Ku Klux Klan

=====New social history interpretations=====
The "[[social history]]" revolution in historiography from the 1960s explored history from the bottom up. In terms of the Klan, it developed evidence based on the characteristics, beliefs, and behavior of the typical membership, and downplayed accounts by elite sources.{{sfn|Pegram|2011|p=225}}{{sfn|Moore|1996}} Historians discovered membership lists and the minutes of local meetings from KKK chapters scattered around the country. They discovered that the original interpretation was largely mistaken about the membership and activities of the Klan; the membership was not anti-modern, rural or rustic and consisted of fairly well-educated middle-class joiners and community activists. Half the members lived in the fast-growing industrial cities of the period: Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Denver, and Portland, Oregon, were Klan strongholds during the 1920s.<ref>Kenneth T. Jackson, ''The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930'' (1967){{ISBN?}}</ref>

Studies find that in general, the KKK membership in these cities was from the stable, successful middle classes, with few members drawn from the elite or the working classes. Pegram, reviewing the studies, concludes, "the popular Klan of the 1920s, while diverse, was more of a civic exponent of white Protestant social values than a repressive hate group."{{sfn|Pegram|2011}}

[[Kelly J. Baker]] argues that religion was critical—the KKK based its hatred on a particular brand of Protestantism that resonated with mainstream Americans: "Members embraced Protestant Christianity and a crusade to save America from domestic as well as foreign threats."{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=11}} Member were primarily [[Baptists]], [[Methodists]], and members of the [[Disciples of Christ]], while men of "more elite or liberal" Protestant denominations such as [[Unitarianism|Unitarians]], [[Episcopalians]], [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregationalists]] and [[Lutherans]], were less likely to join.<ref>{{cite book |last=MacLean |first=Nancy K. |title=Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmjRCwAAQBAJ&q=klan+baptists+methodists&pg=PA8 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1995 |page=8 |access-date=December 7, 2020 |isbn=978-0195098365}}</ref>