Julia Modine
Ms. Hoag
U.S. History I
12 December 2017
Hiram Wesley Evans effect on America Much of mainstream white, protestant America was ripe for the emergence of a persuasive and unifying cultural ideology in the 1920s that catered to its fears, prejudices and misguided beliefs. The Ku Klux Klan had been around for decades and had always held up the ideal of the original American pioneer stock and their descendents as the true recipients of the American promise. In the mid-20s, the Ku Klux Klan underwent a resurgence in popularity amid growing alarm within a large percentage of middle and working class white men due to increased volume of immigrants competing in the workplace, growing religious sects and racial integration. Hiram Wesley Evans, the self-proclaimed most average man in America, led a moderately successful dental
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He was a member of the powerful Dallas chapter and subsequently was elected as the Klan’s Imperial Wizard in late 1922. He transformed the Klan into a massive business organization with a largely secret membership of over 5 million people and enormous political influence. He was a pivotal leader of one of the country’s most widely known hate groups at a vulnerable time in our history. Many men feared the multiple consequences of immigration throughout the country and how it would affect their economic, political and cultural standing. Evans was a master at interpreting this current of fear at loss of control and channeling it to increase his organization’s size and therefore, power. As the leader of the Ku Klux Klan at the height of its influence in the 1920s, Hiram Wesley Evans was the man solely