in the second Klan appealed to lower, working, and
middle class white Protestants from urban areas, who's fears and concerns over jobs and
housing played into the Klan's philosophies.
By 1924, at the height of the second Klan's popularity, membership rose to 6,000,000, but
by 1930 it had dropped to 30,000. Throughout the early 1940s financial difficulties, chronic
internal conflicts, external opposition, and the exposure of criminal behavior had
diminished the organization's power and appeal. In 1944, the Internal Revenue Service filed
a lien for $685,000 against the Klan, which led to the closure of the organization's home
office and subsequent dissolution of its national charter.
The
Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Realm of California Records includes
correspondence and membership cards from Fresno and Los Angeles, newspaper and pamphlet
literature, and Ku Klux Klan or related publications. In many cases, individuals named in
the correspondence and membership cards have been blacked or cut out. The collection is
arranged alphabetically.
This collection is part of the
California Collection.
The collection is open for research use.
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection has not been transferred to California State University, Northridge.
Copyright status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials
protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires
the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style
manual, or see the
Citing Archival
Materials
guide.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Documents