The Kontinental Klan

Prohibition’s failure had some consequences no one seemed to anticipate. Illegal moonshine flowed more freely than legal booze either before or after the nation went dry. Illegal traffic in liquor fostered criminal activity which led to organized crime. But another rather bizarre consequence was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan across the Pacific Northwest. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan claimed a platform that claimed to be anti vice and corruption It was also pro patriotism in the wake of World War I. The Klan targeted blacks, Jews, Catholics, and foreign born people. In Montana, since there were very small African American and Jewish populations, the KKK targeted Catholics and foreign-born residents.
Montana’s leader, or Grand Dragon, was Lewis Terwilliger, a former mayor of Laurel. Terwilliger christened Butte the “worst place in the State of Montana” because of its cultural diversity and its many Catholics. Little wonder that Butte is where Montana’s first chapter organized in 1923. There were eventually some forty chapters in a number of Montana cities and towns during the depressed 1920s into the 1930s.
On September 10, 1925, Laurel residents were shocked to see a burning cross on a butte four miles west of the city. The Laurel Outlook reported that the fire lit up the night sky and "it looked like all the dragons, wizards, witches, ghosts—or whatever they are called—from all over the country had gathered there." Wearing their customary white flowing robes and peaked hoods, some 2500 members gathered on the butte. Fireworks announced the initiation of one hundred new members.
Nationally, the Klan organized in Georgia in 1915 retaining much of the dress, rules, and cross-burning of the original nineteenth century organization. In Montana and the Northwest, however, the Kontinental Klan, as it was called, was not as violent as its counterparts elsewhere. Prospective members had to be native born, white, Protestant, Gentile, and American citizens. Interestingly, many of Montana’s 5,000 members were women who belonged to separate women’s chapters of the Kontinental Klan.

Women of the Billings Ku Klux Klan  No. 7 gave this memorial marker in 1928. What is marked, however, is a mystery; only the stone remains. Courtesy of Harry Axline.

Red Cross Quilts

As Americans agonized over their soldiers on the front in 1917, a quilting revival took wing. Women’s magazines encouraged quilters with the slogan: “Make quilts—save the blankets for our boys over there.” Individuals and organizations expressed their patriotism by stitching quilts for the Red Cross. Thousands of these comfort quilts went to Europe to the victims of World War I. Stitching comfort quilts at home was a way to support the war effort, and Montanans were especially involved. Also at this dark time, communities and organizations created hundreds of signature Red Cross quilts as fund-raisers. The Ladies Auxiliary of the United Commercial Travelers in Great Falls made one of these quilts in 1918.

Montana Historical Society museum collection. Click the photo for a bigger version.

According to practice, businesses or individuals purchased space to have their names embroidered on the quilt. Prices for a space ranged from twenty-five cents to one hundred dollars depending on where the name was placed. Auxiliary members donated the materials, did the all sewing and quilting, and stitched more than thirteen hundred names on the front and back. They then raffled the quilt, hoping to make one thousand dollars. They did even better, and in December of 1918, a total $1,060.80 went to the Cascade County Chapter of the American Red Cross. These quilts often came back to their makers. In 1926, the Ladies Auxiliary purchased the quilt from the raffle winner and, a few years later, gifted it to the Montana Historical Society where it is part of the museum collection.

St. Vincent’s in Billings

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas, came to Montana in 1869 to pioneer health, education, and social services in many Montana communities.  Billings was the Sisters’ final Montana frontier. In 1896, Father Clarence Van Clarenbeck and Billings mayor Dr. Henry Chapple traveled to Leavenworth to make an appeal to the Mother House. The need for a hospital in the bustling railroad town of 3,000 would soon be critical. The men were so persuasive that Mother Mary Peter Dwyer assigned two Sisters from St. John’s Hospital in Helena to assess Billings’ needs. Dr. Chapple, who was not Catholic, had lamented a chronic shortage of nurses throughout his career. He challenged the Sisters and they accepted, caring for patients first in makeshift quarters above Chapple’s drug store. The first patients were admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1898. In 1916, infantile paralysis afflicted at least 125 children in Billings. When Mother Irene McGrath, Superior of St. Vincent’s, established a children’s ward for these young patients, the overcrowding this caused underscored the need for a new building. The work was underway when World War I intervened. Mother Irene halted construction, deciding the Red Cross and Liberty Loan drives were more important. Her patriotic sacrifice won the hearts of the community.

Photo courtesy Western Heritage Center, Billings

When the new 200-bed hospital opened in 1923, Mother Irene opened a school for children whose deformities had heretofore prevented their education. It was the first school of its kind in the West. These efforts laid the groundwork for Billings’ modern medical and social services.  The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health Care remains today St. Vincent’s parent system.

P.S. Remember these dedicated nurses?

Octavia Bridgewater

The Army Nurse Corps formed in 1901, and African American nurses served throughout all wars. However, they served as contract nurses and not in the military. At the end of World War I, when the Spanish flu epidemic caused a severe shortage of nurses, the Army Nurse Corps accepted eighteen African American women after Armistice to care for German prisoners of war and African American soldiers stateside.  In 1941, the Army Nurse Corps began accepting a few African American nurses. In 1942, there were 8,000 black nurses in the United States. The Army’s strict quota, however, allowed only 160 to enlist. One of the first black nurses accepted for active duty was Octavia Bridgewater of Helena. She served from January 11, 1943, until November 29, 1945.

Octavia Bridgewater is standing on the far right in this 1926 photo, probably taken in Colorado Gulch near Helena.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 2002-36 11

Octavia received her nurses training at the Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in the Bronx in the late 1920s.  At that time, the Lincoln School and the Harlem School of Nursing were the only two schools exclusively for African Americans. Even so, both were under white administration. When Octavia returned to Montana after graduation in 1930, her only option was private duty nursing. After her enlistment in the Army, Octavia and her colleagues realized that if the military quota situation was not lifted, black nurses could never be integrated into the mainstream medical community after the war. Nationally through the black press, these women mobilized for their cause. Slowly, African American nurses pierced the barriers within the military system. The Army and Navy lifted the boycott in 1945. Octavia returned to civilian life to give many years of service to the Helena community as a maternity nurse at St. Peters Hospital. She was also very involved in Montana’s vibrant black community. Octavia was especially proud to have been part of the national movement that helped pave the way for her own civilian nursing career and for the careers of many other black nurses.

Sedition

Montana had one of the nation’s harshest sedition laws, making it illegal to speak out against U.S. involvement in World War I. Among the dozens of people who went to prison for this crime, Janet Smith was the only woman who did time at Deer Lodge. She and her husband William ran the post office at Sayle south of Miles City and had a ranch in the Powder River country. Mrs. Smith was famous for her cooking and often fed dozens of cowboys at her table. She stood accused of bragging that if the people revolted, she would be the first one to shoulder a gun and get the president. She called the Red Cross a fake and said the disabled, insane, and convicts should be killed to save food instead of the government’s restricting it from the rest of the population. The jury found her guilty. The judge gave her five to ten years, and she was taken from the courtroom sobbing.


Montana Historical Society Research Center, Montana State Prison Records

Her husband had also made seditious statements and was found guilty. Author Clemens P. Work in his book Darkest Before Dawn suggests that the isolation of ranchers like the Smiths made them particularly vulnerable, not realizing the implications of their casual talk. “In 1918,” Work writes, “what was skeptical became unpatriotic, what was thrifty became miserly, and what was opinion became sedition.” Janet Smith served twenty-six months before the Supreme Court reversed her conviction on the grounds that the language with which she was charged was not specific enough to convict her. William Smith was paroled at about the same time. What happened to the Smiths after their release has yet to be discovered.


Montana Historical Society Research Center, Montana State Prison Records

Friday Photo: Victory Garden



Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 2005-4 A1 P.10

A Helena woman picks vegetables in her World War I "victory garden" in August 1918. Can anyone identify the street she's on?

Horace W. Bivins

I've enjoyed celebrating Black History Month. To finish it out, here's a look at the accomplishments of Horace W. Bivins, plus more resources on Montana's black history.

Horace W. Bivins was born in Virginia of free ancestry and was college educated. He enlisted in the Tenth Cavalry, the famous Buffalo Soldiers, in 1887 as a noncommissioned officer. Bivins served in Arizona in campaigns against Geronimo. The Tenth Cavalry was reassigned to Fort Custer in Montana. There Bivins became famous as such an expert marksman that Buffalo Bill Cody tried to entice him to travel with his show. Bivins preferred the military. He was a veteran of two Cuban wars and three Philippine engagements. At the attack on San Juan Hill, he fought beside Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and later received the Silver Star for his heroic actions. Some years later when Roosevelt visited Billings, he was disappointed to learn that Bivins was not at home, but at Camp Dix, New Jersey, commanding a labor battalion.

Photo from BlackPast.org

Bivins retired in 1913 and reenlisted at personal hardship in 1918 during World War I, retiring a second time as captain in 1919. Bivins’s record for marksmanship stood until the 1970s, and today remains one of the all-time highest. During his thirty-two-year career in the military, Bivins received thirty-two medals, one for every year of service. Bivins studied taxidermy at the University of Minnesota, practiced that for a while, and did extensive truck gardening in the Billings area where he lived a long, quiet life.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

P.S. Remember the accomplishments of another Buffalo Soldier?
P.P.S. Here are a few places to start your own research into our state's black history:
The Montana Historical Society has a lot of resources on African Americans in Montana.

Historian Ken Robison has shared much of his research on his blog, Historical Fort Benton.

Blackpast.org has information on African Americans in Montana and nationwide, including some primary source documents.

Listen to a series of oral history interviews from the Washington State University Libraries.

Read an interesting tidbit about jazz and CCC workers in Libby here.

If you or your library have access to JSTOR, start with this article from the Spring 2007 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History.

And of course, you can always look back at all the Montana moments labeled black history.
I'd love to know what you turn up in your research. Leave a comment!

Montana’s Naval Namesakes

At least nine naval ships have been christened with names related to the Treasure State, and one of them suffered damage during the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. There were three ships named Montana, one named Montanan, two named Missoula, and four named Helena. The first USS Montana, launched in 1906, provided escort service during WWI. In 1920 it was rechristened the USS Missoula after Missoula County. A second USS Missoula provided transport service during WWI. Two other ships in the planning stages bore the name Montana, but neither was built.  The USS Montanan, a cargo ship launched in 1913, was sunk by a torpedo during WWI. Three of the four USS Helenas, named for Montana’s capital city, saw wartime action. The first USS Helena was a light gunboat launched in 1896. It saw long service during the Philippine Insurrection and WWI, and was decommissioned in 1932.  The second USS Helena, launched in 1938, took a torpedo at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and returned to service to participate in thirteen major naval engagements. It was sunk at the Battle of Kula Gulf in 1943 by Japanese torpedoes, taking 168 of its 900 crew members with it. It was first naval ship awarded the Navy Unit Commendation for heroic action. The third USS Helena took hits during the Korean War, and as the Seventh Fleet’s flagship, it hosted President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. This ship served until its decommission in 1972.  Its propeller, anchor, chain, and bell are displayed in Helena’s Anchor Park at the south end of Last Chance Gulch. The fourth USS Helena, still in service, is a nuclear powered submarine.