Nativism and Fraternalism: The Second Ku Klux Klan and the Junior Order United American Mechanics in the 1920s

Abstract

Scholars who have studied the second Ku Klux Klan focus primarily on its rapid rise and decline, paying little heed to its connections with other nativist fraternal orders. Specifically, scholars have not focused their attention on the Klan's potential effect on the nation's second largest nativist organization at the time, the Junior Order United American Mechanics (JOUAM). In this study, we use data compiled from JOUAM annual records and Klan membership estimates by state to provide descriptive and empirical results that shed greater light on how Klan strength affected the JOUAM's membership during the 1920s. Our analyses reveal that JOUAM state affiliates had greater annual percentage growth both in states where the Klan was stronger and during the period of the Klan's decline; interactive effects further reveal that Klan strength was also important to the annual percentage growth of the JOUAM during the rise of the Klan. These results are vital to our understanding of the Klan's effect on civil society and its influence on the larger nativist movement.