2887 Howell Mill Rd
Atlanta, GA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Mary Elizabeth Tyler House

Statement of Significance:

The Mary Elizabeth Tyler House was built in 1921 by Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" Tyler, a major figure in the 1920s revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. The Classical Revival-style house was featured in newspaper articles and was a showplace for the Klan. Tyler built the house with money she derived from Klan memberships and it represents her success in expanding the Klan from an Atlanta-based social fraternity to a nationwide social and political organization.

In 1919, in an effort to revive the flagging Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Wizard William J. Simmons, who had begun cross-burning ceremonies atop Stone Mountain in 1915, hired Klan member Edward Young Clarke and his business partner Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" Tyler to boost Klan membership rolls. Clarke and Tyler formed the Southern Publicity Association, which was located in the Flatiron Building in downtown Atlanta. Clarke and Tyler devised a pyramid-type recruitment system whereby local Klan recruiters across the country received monetary rewards for each new enlistment. Clarke and Tyler received $2.50 of each $10 initiation fee. In the 1920s, the Klan's staff of lecturers traveled the country speaking its pro-patriotism, pro-prohibition, anti-prostitution message with remarks tailored to local prejudices, such as Asians in California, Mexicans in Arizona, Indians in the Dakotas, Catholics in New Hampshire, and African Americans in the South. Both middle-class whites and poorly educated, working-class whites joined in droves and the membership increased from 3,000 in 1920 to almost three million in 1923. Clarke and Tyler invested their newly made fortune in Klan-related enterprises such as the Searchlight, the Klan newspaper, and the Gate City Manufacturing Company, which was the exclusive source for the white robes and hoods desired by Klansmen. In 1921, Tyler purchased 20 acres on Howell Mill Road on which she built a large, two- story Classical Revival-style house. Before her death in 1924, Tyler gave the house to Clarke, who quickly defaulted on the mortgage. The house was sold at public auction the following year.

The Mary Elizabeth Tyler House is significant in the area of social history at the national level of significance because it was the home of Mary Elizabeth Tyler who was instrumental in reviving the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. The Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 as a social club whose members also galloped around town wearing hoods and terrorizing the freed black population. Soon, the Klan's main objective was to drive freed blacks away from polling places and into a state of economic and political subservience. Members, who were mostly rural Confederate veterans, sought to undermine Reconstruction. By 1872, the Klan leadership, split by infighting and a reputation as a terrorist group, disbanded the organization. Federal troops sent to contain the violence chased beleaguered Klansman into hiding. By the end of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan had ceased to be an active organization.

William J. Simmons reorganized the "second" Klan in 1915 with a Thanksgiving Day cross-burning ceremony atop of Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia. He centered his philosophy on a populist ideal of native-born Americanism. Southern traditionalists held a romantic memory of the Klan, believing it was necessary to save Southern white civilization from blacks, who had been spurred on by radical Republican Reconstructionist. Simmons adopted the 19th-century Klan's rituals, including secret initiations and white robes and hoods, along with its philosophy of white supremacy.
Simmons' success fed on the racism and xenophobia created by D. W. Griffith's 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation," and the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish pencil factory manager in Atlanta who was accused of killing a young Christian girl. The membership was "... restricted to native-born American citizens who believe in the tenets of the Christian religion and owe no allegiance to any foreign Government, nation, political institution, sect, people or person." The Klan excluded Negroes, Jews, Catholics, Asians, and all recent immigrants.
The second Klan remained a local and regional group with limited membership from 1915 through World War I. By 1919, Simmons had a few thousand paid members and small Klaverns (chapters) throughout the South, but he had not realized the promise of a national fraternal order that he had envisioned. To help spread his vision, Simmons hired Edward Young Clarke and Mary Elizabeth Tyler, founders of the Southern Publicity Association, a small "public relations" firm in Atlanta, whose clients included the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the Anti-Saloon League.

Tyler and Clarke succeeded in tapping popular sentiments of the era to support the growth of the resurrected Klan organization. Many Americans felt an emotional letdown after the fervor of World War I because of the Bolshevik uprising in Russia, race riots in the North and South, the migration of millions of blacks from the rural South to the urban centers of the North, concern over the rising Catholic population, distrust of foreigners and immigrants, and discontent and uncertainty with the rapidly changing modern American society in which radios, automobiles, and electricity were increasingly common. For many Americans, the Klan developed into a new social club, like the Elks, Rotarians, or Woodsmen of World. With the Klan's pronounced advocacy of Prohibition and the teaching of Protestant Christian religion in schools, it was seen by some as the savior of the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant way of life.

Tyler and Clarke began their work with the Klan in 1919 when the Klan had a membership of 2,000 to 3,000. Tyler and Clarke formed the Propagation Department of the Ku Klux Klan, which developed the ideas and strategies to boost Klan membership. By 1921, the Klan numbered almost 100,000 members, and by 1924 membership reached almost three-and-a-half million. Money was flowing into the Klan coffers not only from initiation fees but also from sales of Klan regalia and publications produced by the headquarters in Atlanta. The group became so influential in politics that many politicians felt compelled to join or at least court the Klan. The Klan marched in uniform in Washington, D.C., during the 1924 Democratic National Convention.

By the mid-1920s, membership in the Klan had spread from Georgia and Alabama into the Midwest, West, and the Northern Plains. Because of its increased memberships, the Klan wielded political influence in Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Oregon, and Maine, even more than in the South. At the height of the Klan's popularity in the mid-1920s, Indiana had as many as 500,000 members, whereas Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana each had between 50,000 and 200,000. Ohio and Texas each had as many as 450,000 members. As it embraced more members, the Klan became characterized by intolerance and prejudice toward those who looked, behaved, or believed differently than its membership. These attitudes manifested themselves in increasing acts of discrimination, intimidation, and outright violence. As the Klan increased its appeal to some segments of American society, it also became feared, hated, and opposed by others.

In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan touted itself as a white, Protestant, male-dominated secret fraternal order. The Klan's "all-American" philosophy, its support for Prohibition and religious fundamentalism, and its desire for a more conservative society also appealed to women. Satellite organizations in sympathy with the Klan sprung up, such as the Ladies of the Invisible Empire and the Grand League of Protestant Women. The Grand League called for "white supremacy, protection of womanhood, and defense of the flag." Some women's societies had a public presence, but many adopted the secrecy and the exclusionary practices of the Klan, even wearing hoods and costumes that appeared similar to the Klan's. As early as 1922, letters to the Klan's newspaper protested the exclusion of women from the Klan. The recent passage of the women's right to vote and the importance of women's activity in the temperance movement convinced Klan leaders to open the membership to women. Simmons appointed Mary Elizabeth Tyler to oversee plans for a women's organization, and she formed the Women of the Klan.

In the early 1920s, the Klan came under the scrutiny of Congress and the national press. Charges of immorality and mismanagement mounted, spurring the New York World to launch an in-depth investigation into the financial world of the Klan in 1921. The stories were published in national, regional, and local newspapers, including the Columbus Enquirer-Sun in Georgia. Simmons, Tyler, and Clarke were singled out for the wealth they accumulated through Klan memberships and other Klan-related activities. In 1921, the House Rules Committee held hearings on the Klan, but rather than diminishing the Klan's influence, however, these hearings and the publicity around them resulted in further increases in Klan membership. By the end of 1922, the Klan operated in 39 states.

Clarke and Tyler brought Hiram Evans, a dentist from Dallas, Texas, to Atlanta to assist the Propagation Department. Later, they secretly groomed Evans to succeed Simmons as head of the Klan. The conspirators persuaded Simmons to take a six-month vacation. When he returned, the coup was complete and Evans held the title of Imperial Wizard and had control of the Klan. Simmons received the newly created title of Emperor. Evans then defected from his co-conspirators Tyler and Clarke and decided they must relinquish control of the Propaganda Department. By November 1923, Evans succeeded in canceling the contract with the Southern Publicity Association. Evans banished Clarke from the Klan. Tyler, whose health was failing, left Atlanta and moved to California where she died in 1924. Under a federal indictment in Texas for fraud, Clarke fled the country. Later, he returned to start his own fraternal order, the Mystic Kingdom.

Hiram Evans ruled the Klan as the Imperial Wizard from 1924 to 1929. In transforming the Klan into a political movement, Evans sought control over Klansman who held elective office. In order to create a new public image and reach the widest electorate, he ordered an end to vigilante activity. He even tried to create a Klan church as a separate Protestant denomination. In the face of his attempts to moderate the Klan, membership declined. The passion and nativism of the post-World War I years abated and the increasing prosperity of the late 1920s provided an alternative to the Klan prophets of doom. In addition, a pronounced antagonism toward the Klan was established in the nation's urban centers. By the end of 1926, the Klan's membership had fallen to 2,000,000. By 1928, the Klan's membership numbered fewer than 150,000 and its political influence was practically non-existent.

The Mary Elizabeth Tyler House is significant in the area of women's history at the state level of significance because Tyler achieved extraordinary success in business and social organization during a period when few women engaged in entrepreneurship. An emerging statewide context on women and women-related historic resources in Georgia indicates that Tyler was in the vanguard of women working in the field of business. Her success as a businesswoman in a male-dominated business environment is even more remarkable given the fact that her most famous and financially rewarding client was a male-dominated organization, the Ku Klux Klan.

Her early life is not well documented but Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" Tyler was married at age 14 and deserted by 15. In her middle 30s, Tyler was a widow with a grown daughter. She learned about the Klan from her brother who had joined the order. By 1919, she formed a partnership with Edward Y. Clarke to create a publicity company known as the Southern Publicity Association, with offices located in the prominent Flatiron Building in downtown Atlanta.

In 1919, Clarke and Tyler signed a contract with the Ku Klux Klan to promote and increase its membership. Their efforts were extraordinarily successful. The emotional attitudes of the era played to their advantage, with labor strikes, bolshevism, and large waves of immigration following World War I. Tyler, who was known for business acumen and financial expertise, developed a sophisticated recruitment and fee structure in which she and Clarke received $2.50 of every $10 initiation fee. This fee was also divided among the local recruiters so that little was left for the national organization. Hundreds of thousands joined the Klan, resulting in a financial windfall for the publicists. Clarke and Tyler, wealthy from their Klan activities, invested in new Klan-related enterprises, such as the Gate City Manufacturing Company, which was the only source for the white robes and hoods eagerly desired by Klansmen. The company also produced lodge supplies, paraphernalia, and equipment for the use of secret societies. The official Klan newspaper, Searchlight, was owned by Tyler and published in the Flatiron Building.
In June 1921, Clarke and Tyler incorporated the Clarke Realty Company to handle the purchase and sale of the growing number of Klan properties in Atlanta. The realty company bought a $25,000 apartment for Clarke and a $45,000 home, known as Klan Krest, for William J. Simmons on Peachtree Road. In that same year, the Klan purchased a house on Peachtree Street for $75,000, which served as the Imperial Palace, the ceremonial headquarters of the national organization (which is no longer extant). The Klan also bought ten acres of the Civil War battlefield on Peachtree Creek, on which they built a 5,000-seat meeting hall to hold the first "Imperial Klonvocation," or national convention of the Klan (which is also no longer extant). In 1921, the Klan purchased Lanier University in Atlanta, which operated for less than a year.

In April 1921, at the high point of her association with the Ku Klux Klan, Tyler purchased 14 acres of land on Howell Mill Road, north of Peachtree Creek, on which she built a large, two-story Classical Revival-style house. The house was mentioned in newspaper accounts and was likely considered a showplace of the Ku Klux Klan during the early 1920s. By the spring of 1924, Tyler was suffering from arteriosclerosis and had been kicked out of the Klan. In hopes of improving her health, Tyler, her second husband, and her adult daughter moved to Los Angeles County, California, where she died on September 10, 1924.
In the four years that Tyler engineered the meteoric rise of the Ku Klux Klan, she amassed a personal fortune that enabled her to purchase real estate and develop independent businesses. At the time of her death in 1924, Tyler's cash worth was well over $500,000.

The Mary Elizabeth Tyler House is significant in the area of architecture at the local level of significance because it is a good example of the Classical Revival style. Popular throughout Georgia from the 1890s to the 1930s, the Classical Revival style employed combinations of Greek and Roman details drawn from the Early Classical Revival and Greek Revival styles of the early 19th century. The Tyler House features a symmetrical facade and a one- and two-story portico supported by colossal columns, the most common element of the style. The Georgian plan was altered and additions to the rear have compromised the overall form of the house, but its front façade with monumental portico and flanking porches remains the dominant historic architectural feature.

An interesting symbolic adjunct to the architectural significance of the house is the way in which the house's Classical Revival-style architecture lent a degree of respectability and legitimacy to the organization with which the house's original owner was closely related. Throughout Atlanta and Georgia, Classical Revival-style architecture is closely associated with economic success, social acceptability, and cultural achievement. The choice of such a powerful symbol underscored Mary Elizabeth Tyler's effort's to succeed at business while helping to build an influential social organization.