The Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind

Published in 1924, this sociological study was authored by John Moffatt Mecklin, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College. The work emerged during the height of the second Ku Klux Klan’s national influence, a period characterized by the organization's aggressive expansion into Northern and Midwestern states. Mecklin sought to provide a dispassionate, scholarly analysis of the movement’s rapid growth, aiming to decode the psychological and social grievances that led thousands of average Americans to align themselves with a xenophobic and exclusionary ideology.

The book is widely regarded by historians as a primary document of 1920s American social tensions. Mecklin’s approach was rooted in the Progressive Era tradition of objective research, though it is now studied as much for its contemporary observations of nativism as for its limitations in understanding the depth of systemic racism. While it was received as a serious academic effort to categorize the Klan's appeal, its enduring value lies in its candid documentation of the cultural anxieties that defined the interwar American landscape.