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Y The KKK Fundraising Quilt of Chicora, Michigan

Marsha MacDowell, Charlotte Quinney, and Mary Worrall

In 2000, the Michigan State University Museum accepted the dona-tion of an embroidered signature quilt that challenged accepted notions of quilts as instruments of good, providing warmth, comfort, joy, and support. The quilt was made in 1926 by a group of individuals as a fundraiser in Chicora, Michigan, to support the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The materials, construction, design, pictorial imagery, signatures, and even condition of the Chicora KKK quilt hold clues that strengthen and expand our understanding of quiltmaking, of Klan activity, and of the social and cultural history of a particular community at a specific point in time. The quilt is an important example of how material culture can serve as primary source data, sometimes providing tangible and specific evidence not avail-able elsewhere.

It is a generally pervasive and accepted notion that quilts are instruments of good, providing warmth, comfort, joy, and support to individuals, families, and organizations. In 2000, the Michigan State University Mu-seum accepted into its collections a donated quilt (see Plate 4) that, by its very existence, challenges this notion and prompts questions for those interested in quilt study, education, and preservation. The quilt was made in 1926 by a group of individuals as a fundraiser in Chicora, Michigan, to support the local chapter of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. According to Karl Rowe, who along with his wife Barbara donated the quilt to the

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Ymuseum, the quilt was a family artifact that had been passed down to him at a family reunion in 1987. As a public high school educator, Karl recognized that the quilt had value as both a historic document and as a tool for education. With that recognition, he collected some basic information from family members about the quilt and then eventually turned over the information and the quilt to the Michigan State Uni-versity Museum, hoping it could be used for research and education by future generations. Today, while there exist many objects of material culture that provide primary source data for describing, analyzing, and understanding the darker aspects of our world history, it is rare that quilts are found among these pieces of evidence. The Ku Klux Klan quilt is an important example of material culture that can illuminate “the belief systems—the values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions of a particular community or society across time.”1 This quilt provides an opportunity to expand our general understanding of quilting activities and perhaps to shed light on the history of Klan activity within a particular place and time.

Family History of the QuiltIn 1987, when Loma Belle Rowe Mudget—Karl Rowe’s paternal aunt—moved into smaller accommodations, she gave away some of her be-longings. When she presented Karl, known for his interest in family and local history, with a bag of some of her things, she told him that she was not sure what he would think about the contents but it was up to him to decide what to do with them. The two items were ones that Karl had never before seen: a family Bible and the KKK quilt, which his aunt told him she had inherited when her father (Karl’s grandfather) Frank died in 1960.2

When he brought the quilt home, Karl’s family was immediately uncomfortable with the newly revealed connection of their family to the Klan, and they quickly suggested he give it away. But as an educator and historian, Karl was first determined to find out more about it. He brought it to the attention of other historians specializing in state and local his-tory, including Calvin Enders, a professor at Central Michigan University who was researching the Ku Klux Klan in Michigan, and, in 1989, to the

The KKK Fundraising Quilt of Chicora, Michigan

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Ystaff of the Michigan State University Museum, who worked with Karl to inventory it into the Michigan Quilt Project. He also entered the quilt into the local Grand Haven Quilt Show where it won a first prize of $50 in the category of historic quilts. Karl described the audience’s reaction to the quilt being awarded a prize as one of amazement and disgust.3

More importantly, Karl interviewed elder family members about the quilt. Grace Rowe, another paternal aunt, gave him some information about the quilt and recalled that at the age of sixteen she had worked on it. She had been embarrassed to have participated in the project but had been persuaded, because of her fine handwriting and good needlework skills, to do so. She said that as many as four other individuals, including her cousin Marie Tripp, embroidered the names and that she believed that Ethel Smith had embroidered the blocks carrying the Klan letters and illustration.4

Grace recalled each person had paid ten cents to have their name inscribed and when the quilt was completed, members of the local Klan entered a raffle to win it.5 Karl’s grandfather Frank Rowe, who had left his sick wife at home to attend the meeting, held the winning ticket and went home with the quilt.6

A Physical Description of the QuiltThe top of the quilt is composed of forty-eight blocks averaging 10.25 inches to 10.75 inches square. Twenty-four blocks are solid off-white cotton, each inscribed with six to thirteen names embroidered in Turkey red thread. Two hundred three names are rendered in cursive script, and the remaining three names are in block print (see Figure 1). Except on one block on which names are rendered with a satin stitch, all names are executed with a stem stitch. Plat maps, census records, newspaper accounts, and interviews with Karl Rowe provide documentation that the names on the quilt represent individuals who were related, socialized together, and/or lived in close proximity to each other. For example, an undated article in The Allegan News reported that Mr. and Mrs. Ray McNutt visited with Mr. and Mrs. Horace Gile, four names listed on the quilt.7 Ralph Busfield, Frederick McNutt, Benjamin Reifel, Marie Tripp, and Hattie Wall all lived on Route

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thou

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ice

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op, A

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ta

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gare

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rim

shaw

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atri

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ulah

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ague

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nche

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ragu

e, L

ouis

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k Eb

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ed

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roft,

Har

ry

Cro

ft, B

ob C

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rge

& H

elle

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G

eorg

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Y

No. 4.8 William Rowe, Marie Tripp, and Christeen McNutt are related.9 The surnames on the quilt are predominately Anglo-Saxon: English, German, and Dutch, and census records confirm the heritage of some individuals. For example, the parents of Freeman Goodwin and Sandy Sweet were both listed as born in England.10

According to Rowe, most of the individuals whose names were re-corded on the quilt were subsistence farmers or specialized in small-scale production crops, particularly peaches. Some were tradesmen and at least one, Eric Torrey, listed as a fur maker (furrier) in a 1924 directory, was relatively well off. According to a February 15, 1901, Allegan News, “twenty-five friends and former neighbors visited Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Torrey in sleighs for a day of ‘feasting and merry-making.’”11 Mrs. Torrey also entertained the 500 Club on December 8, 1922.12

The inscribed blocks are set alternately with twenty-four pieced blocks. The pieced design is in a nine-patch format with a central cross-like design surrounded by half-square triangles in the block’s corners. The makers of the Chicora quilt might have used an existing quilt pat-tern, but, as of the writing of this article, there are no known published Ku Klux Klan quilt block patterns13 and only one known reference to a KKK-related pattern. That design, called “Ku Klux,” was described by Kathryne Hail Travis in an article she published in 1930 in Southwest Re-view. Travis recounted visiting the Arkansas quiltmaker who had copied the pattern from another quilt brought to Arkansas by a woman from Tennessee. She called the pattern “one of the most complicated designs in pieced quilts that I have ever seen” and said that the maker “had forgot-ten how she had put it together and it took us four hours to work out a

Figure 2. Example of Klan Crosswheel symbol. Variation

of the design may include slight changes in the shape of the

cross or inverting the colors.


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Figure 3. Detail of quilt showing hooded Klansman. Photograph by Mary Whalen, courtesy of Michigan State University Museum.

block.”14 Travis also judged that “here was a design showing historic and patriotic significance.”15 Unfortunately, neither a physical description nor an illustration of the block was included in the article, but since it was “a complicated” pattern, it was likely not the same as the simple pieced pattern used in the Chicora KKK quilt. While the source of the design used in the Chicora quilt is unknown, it is clear that the block pattern closely resembles the Crosswheel design motif adapted by the Klan as its symbol (see Figure 2).16

Near the center of the quilt are two white cotton blocks embroi-dered in an outline stitch with Turkey red thread. The first carries the inscription “CHICORA K.K.K. 1926,” the other “K.K.K.K. 77” along

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Ywith an illustration of a hooded Klansman sitting astride a hooded horse and holding aloft a cross (see Figure 3). It is very likely that the designer used as a source either an advertisement for the film The Birth of a Na-tion, sheet music of the period (see Figure 4), or a Klan pamphlet (see Figure 5), each of which depict a white robed and hooded Klan mem-ber holding aloft a cross and sitting astride a rearing horse, also robed and hooded .17 The hoods and the robes are decorated with a red circle upon which is placed a white cross. The number “77” on the embroi-dered block probably denotes that it was the seventy-seventh Klavern in Michigan.18

The pieced blocks are both hand and machine pieced and composed of pieces of solid white cotton and a variety of blue-and-white cotton prints. The quilt is typical of two-color quilts, a style of quilts usually made of blue and white or red and white fabrics that became popular around 1830 and continued to be popular through the first quarter of the twentieth century.19 The addition of the Turkey red thread creates a patriotic palette that might also have been intended to reflect the patriotic values of the KKK. Although the quilt is inscribed with the provenance and date, the date is also supported by the fabrics and colors used; the blue print fabrics in the quilt match similar fabrics produced in the early twentieth century.20 The fabrics in the quilt were most likely purchased locally. During the 1920s there were two general stores in Chicora both of which carried dry goods (see Figure 6). Fidelity Stores Co., located in nearby Allegan, was another possible source; a 1927 newspaper advertisement for the store provides information on the costs of materials: “gingham at 19 cents a yard, percales at 15 cents a yard, bleached domestic at 12½ cents a yard, chambray for shirts at 12½ cents a yard, and three pound cotton batts at 98 cents a yard”21 (see Figure 7). Art needlework supplies were also locally available. An advertisement in a 1927 Allegan News carried the following promotion: “Art Needlework Stamped Goods . . . Mrs. E. Spears, Otsego Road, 3 Miles East of Allegan”22 (see Figure 8). The quilt’s backing is a small-scale print of red and white wreath-like designs on a blue ground. The quilt’s top and back are folded into one another, forming the edging. The left and bottom edgings are machine stitched closed, and the right and top are sealed with hand stitches. The


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Figure 4. “Ku Klux Kismet” sheet music. Courtesy of Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.

Figure 5. Example of Klan pamphlet. Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty by Bishop Alma White. Illustration by Rev. Branford Clark. Zarepath, NJ: The Good Citizen, 1926.

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batting is cotton. Red wool yarn ties were used to hold the three layers together and the quilt measures 62.5 inches wide and 81 inches long. The quilt is in fragile condition. The quilt’s upper and lower edges are especially worn, and, in the upper center, some fabrics have shredded, exposing the cotton batting. One small hole, extending through the quilt, is patched with solid white fabric on the quilt’s front and solid blue on the backing. The quilt is stained and discolored throughout, with heavy staining present along the quilt’s upper edge. Seams throughout the quilt are loose and separated, and only five of the red ties remain. The general wear and the extensive fraying along the top edge indicate that the quilt was used as a bed cover; the most visible signs of wear are where one’s face and feet would have touched the quilt. Wear at the bottom of the quilt may have been caused by bedsprings rubbing against the fabric as the quilt was tucked into the foot of the bed. The fabrics found in the quilt are uniformly thin, a trait not uncommon to cotton fabrics of the early twentieth century and contributes to the quilt’s worn condition. When Rowe acquired the quilt, it was stuffed into a paper bag. Although this lack of preservation may account in a small degree for the quilt’s

Figure 6. Rowe and McNutt General Store. Image courtesy of Karl Rowe.


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Figure 7. Fidelity Stores Co. advertisement, The Allegan News, 22 April 1927.

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Ydegradation, the physical evidence suggests that its worn condition was primarily the result of everyday use. And, according to Rowe, his family was poor, and the quilt was probably used for warmth.23

Situating the Quilt in Chicora, Michigan, HistoryChicora is located in the southwestern part of what is now Allegan County in Michigan’s lower peninsula, a region that was originally in-habited by the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa.24 The land, forests, and waterways of the region provided prime hunting, fishing, and small-scale agricultural production that not only sustained indigenous peoples but also attracted French, British, and Spanish explorers, missionaries, and traders. When the United States passed the Ordinance of 1787, this re-gion became part of the Northwest Territory, and in 1817 a survey of the Michigan Territory was completed. On August 28, 1821, the Odawas and Potowatomis negotiated the “Treaty of Chicago” and conveyed a large area, including Allegan County, to the United States.25 Pioneer settlers quickly logged off the forests and established farms in the rich soil. The town of Allegan, the county seat, was first settled in 1833. The first white settlers arrived in Cheshire Township in 1839, and the township was organized in 1851.26 Chicora was a named place by circa 1896.27 By 1940, Allegan was described as “one of the banner agri-cultural communities of Michigan.”28 While furniture industries helped develop nearby Grand Rapids and Holland into highly populated urban centers and resort communities dotted the Lake Michigan shoreline, Allegan County has remained predominately rural and agricultural. According to 1920 census data, the population of Allegan County was 37,540.29 Of this total, the overwhelming majority were white of which 90.3% were native-born. Another 3,323 (8.9%) were foreign-born whites, hailing mostly from Austria, Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland.30 A small num-ber of immigrants were from Greece, Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia, Lithu-ania, and Romania. Only 204 (1.3%) African Americans and 106 Asians (and others) were counted.31 Cheshire Township was home to a small settlement of African Americans located in Cheshire, known locally as “Cheshire Corners,” about 3 miles southeast of Chicora.32 An 1880 county


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history reported that this settlement was perceived as a positive force in the region.

A considerable proportion of the population [of Cheshire Township] are of the colored race, who merit notice in the history of Cheshire. As a class they stand well for both sobriety and industry. Many of them have farms upon which comfortable houses are built, and the land of which is improved and well maintained. They also have two church organiza-tions, to which liberal support is accorded, and of which mention is made farther on. They are by no means the least influential citizens of the township, and have won credit for the ambition they display in

Figure 8. Mrs. E. Spears Art Needlework advertisement, The Allegan News, 8 April 1927.

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farming pursuits and the good reputation they have established in all their social relations.33

Religious institutions in this region mirrored those of the northern European ethnic groups that settled here; they were—and still are—overwhelmingly Protestant with many Calvinists and Dutch Reformed. Several congregations—all Protestant—existed at one time or another in Cheshire Township, but it is unclear if all built churches or simply met in homes.34 The United Brethren Church, the only community building still standing in Chicora, was, according to Rowe, originally built as a non-denominational church35 (see Figure 9). Early twentieth century local newspaper columns alluded to the presence of Catholics but cited no parish structure and none were shown on plat maps.36

The dominance of strong conservative Protestant religious institu-tions in the area was reflected in pervasive community stances on moral

Figure 9. United Brethren Church, Chicora, Michigan. Photograph courtesy of Marsha MacDowell.


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Yissues and civic duty. Thus, it is not surprising that on February 18, 1894, Allegan County went ‘dry,’ nor is it surprising that the county sent 2,175 men to serve in the Union army during the Civil War.37

By 1926, the year the quilt was constructed, Cheshire Township was well-settled and had several one-room schools, a Grange, several cem-eteries, numerous organized religious congregations, a township hall, a number of small businesses that served local citizens, and the Swan Lake resort that was enjoyed by both locals and visitors. Two villages, Chicora and Cheshire, provided hubs of civic and commercial activity, which, in Chicora, meant the intersection of 44th Street and 108th Avenue, known locally as “The Corners.” The Church of the Brethren and several of the businesses, including the E. A. Sharp general store and one first owned by Dawson Valleau and later by William Rowe and his cousin McNutt, were all located at “The Corners.” Social activities in Cheshire Township revolved around the Grange, the Protestant church groups, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a number of fraternal organizations, a baseball team, and a community band. Nearby Allegan, the county seat and a more-populated community, offered expanded opportunities for periodic trade and entertainment, including the annual Allegan County Fair.38 It is likely that the Allegan County Fair, like others in Michigan, hosted exhibits of textile arts and displays of quilts during the period that the Chicora quilt was made, but no fair records have been located for this period.39

Situating the Quilt in Quiltmaking Traditions and Textile HistoryThree strong textile traditions—making redwork, signature quilts, and fundraising quilts—that are evidenced in the KKK quilt are useful in situating this particular quilt in time and place. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it became popular for American women to create “art needlework” and they embellished all types of household linens with embroidered images.40 Items rendered in Turkey red thread—at one time the most colorfast dyed thread avail-able—on a white or off-white background were known as redwork. Magazines such as The Ladies’ Home Journal, Harper’s Bazar, and The

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YModern Priscilla published patterns and included offers to purchase pat-terns or receive them as subscription premiums. Designs were available stamped on fabric or could be transferred using a variety of methods. Textile artists also used their own ingenuity to come up with designs, using fashion illustrations, children’s book illustrations, advertisements, wallpaper motifs, and political cartoons as design sources.41

Quilts known as signature quilts are those quilts upon whose surface are the names of a group of individuals who are usually connected in some way.42 Signature quilts have been the subject of numerous studies and hundreds of signature quilts have been documented in state and regional quilt documentation projects.43 Signature quilts are important primary sources that provide invaluable data that can support studies and analyses of social networks and relationships, belief systems, local and national organizations, women’s roles, and patterns of social, cultural, and economic activities. Although technically a signature or autograph refers to the hand-writing of an individual, the names or initials on signature quilts are sometimes rendered by others, including those with better penman- ship skills. Names are inked, embroidered, painted, stamped, or even photo-transferred on. The resulting album quilt is a document of a group of people who are bound together in a common cause, a set of relation-ships, or interests. The tradition of making signature quilts first peaked in popularity during the 1840s and 1850s, again in the 1880s and 1890s,44 and then again in the early twentieth century. Its popularity mirrored that of col-lecting autographs in autograph books. Although it has not seen another surge of popularity, it nonetheless has endured into the early twenty-first century. The MSU Museum owns several signature quilts, including one dat-ing from the same period as the Chicora quilt that was likely made by members of a Protestant congregation in Allegan, located about ten miles from Chicora, or in the adjacent Ottawa County. The majority of the 200 surnames embroidered in peach thread on the peach and white top done in a Framed Square pattern are of Dutch origin, a dominant ethnic group in the region.45

Another strong and longstanding quilt tradition is the use of quilts to


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Yraise money for a wide variety of causes, especially by women. Individu-als and organizations have made thousands of dollars by making and selling, raffling, and auctioning quilts. Karl Rowe recalled a quilting bee led by Marie Rowe and held at the Rowe School that created a quilt to raise money for either the Mother’s Club or 4-H.46

A particularly effective means of raising funds is through the mak-ing of subscription quilts, a form in which individuals, businesses, and organizations pay a small amount of money for the privilege of having their name inscribed on a quilt in support of a particular local, national, or even international cause.47 For instance, scores of subscription quilts were made to raise funds for Red Cross efforts during World War I.48 Additional money was sometimes raised by raffling or auctioning the completed subscription quilt. Sometimes the quilts were simply donated to the agency or organization that benefited from the fundraising effort to be displayed at events and occasionally at headquarters. Fundraising quilts were also particularly associated with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.), which used quilts extensively to support their fight to restrict alcohol consumption and sale.49 In 1873, in Ohio, 3,000 women each paid a dime to have their names on a quilt known as the “Crusader Quilt,” which was then presented to Emma Thompson at one of the first national meetings of the W.C.T.U. The sym-bolism of the W.C.T.U. was reflected in the design choices used by women in the quilts they made to show their support of the crusade. Quilts were made in the Drunkard’s Path, Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, and the “T” (for temperance) patterns and often rendered in the organization’s official colors of blue and white.50 Local W.C.T.U. chapters often made quilts that included their names, dates, and state, and chapter insignia, and many were displayed publicly at expositions and fairs in an attempt to garner attention to the cause.51 A cousin of Karl Rowe owns a signature quilt made in Chicora that was used as a fundraising quilt for the W.C.T.U. and contains many familiar Chicora family names.52

Most studies report small contributions for the privilege of having a name inscribed, ranging from a penny to a quarter, but sometimes the re-quired contribution was greater. Size of inscription or image, complexity of image, and placement of image on the quilt sometimes affected the size of the requested contribution. Even relatively small contributions added

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Yup, and considering the many subscription quilts that have been made and the buying power of the contributions at the time, the economic impact of this tradition is substantial. Like other forms of signature quilts, names on subscription quilts were often done in redwork, with Turkey red thread used to embroider names onto a white background. Sometimes other colors were used for both the embroidery or the background but there was usually a sharp contrast between the embroidery and the color of the fabric onto which it was embroidered. When individual blocks were not used to contain the names in a particular quilt, names were either inscribed across a solid background in a haphazard manner or within a set arrangement. Particularly popular beginning in the 1880s and into the first quarter of the twentieth century was the Embroidered Wheel, in which names were placed so they appeared to form the spokes of wheels, radiating out from a central hub.53 Most of these quilts included at least 150 names and many scores more.54

Because their primary purpose was to raise funds, the design and construction of subscription quilts were generally, although not always, simple. Sometimes names were inscribed onto a whole-cloth top, no batting or filling was used, and often the completed top was tied, not quilted, to a backing. Partially because they were functionally designed to be a fundraiser and only incidentally, if at all, as a bedcovering, and partially because subscription quilts have been kept by organizations and individuals as documents of history, many of these quilts show little or no wear. Many have been documented in state and regional quilt documentation projects. The Michigan Quilt Project inventory and individual quilt studies in Michigan have recorded numerous instances of quilt-related fundraising activities and signature quilts, including those of the subscription variety, throughout the state.55 A quilt column that ran in The Detroit News dur-ing the 1930s contained references to signature quilts,56 many Michigan museum collections house examples of signature quilts, and exhibitions in the state regularly include signature quilts in their displays. The tradi-tion of making signature quilts appears to have been popular throughout Michigan and, while currently it is not known when the tradition first


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Yappeared in the state, there are documented examples as early as 1864 and the tradition has continued into this century.57

Situating the Quilt in Ku Klux Klan HistoryThe original Ku Klux Klan was organized on May 6, 1866, in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee, by six young men to form a fraternal society for the purpose of mutual entertainment. The Declaration of the first Klansmen described the group as “an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy and Patriotism; embodying in its genius and its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose.”58 The name derived from the Greek word kuklos, mean-ing “circle” and was thus suggestive of a close and potentially exclusive association.59

Despite its relatively benign initial mission, the first Klan quickly developed an agenda of action to secure control of the Southern govern-ment from African Americans and carpetbaggers (a derisive term refer-ring to Northerners who traveled south to fill the power vacuum after the Civil War when the Confederate states were placed under martial law).60

The Ku Klux Klan was, at heart, a nativist movement, similar to and perhaps stemming from the ideology of the Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s. The Know-Nothing movement was a popular reaction to the increase of immigrants to the United States in the 1840s, and in par-ticular, the increase in the number of Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. For Nativists and Know-Nothings, Catholicism represented a threat to the separation of church and state, free speech, and free press. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of 1865 and 1866, which prohibited slavery and granted the right of citizenship to for-mer slaves, also fueled the establishment of the Klan, which strongly promoted an ideology of white superiority. Klan members increasingly used a blend of superstition and intimidation and sometimes resorted to lynching, torture, and killing to frighten black people and those who supported African Americans. Due to a variety of internal struggles, the “Grand Wizard” General

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YForrest ordered the first KKK organization to disband in March 1869. Local branches remained active, however, which prompted Congress to pass the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871. Although officially the movement was dead, the ideology behind it survived, and by the 1880s, organizations such as the American Protective Association were formed to continue the community battles against the encroachment of new residents who were foreign-born, non-Protestant, and not Anglo-Saxon. On Thanksgiving Eve, 1915, Colonel William Joseph Simmons revived the Ku Klux Klan and became the first Impe-rial Wizard of the new order that was renamed Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Simmons envisioned a great patriotic fraternal order that would be conceived as a memorial to the heroes of the nation. In 1915, D. W. Griffith’s motion picture The Birth of a Nation pre-miered in California and New York. The film contained music by Wagner, stars such as Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish, and battle scenes copied from the popular prints of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, ensuring its success. Cinemagoers were charged an exorbitant price of $2 per ticket, yet it became the highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $10 million at the box office in 1915.61 Based upon North Carolina Baptist Minister Reverend Thomas Dixon’s play entitled The Clansmen: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) and novel The Leopard’s Spots: A Romance of the White Man’s Burden, 1865–1900 (1902), the film portrayed KKK members as heroes. The Birth of a Nation occupied an important position in recruiting Klan members. In Atlanta, for example, the newspaper carried Simmons’s announcement of “The World’s Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order” next to the advertisement for the film.62 A radical change in the organization occurred in June 1920 when the Klan signed a contract with the Southern Publicity Association, which promoted the Klan to capitalize on Klan membership fees. The Klan and Southern Publicity Association agreed that a profit of 80 percent should be realized to consider the movement a success and then launched their money making venture.63 An aggressive campaign was launched to re-cruit new members. The revival of the KKK crusade in the early 1920s was deemed “a crusade for old-time fundamentalist religion, clean living,


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Y100 per cent Americanism, and law and order.”64 It was deemed a “non-profit legally recognized institution, working to rebuild our collapsing society on the principles of honor, honesty, duty, courage, brotherhood, and patriotism.”65 The KKK promoted their notion of law and order and the Horse Thief Detectives were instituted as the police force of the Klan. A Klan organizer was instructed to find out what was worrying a community and to offer the Klan as a solution.66 The Ku Klux Klan also promoted itself as a family organization, including ladies auxiliaries, such as the Kamelias and the Queens of the Golden Mask, and a Junior Klan for children. The rhetoric of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan appealed to con-servatives who agreed with their perceptions of community, tradition, family values, and law and order. Historian Richard K. Tucker describes members of the Klan as mostly “ordinary work-a-day Americans caught up in a rush of flag-waving, nativist nationalism and defensive Protes-tant-Puritan moral reaction.”67 The KKK also gained support from, and was endorsed by, the Prohibitionists and the Anti-Saloon League, other organizations that espoused similar concerns and philosophies. And, as a testament to the mainstream acceptance of the group in society as a civic organization, on September 13, 1926—the year the quilt was produced in Chicora—the Klan publicly marched in Washington D.C.68

The Klan appealed to a largely rural, provincial population in the South and Midwest. By the early 1920s, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had the heaviest concentration of Klan strength in the United States, with more than half a million Klansmen.69 The Midwest had in excess of a third of the organization’s total membership,70 and, between 1922 and 1925, Indiana was the centerpiece of the Ku Klux Klan with up to 300,000 members.71

Strong organizational campaigns did not begin in Michigan until the latter half of 1923 and early 1924, by which time “the crest of the Klan wave had passed by in the Middle West.”72 Despite the late start, Michigan occupied eighth place in terms of national membership in the 1920s73 and (with 93 chartered Klaverns) had more Klansmen than any southern state.74 The KKK was particularly strong around Grand Rapids, Flint, Bay City, Jackson, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Pontiac, Muskegon, and

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YDetroit—all areas to which high concentrations of African Americans and immigrants, attracted by the growing automotive industry, had poured. In 1923, Klan activities intensified on the western side of Michigan. On August 21, 1923, the Grand Haven Tribune headline read, “KKK is Working in Holland City,” and a secondary headline reported the burn-ing of fiery crosses on Lake Shore Hills near Holland.75 Burning crosses were also reported on Dewey Hill, Grand Haven, in September. Within a two month period “more than 160 Havenites and neighbors paid the Klecktoken, or membership fee, and membership rolls indicate that the Klan snared at least 141 men.”76

While it is not known exactly what particular factor or factors prompted West Michiganders to become Klan members, at least in nearby Mecosta County it was anti-Catholicism that “provided the initial and the binding attraction holding [the Klan] together.”77 Anti-Catholicism was also known in Allegan County; Myrtle Bean, a Catholic school-teacher, was fired from her job at Rowe School because of her religious beliefs.78

The first documented Klan activity in Allegan County was reported in The Allegan News in a headline article “Burning Cross Marks Advent of Klan” on September 7, 1923. The report stated, “Burning of a cross is said to indicate signing of 100 members.”79 A week later, the Holland News reported, “The Klux are klucking in Allegan.”80 Later in the month, The Allegan News reported on a meeting in Allegan, “Courthouse lawn was packed Wednesday night, when a speaker who said he was the Rev. Mr. Henry of Akron, O., explained to the gathering the purposes and aims of the Ku Klux Klan. He spoke on matters of public interest, good citizen-ship, taxation, schools, and the divorcing of religion and government.”81 There is no evidence that the cross burnings incited acts of violence and additional news about the Klan portrayed it simply as a social organi-zation. Indeed, four years later in 1927, amidst notes on other current social and cultural activities, The Allegan News reported “The Knights and Ladies of Allegan county klan held a social meeting at their Klavern on Tuesday evening. After community singing and music, a jolly time was spent with games and contests after which everyone took a trip to


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YFrance where refreshments were served. These meetings are held every month with a large attendance.”82

Material Evidence of KKK Membership and ActivityHistorians who seek information on clandestine organizations and activi-ties are often hampered by a lack of documentary evidence. The Klan, sometimes called an Invisible Empire, was particularly careful to literally mask its membership through the use of hooded robes. Even if and when membership cards were filled out or lists assembled, these materials, even if extant, are rarely available for research. Klan activities were seldom covered in newspaper accounts, and when they were, the activities re-ported on were generally sensational (e.g., a cross burning, a march) and Klansmen, even if they were known, were not identified by name. As the Holland News reported on 4 October 1923, “No speakers have appeared . . . and no official knowledge of a Klan organization is available.”83

Other than the quilt and a few references in local newspapers, there is—in the public domain—little documentary evidence of the activi-ties of the Klan in Allegan County and, specifically, Chicora.84 Thus the Chicora KKK quilt is of important value in providing tangible and spe-cific evidence not available elsewhere. Today many individuals want to distance themselves from any known personal, family, or community connections—whether past or current—to the Klan due to the stigma, shame, and embarrassment attached to this organizational instrument of hate, prejudice, violence, and oppression. Even when documentation of connections surface, efforts are often made to suppress and even destroy the evidence. For instance, Rowe recalled seeing a Klan membership certificate hidden behind a cupboard in his grandfather’s house and believed the certificate was thrown away following his grandfather’s death in 1960.85

More recently, on July 16, 1995, the Lansing State Journal carried a story of such an effort in Noblesville, Indiana:

The legacy of the Ku Klux Klan has come back to haunt this small town. Membership rolls from the KKK’s most powerful period some 70 years

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Yago have resurfaced, and some townspeople don’t want the records made public for fear the material will embarrass descendants of Klansmen. . . . They’re very concerned that the names should not be published as a list . . . they’re trying to discourage that.86

As recently as 2005, two auctions of KKK materials took place in Michigan, garnering protesters and spurring a rash of editorials in local newspapers.87

Karl and Barbara Rowe take no pride in the fact that their family was historically involved in the Klan but they have taken the time to try to research and understand this involvement. Moreover, they do not want the quilt hidden or the names suppressed; they believe firmly that the quilt can be used to educate present and future generations about a darker aspect of American history. Although tens of thousands of quilts have been documented in re-search and documentation projects conducted throughout the United States, only three affiliated with Klan activity have been located by the authors: the Chicora quilt, one in Indiana made in 1901 of recycled Klan robes in the Windmill or Old Crow pattern,88 and a 1928 Drunkard’s Path quilt made of Klan robes in the collection of the Yakima Valley Museum.89

When Allegan County residents participated in this subscription quilt project, they engaged in an activity that was a commonly accepted way of raising funds for causes deemed important by community mem-bers. It is highly likely that other quilts were made not only to support the Klan but also other organizations labeled now and/or then as clandestine, subversive, hate, militia, or radical—in short, in opposition to what is deemed the common good. Given the number of quilts documented to date and the popularity of quilts as instruments to raise funds, it is somewhat surprising that more such quilts have not surfaced. Perhaps, as in the case of Klan membership lists or certificates, such quilts have been kept hidden in private hands or have been destroyed. Possibly other quilts, including those with signatures, made in the Crosswheel pattern will surface and documentation or additional research will reveal con-nections to the KKK. All quilts are material evidence that can help us understand the hu-


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Yman imprint on the world. The materials, construction, design, pictorial imagery, signatures, and even condition of the Chicora KKK quilt hold clues that strengthen and expand our understanding of quiltmaking, of Klan activity, and of the social and cultural history of a particular community at a particular time. The Chicora quilt provides evidence of a network of individuals in a close-knit community who shared com-mon occupational, religious, and ethnic backgrounds and a variety of kinship and social relationships, including membership in the KKK. Rowe’s rationale for his forbearers’ participation in the Klan also fits this description. He believes the appeal to his relatives was predominantly social; the Klan was a community-based organization that provided a means of entertainment and communication in a time when there were no televisions or telephones. Rowe also observed that the Klan probably helped reinforce a sense of shared identity and belonging, an observation brought home by the story he told of his grandfather who used to get very excitable and wake his wife in the middle of the night for fear of the ‘Other’ in the community.90

Whether or not they intended to do so, members of the Chicora Klan created an artifact that continues to be a testimony to their beliefs, rela-tionships, and actions. A passage in a Klan membership brochure states, “We were here yesterday, we are here today, we will be here forever.”91 This is a particularly chilling motto, considering the fact that in 2005 the Klan is still active, the number of hate organizations continues to grow, and politicians continue to champion conformist agendas publicly linked to fundamental conservative Christian beliefs. In an age where we continue to struggle with local, national, and global issues of tolerance, social justice, and human rights, this artifact can help us understand the roots of fear and intolerance and to serve as a powerful reminder not to perpetuate the mistakes of the past.

Notes and References

1. Elizabeth Richards, Sherri Martin-Scott, and Kerry Maquire, “Quilts as Material History: Identifying Research Models,” in Uncoverings 1990, vol. 11, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 149–63.

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Y2. Karl Rowe, interview with Marsha MacDowell, Charlotte Quinney, and

Mary Worrall at his home in Grand Haven, Michigan, 9 June 2005.3. Ibid.4. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005. See also Michigan Quilt Project #89.712 file

housed in the Michigan Traditional Arts Research Collections, Michigan State University Museum.

5. If the 206 individuals whose names are inscribed on the quilt had each con-tributed ten cents, the quilt would have realized $20.60 or the equivalent of $228.04 in 2005 dollars. (John J. McCusker, “Comparing the Purchasing Power of Money in the United States (or Colonies) from 1665 to 2005” Economic History Services, 2006, www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd/, accessed 5/7/06). More funds would have been raised when the quilt was raffled, but it is not known how much each raffle ticket cost nor how many were sold.

6. Grace became a lifelong quiltmaker and, after attending Western Michi-gan College (now Western Michigan University), became a public school teacher.

7. The Allegan News, undated clipping, Library of Michigan Microfilm Pa-pers.

8. Leudders Historical & Pictorial Directory of Allegan, Michigan (Coldwater, Michigan: Otto E. Leudders, 1924).

9. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.10. http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=lscoom

ber&id=I1891 (accessed 6/17/05).11. The Allegan News, 15 February 1901.12. The Allegan News, 8 December 1922.13. See Judy Rehmel, Key to 1000 Quilt Patterns, 2nd ed. (self-published, 1981),

59 for a similar block that has four different fabrics used in its outer tri-angles, rather than the single fabric used in the Chicora quilt. Barbara Brackman, Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns (Paducah, Kentucky: American Quilter’s Society, 1993) carries no pieced block identical to this one.

14. Kathryne Hail Travis, “Quilts of the Ozarks,” Southwest Review 11 (1930): 230. Thanks to Barbara Brackman for sharing this article. Brackman said it was the only reference to a KKK-related pattern she had ever come across.

15. Ibid.16. The Klan symbol represents the Christian cross, the wheel of creativity,

the circle of unity, motion, and also the ancient Aryan symbol for the sun. This was also one of the most popular designs representing the Old


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YSouth. The “X” design originates from the Saltire, the historical symbol for St. Andrew’s Cross dating back to early Christian history. Andrew was one of the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to tradition, was responsible for spreading the Christian faith throughout Greece and Asia Minor. In approximately 69 AD, when he was about 85 years old, he was put to death by the Romans for his fervent preaching and testimony of Christ. At his request, the cross he was pinned to was turned on its side because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as the Lord. Due to this, Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland, and the cloud white Saltire on an azure background became the national flag of Scotland. The Confederate Battle Flag incorporated the blue saltire reminiscent of the St. Andrew’s Cross, thus perhaps reflecting the Scottish heritage of many white southerners. Jeffery Todd McCormack, “Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan Focusing of Their Flag of Hate,” www.pointsouth.com/csanet/kkk.htm (accessed 6/17/05).

17. One possible source of the illustration can be found on the cover of Bishop Alma White, Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty, Ill. By Rev. Branford Clark (Zarepath, New Jersey: The Good Citizen, 1926). Another possible source is a painting that was discovered in a grocery and dry goods store owned by R.W. Smith in Melvern, Kansas, and that was presumed to be painted by local resident Fred Judd in the early 1920s. This illustration was fea-tured on the cover of Klan publication The Imperial Nighthawk (www.kshs.org/c0012/klan.htm, accessed 12/1/04). Yet another possible source is the cover of the Ku Klux Kismet, a booklet of sheet music for the Klan, which was copyrighted in 1924 and published by Walter Ardrell Riggs, Arankas Pass, Texas (http://metascholar.org/MOSC/essays/backlash.htm, accessed 6/28/05).

18. There is no other existing documentation, beyond the quilt, related to the 77th Klavern in Michigan.

19. Barbara Brackman, Clues in the Calico: A Guide to Identifying and Dat-ing Antique Quilts (McLean, Virginia: EPM Publications, Inc., 1989), 27, 157–58.

20. From 1900 to approximately 1925, blue fabrics (particularly in a gray blue, clear blue, or cadet blue fabric) often printed with small geometric designs, were popular in the construction of clothing and quilts. (See Brackman, Clues in the Calico, 67–68.) Cadet blue, which first appeared after 1880, was vat dyed, thus creating coloration that was equal on both sides of the fabric. (See Eileen Jahnke Trestain, Dating Fabrics: A Color Guide, 1800–1960 (Paducah: American Quilter’s Society, 1998), 96.)

21. The Allegan News, 22 April 1927.

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Y22. The Allegan News, 8 April 1927.23. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.24. James A. Clifton, George C. Cornell, and James M. McClurken, People of

the Three Fires: The Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibway of Michigan (Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Michigan Indian Press, Grand Rapids Inter-Tribal Council, 1988).

25. James J. Green, A Historical Brief: Allegan MI, 1838–1963 (Allegan: Allegan Area 125th Anniversary Historical Program, 1963), 16.

26. Walter Romig, Michigan Place Names (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986), 113.

27. Ibid.28. Milo M. Quaife, Condensed Sketches for Each of Michigan’s Counties (De-

troit: The J. L. Hudson Company, 1940), unpaginated.29. Fourteenth Census of the United States taken in the Year 1920 V01.3: Popula-

tion 1920, Composition & Characteristics of the Population by States (Wash-ington: Government Printing Office, 1922), 474.

30. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 493–94.31. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 480 and 490.32. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.33. History of Allegan and Barry Counties, Michigan, with Illustrations and

Biographical Sketches of the Prominent Men and Pioneers (Philadelphia: D. W. Ensign & Co., 1880), 189.

34. Illustrated Atlas of Allegan County, MI (Racine, Wisconsin: Kace Publishing Company, 1895) and Farm Plat Book with Index to Land Owners (Rockford, Michigan: Rockford Map Publishers, 1954).

35. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005. Rowe also shared that his aunt told him that a feud occurred and blood was shed in the church.

36. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.37. Green, 4.38. Karl Rowe recalled how his grandfather made money showing a three-

legged bull he owned at the Allegan County Fair and other fairs, earning enough to buy a suit to be buried in. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.

39. An exhaustive search of local and state archives, libraries for Allegan County Fair premium books have revealed no records predating the 1930s. The county fair board staff assisted in this search as did the Allegan County News, which published an inquiry by the MSU Museum staff in August 2005.

40. When the United States celebrated its centennial in 1876 by holding an international exhibition in Philadelphia, a major exhibition of needle-


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Ywork, including many examples produced by the Royal School of Art Needlework in Kensington, England, was shown at the Women’s Pavilion. The British needlework impressed both critics and the general public and prompted Candace Wheeler to establish the Society of Decorative Arts in New York. The society, modeled after the Royal School, was aimed at giving “a practical direction to the art talent of the women of the country” and to encourage women to engage in many facets of decorative arts, but especially in needlework. See Margaret Vincent, The Ladies’ Work Table: Domestic Needlework in Nineteenth-Century America (Allentown, PA: Al-lentown Art Museum, 1988), 63–64.

41. Deborah Harding, Red & White: American Redwork Quilts (New York: Rizzoli, 2000), 31.

42. This particular form of quilt was thought to originate in the mid-Atlantic states of New England, New York, Virginia, and Ohio in the mid-nine-teenth century.

43. The Quilt Index (www.quiltindex.org) is a source of searchable data on signature quilts registered in the documentation projects conducted in several states. Additional data on signature quilts has been reported on in the scores of publications that were produced as a result of the documenta-tion projects.

44. Barbara Brackman, “Signature Quilts: Nineteenth-Century Trends,” in Uncoverings 1989, vol. 10, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1990), 27–30.

45. The quilt was acquired by the Michigan State University Museum and is registered as MQP #99.1225 in the Michigan Quilt Project.

46. Karl Rowe, letter to authors, 4 August 2005.47. For a good introduction to quilts and fundraising, see Dorothy Cozart, “The

Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts: 1860–1920,” in Jeannette Lasansky, ed. Pieced by Mother: Symposium Papers (Lewisburg, PA: Oral Traditions Project, 1988), 87–95 and Dorothy Cozart, “A Century of Fundraising Quilts: 1860–1960,” in Uncoverings 1984, vol. 5, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1985, 41–53. See Jacqueline Marx Atkins, Shared Threads: Quilting Together, Past and Present (New York: Viking Studio Books, 1994), 69 for reference to a variation called “tithing quilts,” which were intended expressly to raise funds for church-related needs.

48. Nancy Rowley, “Red Cross Quilts for the Great War,” in Uncoverings 1982, vol. 3, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1983, 43–51. See also Cozart, “The Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts,” 94.

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Y49. Dorothy Cozart, “The Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts,” 88–90, 93–94.

See also Brackman, Clues in the Calico, 151, and Pat Ferrero, Elaine Hedges, and Julie Silber, Hearts and Hands: Women, Quilts, and American Society (Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press, 1987), 87.

50. Cozart, “The Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts,” 88, and Ferrero, et al., 87.

51. Ferrero, et al., 85–87.52. Rowe, interview, 9 June 2005.53. Merikay Waldvogel, Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great

Depression (Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1990), 59 and 61. Two ex-amples are shown here. See also Cozart, “The Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts,” 90.

54. John Rice Irwin, A People and Their Quilts (Exton, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1984), 33–34. See also Cozart, “The Role and Look of Fundraising Quilts,” 44.

55. More than 7,000 quilts have been inventoried in the Michigan Quilt Project since the project began in 1983. The records are deposited in the Michi-gan State University Museum/Great Lakes Quilt Center and data from the records is available online through The Quilt Index (www.quiltindex.org). For more information about the Michigan Quilt Project, go to www.museum.msu.edu/glqc/mqp.html. See also Ruth D. Fitzgerald and Marsha MacDowell, Michigan Quilts: 150 Years of a Textile Tradition (East Lan-sing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1987) and Ruth D. Fitzgerald and Marsha MacDowell, “There’s Good Money in Quilts,” 1988 Festival of Michigan Folklife Program Book (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univer-sity Museum, 1988), 59–62.

56. The Michigan State University Museum/Great Lakes Quilt Center houses a variety of items, including many clippings from The Detroit News Quilt Club Corner column as well as patterns that were available through The Detroit News. For more information on The Detroit News quilt column, see Marsha MacDowell, “Quilting with The Detroit News,” Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, April 2002, 53–59.

57. For example, records of the First Presbyterian Church Women’s Associa-tion in Birmingham, Michigan, indicate a top started in 1900 and finished in 1902. This textile and others were registered in the Michigan Quilt Project, and several examples are illustrated in Fitzgerald and MacDowell, eds., Michigan Quilts: 150 Years of a Textile Tradition. Among the oldest signature and fundraising quilts documented in Michigan are a circa 1864 Signature Album quilt made for Chauncey Halstead of Dearborn while he was on leave during the Civil War (MQP #85.1284), a 1901 signature


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Yredwork quilt made in Sanilac County (MQP #84.14), and an 1893 Album quilt made by the Ladies Aid group of a Baptist church in Rome, Michigan, to raise funds to pay the minister’s salary (MQP #87.427).

58. Col. Winfield Jones, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (New York: Tocsin Pub-lishing, 1941), 31.

59. Ibid., 22.60. Ibid., 38.61. Tim Dirks, “Review of Birth of a Nation 1915,” www.filmsite.org/birt.html

(accessed 6/17/05).62. David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux

Klan: 1865–1965 (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965), 30.63. Chalmers, 32.64. Richard Tucker, The Dragon and the Cross: The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux

Klan in Middle America (North Haven, CT: Archon Books, 1991), 2.65. Unknown author, “An Introduction to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”

(Tuscumbia, AL: National Office, ca. 1960). 66. Chalmers, 33.67. Tucker, 3.68. There is no documentation of the numbers of Michiganders at the march

or if residents of Chicora took part in the march.69. Willis F. Dunbar and George J. May, Michigan: A History of the Wolverine

State. 3rd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 474.

70. Ibid., 474.71. Tucker, 2.72. Norman Fredric Weaver, The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Wisconsin,

Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan (Ph.D. Thesis. University of Wisconsin, 1954), 268.

73. Calvin W. Enders, “White Sheets in Mecosta: The Anatomy of a Michigan Klan,” Michigan Historical Review, 14: 2 (Fall 1988), 61.

74. Ibid., 59.75. Calvin W. Enders, “Under Grand Haven’s White Sheets,” Michigan Histori-

cal Review, 19:1 (Spring 1993), 48.76. Ibid., 49.77. Enders, “White Sheets in Mecosta,” 84.78. Rowe, telephone interview with Charlotte Quinney, 10 October 2004.79. The Allegan News, “Burning Cross Marks Advent of Klan,” 7 September

1923.80. Enders, “Under Grand Haven’s White Sheets,” 50.81. “Klan Holds Open Meeting,” The Allegan News, 28 September 1923.

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Y82. The Allegan News, 1 April 1927.83. Enders, “Under Grand Haven’s White Sheets,” 52.84. Local, state, and regional libraries, museums, and archives were all used

for this study and revealed very little in terms of documentary evidence.85. Rowe, Interview, 9 June 2005.86. Lansing State Journal, 16 July 1995, 9A.87. Tom Lambert, “Howell KKK auction quieter this time,” Lansing State Jour-

nal, 23 May 2005.88. Marilyn Goldman and Marguerite Wiebusch, Quilts of Indiana: Crossroads

of Memories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 34–35. The Indiana quilt consists of twenty-four pieced blocks in a Windmill or Old Crow pattern alternating with twenty-four solid white blocks. The quilt was made by Julia Ann Garrett, her sister Elsie Garrett, and her mother, Elizabeth Roquet Garrett. The red fabric was from a red Klan robe owned by Julia’s father, John Garrett.

89. Harriet Baskas, “Hidden Treasures: Mrs. Parameter’s Klan Quilt,” National Public Radio, 27 September 2005, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stpruOd=4866157 (accessed 9/27/05).

90. Rowe, telephone interview, 23 October 2004.91. “An Introduction to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” 1.

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