Rural anti-Semitism first achieved national organization through the 1920s Klan.

Evidence

Since all of the xenophobias of the 1920’s flowed into this central apotheosis of a tribal spirit, the Klan furnishes a kind of litmus-paper test of rural nativism. Significantly, the Klan’s home was not in the great cities. Its strength came chiefly from the towns, from the villages, and from the ordinarily tranquil countryside. Through the theory and practice of a “noble Klannishness,” anti-Semitism achieved, for the first time in American history, substantial organizational expression. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1724

Categorization

• XREF: Notes the Klan as the vehicle that converted scattered rural prejudice into organized structure — a milestone in how a constructed enemy gets institutional infrastructure.