Au contraire, mon
frere. I meant no stereotyping, only a suggestion of a link. In
addition, I'll freely admit that symbols with a meaning in one era might have
different meanings in another.
The swastika is the
best example of recent years - for centuries a good luck symbol in Asia,
co-opted by the Nazis it has become _the_ symbol of evil and
hatred.
'Course, I meant to
comment earlier that I found it odd that anyone would by choice associate
themselves with a publication called the "Spinster", given its association with
old maids, but maybe they were sticking by its original reference to spinning
wheels. Either way, this is too much thought for 9AM for
me.
DS
______________________________________
Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
David Taylor Archives North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System 155 Community Drive Great Neck, NY
11021 mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu
Daniel
and Katrina both made a connection between the symbols of a Southern ladies’
society and the Klan. I, for one,
think that they are stereotyping the members of this
group.
In her
original posting Beth stated that the society was 100 years old, i.e. dates
from about 1900. At that time the
Klan was dormant. White
supremacists were in firm control of southern society and were openly going
about their business of disenfranchising undesirable voters (poor whites as
well as blacks) legislatively rather than through secret societies.
It was
not until after World War I that the Klan made a comeback at which point one
does find KKK-inspired organization southern campuses (and probably
elsewhere). Moreover, the
original Klan and related societies had drawn much of their symbolism from
Greek mythology so one will have to come up with stronger evidence than a few
Nordic symbols to make a convincing case that this society was some sort of a
KKK Junior League.
Paul
R. Scott
Records
Management Officer
Harris
County, TX
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