100 percent Americanism
1920S
20th Century America
A01=Christine Kimberly Erickson
American History
American Protective Association
American West
anti-Catholic
anti-Semitism
Aryan Nations
Author_Christine Kimberly Erickson
Big Sky Country
Butte
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
Chamber of Commerce
Deep South
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eq_history
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fraternal orders
fraternalism
Freemasonry
Grand Dragon
Grand Dragon Lewis Terwilliger
Harlowton
hooded order
immigration
Imperial Nighthawk
Imperial Palace
Imperial Wizard
KKK
Klansmen
Klavern
Knights of Pythias
Ku Klux Klan
Lewis Terwilliger
Lewistown
Masonic orders
masons
militia
Montana
Montana Council of Defense
Montana Human Rights Network
Montana Quest
Musselshell County
nationalism
naturalization
Northwest United Skinheads
patriotism
Racism
Racism in America
radicalization
Ravalli County
Realm
Reconstruction Era
Roundup
second Klan
secret societies
Silver Bow County
skinheads
terrorism
vigilantism
violence
Western History
white Nationalism
white Protestant Culture
white supremacy
World War I
xenophobia
Product details
- ISBN 9780806195377
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 29 Apr 2025
- Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In the early 1920s, amid rising anti-Catholic sentiment and hysteria generated by World War I, the reconstituted Ku Klux Klan found new footing in many states outside the Deep South—including Montana. In Big Skies, White Hoods, Christine K. Erickson explores the little-known history of the Klan in Big Sky Country, revealing what this western incarnation had in common with its antecedents, how it differed from the Klan’s reappearance elsewhere, and what it might tell us about the resurgence of white nationalism in Montana and across the West.
The early-twentieth-century Klan, unlike its Reconstruction-era forbear, was a national phenomenon, with 3 to 4 million members across the country. But it was also highly localized—and in the forty-six Montana communities where it organized, that meant focusing less on race than on religion and class. Big Skies, White Hoods sets the historical stage for the Klan’s arrival with an account of the influence of the American Protective Association, a virulent anti-Catholic organization, and the social fallout from World War I, as seen in the emergence of the notorious Montana Council of Defense.
In its organizational structure and recruiting methods, its political interests and membership, and its deep connection to white Protestant culture, the Klan in Montana echoed iterations elsewhere. But Erickson shows how the state’s weather and geography complicated the task of organizing its scattered, isolated communities, and how local ambivalence challenged the high-minded extremist ideals of the Klan’s leaders—especially Grand Dragon Lewis Terwilliger, whose ambitions were finally thwarted when discrepancies between the national, state, and local organizations proved intransigent.
Although Big Skies, White Hoods documents the ultimate downfall of the Klan in Montana, the book’s epilogue confirms that its legacy of hate continues, as other racist organizations have written their white nationalist hopes upon Montana’s history.
The early-twentieth-century Klan, unlike its Reconstruction-era forbear, was a national phenomenon, with 3 to 4 million members across the country. But it was also highly localized—and in the forty-six Montana communities where it organized, that meant focusing less on race than on religion and class. Big Skies, White Hoods sets the historical stage for the Klan’s arrival with an account of the influence of the American Protective Association, a virulent anti-Catholic organization, and the social fallout from World War I, as seen in the emergence of the notorious Montana Council of Defense.
In its organizational structure and recruiting methods, its political interests and membership, and its deep connection to white Protestant culture, the Klan in Montana echoed iterations elsewhere. But Erickson shows how the state’s weather and geography complicated the task of organizing its scattered, isolated communities, and how local ambivalence challenged the high-minded extremist ideals of the Klan’s leaders—especially Grand Dragon Lewis Terwilliger, whose ambitions were finally thwarted when discrepancies between the national, state, and local organizations proved intransigent.
Although Big Skies, White Hoods documents the ultimate downfall of the Klan in Montana, the book’s epilogue confirms that its legacy of hate continues, as other racist organizations have written their white nationalist hopes upon Montana’s history.
Christine K. Erickson is Associate Professor Emerita of History at Purdue University Fort Wayne.
