A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

The shocking story of how Ku Klux Klan leader David C. Stephenson seized and lost control of the state of Indiana in the 1920s is told in Pulitzer winner Egan’s evocative latest (after A Pilgrimage to Eternity). An itinerant newspaperman and petty criminal, Stephenson took charge of Klan recruiting efforts across the Midwest and was named Grand Dragon of the Realm of Indiana in 1923. Buoyed by skyrocketing enrollment numbers—by 1925, “one in three native-born white males wore the sheets,” Egan writes—Stephenson effectively ran Indiana, controlling the governor, both houses of the state legislature, and a private police force of 30,000 men, which he utilized to “harass violators of Klan-certified virtue.” Though journalists and others sought to counteract the Klan’s influence, Stephenson’s power remained unchecked until he kidnapped and raped a Department of Public Instruction employee named Madge Oberholtzer in 1925. During the incident, Oberholtzer dosed herself with bichloride of mercury; she died an agonizingly slow death 29 days later, but not before she dictated a full account of Stephenson’s crimes. Convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, Stephenson became a symbol of the Klan’s cruelty, hypocrisy, and corruption, and the organization’s grip on Midwestern politics crumbled. Dramatic twists of fate and vivid character sketches distinguish this harrowing look at a forgotten chapter of American history. It’s a certifiable page-turner. (Apr.)