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| Format | Dissertation |
|---|---|
| Creator | Parnell, Matthew L. |
| Title | Mein Country 'Tis of Thee: A Rhetorical History of the German American Bund's 1939 "Free America" Rally |
| Dissertation Note (type -- academic institution) | Ph.D -- Pennsylvania State University |
| Date | 2025 |
| Extent of Work | 223 pages |
| View Online | |
| Abstract | On February 20, 1939, over 20,000 people gathered at Madison Square Garden for a rally celebrating George Washington’s 207th birthday. Organized by the German American Bund, the largest Nazi organization in the United States, this rally remains the largest public celebration of fascism in U.S. history. Swastikas and American flags flanked a colossal portrait of Washington, while speakers advocated antisemitic and conspiracy-driven worldviews. Building on scholarship on fascism, civil religion, and circulation, this project provides a rhetorical critique and history of the early U.S. American fascist movement. Drawing on primary texts, including speeches and iconography from the “Free America” rally, the author argues that the U.S. American fascist movement of the 1930s crafted a uniquely U.S.-centric fascist rhetoric that circulated across a century of North American U.S. fascist activism. Explains the background of the “Free America” rally, and examines the content of the multilayered U.S. fascist hybrid across two analysis chapters. The first layer involves an appropriation of U.S. civil religion and German National Socialism to suggest that the Bund’s fascism aligns with U.S. democratic values. The second layer meshes U.S. racial attitudes with European antisemitism to craft a wholly new Jewish racial subject. Shows that the Bund’s rhetorical hybrid relied on existing racial and nationalist attitudes to generate a new form of fascism unique to the United States, and traces how the Bund’s rhetorical hybrids circulated across a century of U.S. fascist activism into the 21st century. |
| Notes | Includes bibliographical notes. |
| Call Number | Digital file (PDF) |
| MKI Terms | German American Bund/ 20th century/ National Socialism/ United States -- History |