A Fever in the Heartland the Ku Klux K lan's Plot to Take Over America\, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by T imothy Egan is available as a print book\, an e-book\, and as a downloadable audiobook in the Library's collection.
\n"A historical thriller by the Pulitz er and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s\, the cunning con man who drove tha t rise\, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties -- the Jazz Age -- has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was al so the height of the uniquely American hate group\, the Ku Klux Klan. Thei r domain was not the old Confederacy\, but the Heartland and the West. The y hated Blacks\, Jews\, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure\, and to ok radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the m an who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a chari smatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arri val in Indiana\, he'd become the Grand Dragon of the state and and the arc hitect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows - their m essage endorsed from the pulpits of local churches\, spread at family picn ics and town celebrations. Judges\, prosecutors\, ministers\, governors an d senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence\, it was a seemingly powerless woman - Madge Oberholtzer - who would reveal his secret cruelties\, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees."
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