Browse Exhibits (4 total)

Public Consciousness as Interpreted Through Facetious Fragments

The_Spokesman_Review_Sun__Aug_31__1924_.pdf

Flipping through the pages of the Spokesman review in the early 1920’s a reader would find themselves passing the headline news and as they got deeper into the paper seeing opinion pieces and eventually compilations of almost nonsensical gatherings submitted to the paper by the editorial staff aptly titled “Facetious Fragments”.  Within this section of the paper as well as in nearby columns, stories were less than serious and often times no more than small jokes and poems. The humor published naturally relied on the context of the historical moment and often times referenced events that would have been on the consciousness of readers. Examining the rhetoric of these fragments offers some light on public opinion of the Klan.

A Love of the Law

The_Spokesman_Review_Sun__Jul_3__1921_.pdf

While in many parts of the country, the Ku Klux Klan was notorious for night  riding and vigilante justice, the organization often preached a love for lawfullness and strict law enforcement. Examination of the deeper meaning behing this rhetoric aids in understadning the Klan in the 1920s as well as White nationalism as it appeards in the present day. 

Klan No. 22: Spokane

The_Spokesman_Review_Sun__Jul_3__1921_.pdf

Incorperated with the entrance of the organization into the state formally in 1922, The Spokane Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, intitially chartered No. 2, grew to become the second largest Klan chapter in Washington State. The Spokane Klan, utilizing connections to pre-existing social structure such as the Protestant church system as well as other fraternal lodges, was able to have some influence over the politics of the region and present themselves as a feature of regional conciousness. Eventiually re-chartered as No. 22, the Spokane Konklave grew in size alongside other Washington Klans before its decline during the second half of the decade. While the Spokane chapter lingered into the 1930s and housed the Grand Dragon of Washington during this time, the Washington Klan of the late 1920s and early 1930s was defined by a constant decline in membership and lack of funding.

A. L. Clark: Spokane's Outspoken Klan Critic

The_Spokesman_Review_Sun__Nov_5__1922_ (4) copy.pdf

Abraham Lincoln (A. L.) Clark, born 1866, was a logging contractor, managing A. L. Clark & Company contracting out of St Marie’s Idaho. Clark was a former protestant clergyman and often wrote opinion letters to the Spokesman Review on a variety of political topics up until his death in 1938. Notably, Clark is one of the first voices in Spokane to speak out against the Klan from a non-anonymous seat. Clark Spoke publicly against the Klan numorous times and wrote extensively against the Klan, going so far as to publish a book opposing the Klan and investigating their presence in Spokane in 1924.

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