''The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' is a novel published in 1905, the second work in the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
trilogy by
Thomas Dixon Jr. (the others are ''
The Leopard's Spots
''The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900'' is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by '' The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' (1905), and '' The Traitor: A ...
'' and ''
The Traitor''). Chronicling the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
and
Reconstruction era
The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
from a pro-
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
perspective, it presents the Ku Klux Klan heroically. The novel was adapted as a play and a film, first by the author as a highly successful play entitled ''The Clansman'' (1905), and a decade later by
D. W. Griffith in the 1915 movie ''
The Birth of a Nation
''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Cla ...
''.
Dixon wrote ''The Clansman'' in support of
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
, as it showed free blacks turning savage and violent, committing crimes such as murder, rape, and robbery far out of proportion to their percentage of the population. He claimed that 18,000,000 Southerners supported his beliefs. Dixon portrays the
Radical Republican
The Radical Republicans (later also known as "Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Recon ...
speaker of the house, Austin Stoneman (based on
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
, from Pennsylvania), as a rapacious, vindictive,
race traitor
Race traitor is a pejorative reference to a person who is perceived as supporting attitudes or positions thought to be against the supposed interests or well-being of that person's own race. The term is the source of the name of a quarterly magaz ...
, mad with power and eaten up with hate. His goal is to punish the Southern whites for their revolution against an "oppressive" government (the Union) by turning the former slaves against the white Southerners and using the iron fist of the Union occupation troops to make them the new masters. In Dixon's characterization, the Klan's job is to protect white Southerners from the
carpetbaggers
In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the l ...
and their allies, black and white.
The book and its stage and film adaptations were highly controversial in their time, and continue to receive criticism for their espousal of
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and
Neo-Confederate
Neo-Confederates are groups and individuals who portray the Confederate States of America and its actions during the American Civil War in a positive light. The League of the South, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other neo-Confederate organ ...
sentiments. In addition to concerns that ''The Clansman'' would stir up political and racial tensions in the South, Dixon's portrayal of the Klan as chivalrous freedom fighters was ridiculed as absurd.
Characters
*Austin Stoneman – Northern political leader who advocates and implements Reconstruction in the conquered
Southern States; introduces bill to impeach President Andrew Johnson
*Elsie Stoneman – daughter of the above; defies father's wishes by falling in love with young Southern patriot Ben Cameron
*Phil Stoneman – son and brother of the above; falls in love with Southerner Margaret Cameron
*Lydia Brown – Austin Stoneman's
mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
housekeeper
*Silas Lynch – mulatto assistant to Austin Stoneman; aids him in forcing Reconstruction on the defiant Southerners
*Marion Lenoir – Fifteen-year-old white girl who was Ben Cameron's childhood sweetheart; after being brutally raped by Gus, she commits suicide by jumping off a cliff
*Jeannie Lenoir – mother of the above; joins her daughter in fatal cliff leap
*Gus – a former slave of the Camerons; rapes Marion and is then captured and executed by the Ku Klux Klan, under the supervision of the "
Grand Dragon
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) nomenclature has evolved over the order's nearly 160 years of existence. The titles and designations were first laid out in the original Klan's prescripts of 1867 and 1868, then revamped with William J. Simmons's '' Kloran'' of ...
" Ben Cameron
*Dr. Richard Cameron – a Southern doctor, falsely charged with
complicity
Complicity is the participation in a completed criminal act of an accomplice, a partner in the crime who aids or encourages ( abets) other perpetrators of that crime, and who shared with them an intent to act to complete the crime.''Criminal Law ...
in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
*Mrs. Gloria Cameron – wife of Dr. Richard Cameron
*Benjamin ("Ben") Cameron – son of the above and the hero of the novel; falls in love with Northerner Elsie Stoneman; fought for the South in the Civil War and later joins the Ku Klux Klan in order to resist Northern occupation forces
*Margaret Cameron – sister of the above
*Mammy
*Jake
*President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
– portrayed as a sympathetic character who sought to restore normalcy by shipping former slaves back to Africa
*President
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
– Lincoln's successor, who was impeached (but not convicted) in Congress for opposing Reconstruction
Plot
![Dixonfp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Dixonfp.jpg)
In ''The Clansman'',
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
was an attempt by Augustus Stoneman, a thinly-veiled reference to Representative
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
of Pennsylvania, to ensure that the
Republican Party would stay in power by securing the Southern black vote. Stoneman's hatred for President Johnson stems from Johnson's refusal to disenfranchise Southern whites. His anger towards former slaveholders is intensified after the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, when he vows revenge on the South. His programs strip away the land owned by whites, giving it to former slaves. (See
Forty acres and a mule
Forty acres and a mule was part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, during the American Civil War, to allot land to some freed families, in plots of land no la ...
.) Men claiming to represent the government confiscate the material wealth of the South, destroying plantation-owning families. Finally, the former slaves are taught that they are superior to their former owners and should rise up against them. These injustices are the impetuses for the creation of the Klan.
Similar to his statements about ''
The Leopard's Spots
''The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900'' is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by '' The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' (1905), and '' The Traitor: A ...
'', Dixon insists in a "To the reader" prologue that the novel is historical:
I have sought to preserve in this romance both the letter and the spirit of this remarkable period. The men who enact the drama of fierce revenge into which I have woven a double love-story are historical figures. I have merely changed their names without taking a liberty with any essential historic fact.
Reception
The publication of ''The Clansman'' caused significant uproar not only in the North, but throughout the South. Thomas Dixon was denounced for renewing old conflicts and glorifying what many thought was an unfortunate part of American history.
When offered membership in the KKK, Dixon reportedly turned it down because, he claimed, he did not agree with the Klan's methods.
[ The Klokard of the Klan, ]Oscar Haywood
Oscar Haywood (January 6, 1868 – December 8, 1943) was an American Baptist preacher, orator, and politician from North Carolina. He was a pastor at Baptist churches in Tennessee, Connecticut, and New York City and then travelled widely giving sp ...
, at one point challenged Dixon to a debate over the nature of the Ku Klux Klan.
Despite Dixon's reported claims that he rejected violence except in self-defense, in the book previous to ''The Clansman'' in Dixon's trilogy, ''The Leopard's Spots
''The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900'' is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by '' The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' (1905), and '' The Traitor: A ...
'', the Klan dealt thusly with a black man who had asked a white woman to kiss him:
Dixon's novel is often contraposed with Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and became best known for her novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852), which depicts the harsh ...
's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U. ...
''; Dixon himself described it as a sequel. The character of Gus in ''The Clansman'', who is shown as the worst kind of former slave, going as far as to rape a white woman, is the opposite of the benevolent Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to protect ...
, who is portrayed as angelic. The books are also similar for the reactions they stirred up among their readers. ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was detested and banned throughout the South, while ''The Clansman'' was ranted against in Northern papers. Also like ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', ''The Clansman'' reached its greatest audience not through its book form, which sold over 100,000 copies, but through the subsequent play, that had an audience of millions.
In the introduction to a university press edition of the book in 1970, an era of high interest in civil rights, historian Thomas D. Clark
Thomas Dionysius Clark (July 14, 1903 – June 28, 2005) was an American historian. Clark saved from destruction a large portion of Kentucky's printed history, which later became a core body of documents in the Kentucky Department for Libraries and ...
wrote:
: The first thing to be said in discussing Thomas Dixon, Jr.'s novel, ''The Clansman'' is that no person of critical judgment thinks of it as having artistic conception or literary craftsmanship.... The novel opened a wider a vein of racial hatred which was to poison further in age already in a social and political upheaval.
The play
In 1915, when ''Birth of a Nation'' appeared, ''The Clansman'' was best known as a play. Much of the movie is taken from the play, rather than directly from the novel.
Dixon rewrote the novel as a play In order to further publicize his views. "In most cases, Dixon's adaptation of a novel for the stage was merely intended to present his message to a larger audience, for his avowed purpose as a writer was to reach as many people as possible." He enrolled in a correspondence course
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
given by the one-man American School of Playwriting, of William Thompson Price. Price was "the greatest critic of the theater since Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
"; Dixon also compares him with Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...
and Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...
, adding "The State of Kentucky has given the nation no greater man."[ Apparently as an advertisement for the school, he reproduced in the ]program
Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to:
Business and management
* Program management, the process of managing several related projects
* Time management
* Program, a part of planning
Arts and entertainment Audio
* Progra ...
his handwritten thank-you note. (At the time, reproducing handwriting was expensive, and to send a handwritten, as opposed to typed, letter was an indication of special esteem.)November 11, 1905
My dear Mr. Price,
Thanks for your letter of congratulations. It is for me to thank you for invaluable aid as my instructor in the technique of playwriting.
I learned more from your course in one year than I could have gotten in ten years unaided. It is new, not found in books, thorough and practical. The student who neglects this course is missing the opportunity of a life sic">/nowiki>sic.html" ;"title="sic.html" ;"title="/nowiki>sic">/nowiki>sic">sic.html" ;"title="/nowiki>sic">/nowiki>sic/nowiki>. I could never have written "The Clansman" without the grasp of its principles. Our association has been an inspiration to me from the first.
Sincerely,
Thomas Dixon Jr.
The contract for the production specified, at Dixon's request, that Dixon would pay half the cost of the production, and have half ownership. He chose the cast and had a "secret power in the...management of the company".[ "The production of the play became the most fascinating adventure on which I had ever embarked. I lived in a dream world with dream people. I never worked so hard or so happily in my life. Work was play, thrilling, glorious, inspiring play."][
Four horses in Klan costumes "raced across the stage in a climax. The horses were ridden in the streets as advertising."][
]
Reception
In Montgomery, Alabama, and Macon, Georgia, the play was banned. The next day the ''Washington Post'', in an editorial, called for the same to be done in Washington, saying the play was abominable, stupid, and misleading:
The play does not possess even the merit of historic truth. It is as false as "Uncle Tom's Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U. ...
" and a hundred times more wicked, for it excites the passions and prejudices of the dominant class at the expense of the defenseless minority. We can imagine no circumstances under which its production would be useful or wholesome, since it disgusts the judicious and the well-informed, and exerts an influence only upon the ignorant, the credulous, and the ill disposed. But in the present condition of the public mind at the South it is a firebrand, a counsel of barbarity, in fact, a crime.
In an effort to prevent a performance in Washington, D.C., a group of pastors appealed to President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
to intercede on their behalf.
In Philadelphia, the play was banned after it opened by Mayor Weaver, who said that "the tendency of the play is to produce racial hatred". At the opening rotten eggs were thrown at the actors.
The play, despite these protests, was extremely popular in the South. It opened with a huge premiere in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
, and drew record-breaking audiences in Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the capital of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 census, it is the second-largest city in South Carolina. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city ...
, and In fact, the vast majority of news stories about ''The Clansman'' have to do with the play, not the novel.
In Bainbridge, Georgia
Bainbridge is a city in Decatur County, Georgia, Decatur County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. The city is the county seat of Decatur County. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 14,468.
Hi ...
, a black man was lynched
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
shortly after presentation of the play in October, 1905. A newspaper article reported it under the title: "Lynching Laid to 'The Clansman'. Georgia Mob, Wrought Up by Dixon's Story, Hangs Negro Murderer." "The feeling against negroes, never kindly, has been embittered by the Dixon play, following which stories of negroes' depredations during the reconstruction period have been revived, and whites have been wrought up to a high tension."
According to news stories, the "mob" which lynched three negroes in Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...
in April, 1906, "seemed filled with the spirit of 'The Clansman', which created such a strong anti-negro feeling here six weeks ago." Dixon called this attribution "the acme of absurdity", claiming that the play had reduced lynchings. The lynching in Springfield, he opined, "was caused by the commission of a crime by negroes—a crime so horrible and revolting to every instinct of white manhood that a whole community went mad with rage for justice, swift and terrible. Such things have happened in the south before and they will happen again so long as such crimes are committed by negroes."
The play had an opulent 60-page program, with pictures, sold at the high price of 50¢ when a newspaper cost 5¢. It included "A Portrait and Sketch of the Author", and "Mr. Dixon's Famous Articles on 'The Future of the Negro', 'The Story of the Ku Klux Klan', and 'What Our Nation owes to the Klan. The play, being concerned with the KKK and Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
, is adapted in the second half of ''The Birth of a Nation''. According to Professor Russell Merritt, key differences between the play and film are that Dixon was more sympathetic to Southerners' pursuing education and modern professions, whereas Griffith stressed ownership of plantations.
A four-page program of a traveling production, held by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ...
in Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...
, tells us that "Hundreds ereturned away at every performance since the memorable opening in Norfolk, VA., Sept, 22, 1905".
The play was not published until 2007. A scholar says it was not only not published, it was not printed,[ but with so many involved in the production — two companies were touring simultaneously][ — copies had to be printed for internal use. Two such copies are known, one in the ]Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
, the other in the Cortland Free Library.
Rebirth of the Klan
Thomas Dixon's novel did not have the immediate effect of causing the recreation of the Ku Klux Klan. Neither did the subsequent play. The release of the movie ''The Birth of a Nation'' in 1915 finally let Dixon's work reach an audience large enough to start the resurrection of the Klan.
One of the images most commonly associated with the Klan, that of a burning Latin cross, was actually taken from ''The Clansman'', but was not used by the original Klan. Dixon, who had Scottish ancestry, drew upon the Scottish tradition of the ''Crann Tara
A bidding stick (sometimes also referred to as a budstikke,Simon, Jeffrey. 1988. ''NATO-Warsaw Pact Force Mobilization''. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, p. 520. war arrow, or stembod) is a term for a wooden object, such as a clu ...
'', a burning cross used to call clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
members to arms, as inspiration for the depiction of cross burning. The Klan's white robes are also an invention of Dixon, and he protested their appropriation of the "livery" he created.
Archival material
* An autograph manuscript is held by the Free Library of Philadelphia
The Free Library of Philadelphia is the public library system that serves Philadelphia. It is the 13th-largest public library system in the United States. The Free Library of Philadelphia is a non-Mayoral agency of the City of Philadelphia gove ...
.
* Corrected galley proofs are held by the Indiana University Library.
* A mimeographed 1909 typescript of the play is held by the Van Pelt Library
The Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library (also known as the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, and simply Van Pelt) is the primary library at the University of Pennsylvania.
The building was designed by architects Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larso ...
, University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
.
* A 131-page printed version of the play, dated 1905, is held by the Cortland Free Library
References
Further reading
* (Reprinted in ''Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film'', volume 34, number 2, 2007, pages 139–142. . .)
External links
Full text with illustrations
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clansman, The
1905 American novels
Novels about the Ku Klux Klan
White supremacy in the United States
American novels adapted into films
American political novels
Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln
Cultural depictions of Andrew Johnson
Novels about terrorism
Novels by Thomas Dixon Jr.
Novels about rape
Racially motivated violence against African Americans
Race-related controversies in literature
*
Anti-Tom novels
American novels adapted into plays