Thomas Dixon’s best-selling books and Broadway adaptations depicting a heroic Ku Klux Klan inspired a resurgence of the Klan during Wilson’s presidency. Dixon began touting Wilson for president months before his friend of 30 years was even sworn in as New Jersey governor. Wilson agreed with Dixon’s recommendation of white supremacist Josephus Daniels for the cabinet, gushed over Dixon’s 1913 book dedication “to my friend and collegemate Woodrow Wilson,” and obligingly screened Dixon’s film The Clansman at the White House. Later, he corresponded with Dixon about sending troops to Russia, which he then did.
Source photograph: The Moving Picture World, Volume 28. Digitized by Media History Digital Library and the Museum of Modern Art Library, New York.
Date: 1916
Thomas Dixon’s best-selling books and Broadway adaptations depicting a heroic Ku Klux Klan inspired a resurgence of the Klan during Wilson’s presidency. Dixon began touting Wilson for president months before his friend of 30 years was even sworn in as New Jersey governor. Wilson agreed with Dixon’s recommendation of white supremacist Josephus Daniels for the cabinet, gushed over Dixon’s 1913 book dedication “to my friend and collegemate Woodrow Wilson,” and obligingly screened Dixon’s film The Clansman at the White House. Later, he corresponded with Dixon about sending troops to Russia, which he then did.
Source photograph: The Moving Picture World, Volume 28. Digitized by Media History Digital Library and the Museum of Modern Art Library, New York.
Date: 1916