Making the Invisible Empire Visible: The Curious Case of the Molly Pitcher Clubs of Queens County
I was closing old browser tabs left open from my recent work on the Fourth Ward Memorial Day Parade when I found a very short article about how two weeks before Memorial Day in 1928 the women of the Molly Pitcher Club, a unit of the Ku Klux Klan, had left two wreaths at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Jamaica.
I’ve been documenting when the Klan left wreaths at local war memorials and thought I’d found every instance, so I was surprised to find another record of them doing just that. The brief notice in the newspaper was from the Long Island Daily Press on Thursday, May 17, long enough before Memorial Day that the unnamed women of the group were asked why they were leaving the wreaths so early. The women answered that “there would be no meeting of their club” before the holiday. The Daily Press described them as a “womens’ branch” of the KKK. As part of my work “excavating” the Klan in Queens, I’ve been keeping a list of the Klan units in New York, their numbers and names, and thought I knew them all, so I was surprised to learn of the Molly Pitcher Club.
May 1928 in Queens was a difficult time for those who took Memorial Day seriously. The Klan in Jamaica were in the headlines as the hangover from the previous year’s Memorial Day riot between the police and the KKK was ongoing. The conflict within the parade committee leadership, now dominated by members of the Klan, was still an active wound with an uncertain outcome. As the Memorial Day parade committee was struggling with Mayor Walker and Police Commissioner Warren about whether they would be granted a permit for the Memorial Day Parade for 1928 (the answer, in short, would be “no”), a gesture by Klan women two weeks before Memorial Day would not have gone unnoticed, and of course it did not go unnoticed.
Why did the women give the name Molly Pitcher Club? Was it a cheeky code-name or an actual name of a Klan unit? In 1928, anyone reading the newspaper would have been familiar with the Molly Pitcher Clubs formed in New York in 1922 by “wet” activists seeking temperance over prohibition. Those groups were in the papers frequently over the next couple of years but by 1928 were on the cusp of a rebranding under a new name. If the Molly Pitcher Club placing wreaths was a women’s unit of the Klan, an organization known to be staunchly vocal advocates for Prohibition and its enforcement, why would they use that name?
My initial reaction, based on what little I knew of Molly Pitcher Clubs in the 1920s, was that this was a fake name given to a reporter as a cover. As a secret society with hundreds of chapters or klaverns in the state, the Klan used a variety of different names in the newspapers, from the fairly obvious to the completely obscure. Sometimes they borrowed recent or retired groups’ names as a front for Klan activity. In the first known instance of this in New York City, according to Kenneth T. Jackson, the Klan used the name of the American Civic Association in the Bronx in September 1921. It also used that name in Virginia and possibly elsewhere. The original ACA was a progressive era organization mostly known for its advocacy of national parks, but by the 1920s had long passed its peak. If that name sounds familiar, it may be because the American Civic Association, an immigrants’ advocacy organization in Binghamton, was sadly the site of a hate-fueled mass shooting in 2009.
It’s unknown how often code names were used in newspapers to announce KKK meetings or events. The irony, of course, is that in rural communities in New York State the Ku Klux Klan often openly advertised lectures, large meetings at night and even field day events, inviting all to come. Across the state, substantial number of Protestant pastors invited them to speak, in some cases to give actual sermons, and they frequently did this in full regalia. But in places like New York City, where they made their share of church visits both announced and unannounced, they were careful to remain hidden. Klaverns in Richmond Hill and Jamaica used the names ‘Turtle Club’ or ‘Circle Club’ in newspapers and in messages to prospective members. They used these names, of course, to hide who they were, and it allowed them to advertise in public without drawing unwanted attention. To evade disruption, invitations to secret meetings might use a front name, such as the Circle Club, or it might instruct prospective members to “Ask for the Dental Lectures” when arriving at the meeting location. Once inside, there was usually another sequence of passwords, or more accurately passphrases, examples of which were first published in the 1920s.
While some names were public facing fronts, other klaverns gave themselves names, whether formally or informally, that were circulated internally, in Klan publications and sometimes in mainstream newspapers as well. In the New York City region, some of these names seem aspirational, like the “Steadfast” Klan No. 177 in Springfield Gardens, or the “Unity Klan” moniker that was used more formally in Hempstead and Beacon and less so in Jamaica (“Unity 38”). Some klavern names were regional, like “Queen City Klan,” belonging to a WKKK unit in Buffalo or the Finger Lakes regional Tompkins County Klan No. 161 in Ithaca. Others were linked to the spiritual autobiography of the patriotic American—Pioneer Klan No. 9 in Valley Stream is one of those, as is “Lone Eagle Klan” in Brewster.
Typical of political clubs seeking to exude patriotic zeal, many Klan unit names acknowledge the famous figures from American history, as in the Lincoln Klan in the Hudson Valley (a nickname also used in Queens). Richmond Hill’s Betsy Ross No. 1, a women’s chapter of a rival faction known originally as the Independent Klan of America, chose a name that was also used by other Klan women as it was other patriotic organizations.
Other formal Klan unit names honored lesser-known figures. A good example of this is Albert Pike No 1. Named for a Civil War general, it was chartered in January 1921, the first klavern in New York City and was said to be the first in the northern United States. Out in Queens, Major Emmitt D. Smith Klan No. 38 in Jamaica was named for the King Kleagle of New York who passed in 1926. They are the two most well known klaverns New York City of the period and each will be the subject of future posts.
Sometimes these names evoked exactly what they were not, like “The Friendly Sons of America,” the formal name for the Jamaica/Richmond Hill No. 30 in 1923. The name Friendly Sons of America was also used by the Freeport Klan No. 10 in newspaper stories in 1929 and 1930.
If the image of the January 1929 Kiddie Revue sponsored by the Friendly Sons of America doesn’t send shivers down your spine, know that in September of that year the Friendly Sons of America hosted a rally in support of the Capper-Robinson Education bill to create the US Department of Education on the grounds adjacent to their clubhouse at 211 Grand Avenue in Freeport, a location associated with Freeport No. 10. All were invited.
In an era loaded with social, fraternal, civic and benevolent organizations, clubs and societies, the wryly sophisticated “Neophytes of Comus”—what Richmond Hill No. 83 was known as after the Friendly Sons of America No. 30 and Jamaica Klan No. 5 merged in 1924—fit agreeably with popular conceptions of those various societies and clubs that populated parades in the first decades of the twentieth century. The Neophytes of Comus used that name in their internal paperwork and in their private meetings and rituals, not to mention in the local newspapers where they appeared to be just another fraternal organization, chaperoning the Ottillie Home for Orphans band in a parade in Nassau County. When more than 100 members of the Neophytes of Comus visited the Springfield Presbyterian Church in November 1924, the Rev. William MacDonald welcomed the men who marched down the aisle in their fezes and sashes “of red, white and blue” (no robes or hoods this time) to reserved seating. Notably, when MacDonald invited the Klan to his church the year before, many appeared fully garbed and the crowds and attention (wanted and unwanted) exceeded capacity. In 1929, the Neophytes of Comus with its perhaps unwitting collaborator, the Brooklyn Daily Times, brought it all together in a short article advertising the “Celebration of Straw Burgh Corners,” a comedic play by the “Krazy Kat Kings,” a benefit for the “Friendly Sons of America” at the Masonic Temple in Richmond Hill. Don’t believe me? Have a look at the clipping from March 25, 1929:
Based upon all this, it seems unlikely that the Klan women who placed wreaths at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Jamaica were hiding anything and Molly Pitcher Club was the name of their group. It turns out that the Klan women of Queens were not alone in selecting Molly Pitcher, a figure of bravery and sacrifice. There were Klan affiliated Molly Pitcher Clubs in New Jersey, Virginia and in Queens.
We know this because a search in the Reveal Digital website “Documenting White Supremacy and its Opponents in the 1920s” (DWSO) reveals that in the August 14, 1926 issue of Fellowship Forum, a group calling itself Molly Pitcher Club in Queens Village donated $50 to a Klan-friendly radio station fundraising campaign organized by Fellowship Forum.
Then, a few months later, in the January 22, 1927 issue, a Molly Pitcher Club in Maspeth is credited with having donated $50. Maspeth and Queens Village are both in Queens, but several miles distant. In that same DWSO collection, the September 1931 issue of the Kourier Magazine, the official organ of Klan leadership in Atlanta, described an event at Bayport, Long Island, at which the “Molly Pitcher group of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan of Jamaica” led a procession at an event that featured Rev. Thomas Little of Grace Gospel Church in the Bronx and other Klan figures.
That’s the extent of what’s knowable in the DWSO database, which includes New York Klanswoman, a publication that often listed the donations of groups and individuals to campaigns such as the Klan Haven orphanage in the North Country. To put it another way, it’s significant that there is no mention of the Molly Pitcher Club in New York Klanswoman, a WKKK-sanctioned publication. A non-WKKK affiliate would not be listed there. Not every issue of that publication is available in the DWSO database, so that is something for future research.
Another reference to the Molly Pitcher Club of Jamaica is made in the 1927 obituary of one of its officers, Henrietta Mae Dodd, who passed away at 37 in March. Referring to her as a “social leader,” the Long Island Daily Press obituary said Dodd “was a member of the First Methodist Church of Queens Village and treasurer of the Molly Pitcher club of Jamaica.” This isn’t proof of anything, but it should be noted that there were likely few if any “wet” members of her church and the pastor of First Methodist Church of Queens Village, the Rev. William H. Stewart, officiated her funeral at her home on Orange Street (now Fairbury Avenue). It’s also significant that the notice of her death referred to the Molly Pitcher group as from Jamaica when Dodd lived in Queens Village.
It’s possible this is the same group as the one in Queens Village that donated $50 dollars the summer before to the radical protestant radio station that would become WTFF (and is now known as WFED). Blurring the lines between Queens Village and Jamaica is more or less of a stretch but it’s not totally implausible. It’s also possible this is the same group as the one in Maspeth that donated to the radio station fundraising drive in January of 1927, but it’s a lot harder to imagine. The donations of $50 were about six months apart and while they’re not the largest donations from organizations listed in those issues of Fellowship Forum, they are among the largest. Queens at the time was much bigger than it is now and the distinctions between its various towns and villages was much more pronounced. It’s very hard to imagine three groups, or even two, from one section of the same city both using the same historical figure’s name, especially in a WKKK charter. So, what’s going on here?
Referring to the anti-Prohibition groups, the vast majority of the mentions of Molly Pitcher Club in newspapers happen in 1922 and 1923, with diminishing numbers after that and almost none by 1928 when they changed the name. A July 1922 resolution condemning the “Prohibition Amendment” stated that “The Molly Pitcher Club shall be an organized effort on the part of intelligent, public-spirited American women to prevent any tendency on the part of our National Government toward interference with the personal habits of the American people, except such habits as may be designated criminal.”
In January 1923, a Daily Eagle article about the Molly Pitcher Club, Ethel Watts Mumford explains what the Molly Pitcher Club believed: “Prohibition is, in its present expression, treason to both to the country and to the individual.” Mumford said the club aimed to “secure Government control of liquor distribution, and of the enormous revenues thus made available, wipe away the stain of class legislation, and give up the lie to the accusation of having been made victims of organized intimidation.”
The name Molly Pitcher Club tends to appear in contexts where women or girls are active in patriotic contexts, so Daughters of the American Revolution, for example, had (and may still have) chapters named for the folk heroine of the Revolutionary War and groups by that name can be found in the first decades of the twentieth century. Some conceptions of the mythic figure understand her role as simply “carrying water” for male fighters, like the husband who was operating a cannon when he was killed.
But the name has also been used to evoke a kind of feminist revolutionary ethos. In the 1930s and 1940s, student groups at New York City colleges calling themselves Molly Pitcher Clubs were accused of being Communist front organizations. A search of Reveal Digital’s open-access collection, “Independent Voices” shows no mention of any Molly Pitcher clubs in the second half of the twentieth century, but it does show a deeper sense of Molly Pitcher who heeded the call to rise and fight, even despite personal loss and suffering.
The best source for the origin of this myth is David Martin’s A Molly Pitcher Source Book, which painstakingly reprints many of the variants of the story, beginning with second-hand contemporaneous accounts. A standard version of the story can be found in Joel Headley’s The Life of George Washington, which tells the story this way:
“It was during this part of the battle that an Irishman, while serving his gun, was shot down. His wife, named Molly, only twenty-two years of age, employed herself, while he loaded and fired his piece, in bringing water from a spring near by. While returning with a supply, she saw him fall, and heard the officer in command order the gun to be taken to the rear. She immediately ran forward, seized the rammer, declaring she would avenge his death. She fought her piece like a hero to the last.”
The spirit of this Molly Pitcher is frightening to consider given today’s complicated inheritance of nationalist rhetoric. An article in the April 2, 1927 issue of Fellowship Forum about the newly formed WKKK realm of Virginia mentions the Molly Pitcher Club, No. 25. It also provides some insight into the motivation of the women of the Klan in Queens, of whom there were more than enough to populate multiple units—and there were multiple women’s Klan units in Queens. There were also likely just as many friendly fellow-travelers; it’s possible the name Molly Pitcher Club was a placeholder used by ad hoc constellations of like-minded neighbors, rising to fight as troubles were brewing. That there was a new “Realm” added to the Invisible Empire in 1927 is itself chilling. Here is how they thought of it:
“The Realm of Virginia comes into being at a time when, more than at any time during the history of the nation, there is a demand for real red-blooded patriotic American women—women who are ready to sacrifice greatly for the righteous cause of Protestant America. The call to service for humanity, home, nation and God has sounded; it must and will be answered.”
Future posts will explore the radical Protestant radio supported by these culture warriors.