Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas: How Politicians, the Press, the Klan, and Religious Leaders Imagined an Enemy, 1910–1960

Anti-Catholic sentiments were especially intense in largely Protestant Arkansas, where for example a 1915 law required the inspection of convents to ensure that priests could not keep nuns as sexual slaves. This text illustrates how the dominant Protestant majority portrayed Catholics as a feared or despised “other”, a phenomenon that was particularly strong in Arkansas.