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xiii Acknowledgments My sincere thanks must first go to the Arts and Humanities Research Council in England, for the generous support that made the groundwork for this book possible. Also to Julie Loehr and the staff at MSU Press, for doing their best to make a first-time author’s journey run smooth. I am most grateful, too, to Richard Bessel and to Claudia Haake, whose advice, support, patience, and unflinching good humor helped to shape what the project eventually became. Also to the many friends, colleagues , and teachers who have helpfully commented, guided, or otherwise encouraged along the way, particularly Jon Adams, Cassie Hague, Simon Titley-Bayes, Louise Wannell, Alan Forrest, Alex Goodall, and Tony Badger. I would like also to thank the army of librarians and archivists at the many Michigan institutions at which I spent countless hours and days, all of whom, without exception, were both helpful and courteous. Much gratitude, particularly, to the staff at the Bentley Historical Library and the Labadie Special Collections unit in Ann Arbor, as well as to Randall Scott and Peter Berg at Michigan State University’s Special Collections library in East Lansing. The Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, meanwhile, became like a second home for the better part of a year, and my heartfelt thanks go to everyone there at the time, including Jeff Hancks, Marian Matyn, Jennifer Wood, Julie Paveglio, Grace Gorton, and Mary Graham, not just for their practical help with, and interest in the project, but also for the welcome, and the friendship. The KKK manuscript material, stretched over many collections at the Clarke, is at the very heart of my work, and without those collections this book would not exist. In particular I am indebted to Dr. Frank Boles, who played a key role in rescuing the Newaygo County membership cards from the auction room intact. I am also grateful for the endeavor of the late Dr. Calvin Enders, whose driving interest in the Michigan Klan is apparent from his papers, as well as to his surviving family for donating those papers to the Clarke, where they have proved, and will continue to prove, an invaluable resource. xiv| Acknowledgments I owe most of all to my partner, Kate, whose serenity, encouragement, and sacrifice has gone a long way to seeing this work complete. Living these years amidst the relics of the “Invisible Empire,” she has put up with much and asked very little. Her faith in me has far outshone my own. There are no words. ...

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