Keywords: Anti-immigrant
Item 28836
Ku Klux Klan hood, Hollis, ca. 1925
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1925 Location: Hollis Media: Cotton, buckram, leather
Item 28642
Ku Klux Klan robe, Hollis, ca. 1925
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society
Date: circa 1925
Location: Hollis
Media: Cotton twill
This record contains 4 images.
Exhibit
In Maine, like many other states, a newly formed Ku Klux Klan organization began recruiting members in the years just before the United States entered World War I. A message of patriotism and cautions about immigrants and non-Protestants drew many thousands of members into the secret organization in the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, the group was largely gone from Maine.
Exhibit
"Twenty Nationalities, But All Americans"
Concern about immigrants and their loyalty in the post World War I era led to programs to "Americanize" them -- an effort to help them learn English and otherwise adjust to life in the United States. Clara Soule ran one such program for the Portland Public Schools, hoping it would help the immigrants be accepted.
Site Page
Portland Press Herald Glass Negative Collection - "Twenty Nationalities, But All Americans"
"… the rise of the Ku Klux Klan were motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments. In response to the charge that immigrants could never become American…"
Story
Anti-immigrant violence
by Matthew Jude Barker
Prejudice in Maine against immigrants dates back to at least the mid-1700s
