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A fever in the heartland : the Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them / Timothy Egan.

by Egan, Timothy.

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Stephenson, David Curtis, 1891-1966.

Oberholtzer, Madge, 1896-1925.

Ku Klux Klan (1915- )

Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) -- History.

Indiana -- History.

9780735225268 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them

xxiv, 404 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and the author of nine other books, most recently the highly acclaimed A Pilgrimage to Eternity and The Immortal Irishman, a New York Times bestseller. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. His account of photographer Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, won the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-388) and index.

"A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. 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 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."--From publisher.

"The shocking story of how Ku Klux Klan leader David C. Stephenson seized and lost control of the state of Indiana in the 1920s is told in Pulitzer winner Egan’s evocative latest (after A Pilgrimage to Eternity). An itinerant newspaperman and petty criminal, Stephenson took charge of Klan recruiting efforts across the Midwest and was named Grand Dragon of the Realm of Indiana in 1923. Buoyed by skyrocketing enrollment numbers—by 1925, “one in three native-born white males wore the sheets,” Egan writes—Stephenson effectively ran Indiana, controlling the governor, both houses of the state legislature, and a private police force of 30,000 men, which he utilized to “harass violators of Klan-certified virtue.” Though journalists and others sought to counteract the Klan’s influence, Stephenson’s power remained unchecked until he kidnapped and raped a Department of Public Instruction employee named Madge Oberholtzer in 1925. During the incident, Oberholtzer dosed herself with bichloride of mercury; she died an agonizingly slow death 29 days later, but not before she dictated a full account of Stephenson’s crimes. Convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, Stephenson became a symbol of the Klan’s cruelty, hypocrisy, and corruption, and the organization’s grip on Midwestern politics crumbled. Dramatic twists of fate and vivid character sketches distinguish this harrowing look at a forgotten chapter of American history. It’s a certifiable page-turner."--Publishers Weekly.

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