Category File
American History
5 documented theories filed under this subject.
- The BouléSigma Pi Phi, founded in Philadelphia in 1904, took only men already established in a profession and spent most of a century declining to be written about. That combination produced a theory: a Black Skull and Bones, deputised by white power to manage Black America. Its membership roll is published, its papers are open at Emory, and the argument underneath the theory is a real one about class that Du Bois was having in print in 1903.
- The Slave Power (Pro-Slavery Conspiracy)Modern historians note that slaveholders did exercise disproportionate influence in federal institutions. The antebellum theory went further: that a small, wealthy class of Southern slaveholders had captured the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court outright, and was using them to nationalize slavery through law, patronage, territorial expansion and intimidation.
- FDR and Stalin Secret MarriageA bizarre anti-communist wartime and postwar rumor that reimagined Roosevelt’s alliance diplomacy with Stalin as something deeper than strategy: a hidden “marriage,” blood pact, or personal bond meant to merge American and Soviet power after the war. The story grew from anger over Tehran, Yalta, wartime concessions, and Roosevelt’s belief that cooperation with Stalin could survive into the postwar order.
- Who Ordered the St Valentine's Day Massacre?Seven men were machine-gunned in a Chicago garage in 1929. Everyone knows Al Capone did it, and nobody was ever tried. He was not questioned, the murder weapons surfaced in another state, and the fullest account came from an informant most historians only half believe.
- The "Monitor" vs. "Merrimack" TreasonThis theory held that the famous ironclad clash at Hampton Roads was not simply an indecisive military encounter but a mutually useful spectacle manipulated by industrial interests. In its strongest form, the story claimed that speculators, shipbuilders, and iron or steel contractors quietly benefited from an inconclusive first duel that would guarantee huge naval contracts and continued investment in armored fleets. The documented record clearly shows that the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (formerly Merrimack) revolutionized naval warfare and triggered an enormous new appetite for ironclad construction. What remains unproven is the claim that the battle itself was “fixed” by industrial speculators or arranged to maximize procurement.
- Mount Rushmore Secret VaultThe Mount Rushmore Secret Vault theory held that the carving of the monument was not only patriotic sculpture, but a masking operation concealing a hidden chamber intended for secret national records, emergency continuity planning, or a future doomsday refuge. The theory grew from a strong factual base: sculptor Gutzon Borglum really did plan a Hall of Records behind the monument, and a chamber was excavated behind Abraham Lincoln’s head, although the grand archival project was never completed as originally envisioned. In conspiratorial expansion, the unfinished Hall of Records became a bunker, a continuity-of-government vault, or a hidden command recess rather than merely an abandoned archival idea.
- The "Astor" Fur MonopolyThis theory claims that John Jacob Astor, while building his fur empire, entered into private arrangements with British or British-Canadian interests that went beyond commerce and amounted to a hidden partition plan for North America. In the strongest version, Astor is said to have coordinated with British power brokers so that American and British elites would divide the continent between them, with the Pacific Northwest and interior fur country effectively forming the western half of a managed Anglo-American order. The documented history does show that Astor made private deals with British-Canadian fur traders, used commerce to advance territorial influence, and operated in the middle of real Anglo-American boundary disputes. What remains unproven is the specific claim that he personally negotiated a secret treaty to split the United States in half.
- The Palmer Raids False FlagThe Palmer Raids False Flag theory held that the package bombs mailed to officials in April 1919 and the larger June 1919 bombings were not truly the work of anarchists, but were staged, manipulated, or knowingly exploited by the Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to create public fear and justify a crackdown on radicals, immigrants, and labor activism. The historical record shows that the bombings and their aftermath had a major impact on the expansion of federal anti-radical operations, and contemporary investigators linked the attacks to Italian anarchist networks associated with Luigi Galleani. The theory arose because the bombings so neatly preceded and energized the logic of the Palmer Raids that some critics came to see them as a manufactured pretext rather than a genuine attack wave.
- The Liquor Re-EducationThe Liquor Re-Education theory held that Prohibition was not primarily about sobriety, morality, or crime reduction, but about testing how quickly a mass population could be conditioned to obey a law that large numbers considered irrational or intrusive. In this reading, the ban on alcohol became a national behavior-modification experiment: an attempt to measure compliance, shame, habit disruption, and the social power of repeated enforcement. The theory took on a more psychological tone in later retellings, especially when linked to Pavlovian conditioning, Progressive reform, and the language of the “noble experiment.” Its core claim was that the real subject of Prohibition was not liquor, but obedience itself.
- The "Underground Railroad" for CriminalsThis theory held that abolitionists did not merely assist fugitives from slavery, but also maintained a shadow network for moving “Northern criminals,” agitators, and paid troublemakers into the South to incite slave rebellion, theft, and disorder. In pro-slavery rhetoric, the same secrecy that made the Underground Railroad real for freedom seekers could be reimagined as evidence of a broader system of subversion. The documentary basis for this exact “criminal railroad” idea is thin, but it fits a very well-documented Southern tendency to portray abolitionists as outside incendiaries, felons, and enemies of social peace. What remains unsupported is the claim that a formal reverse criminal network actually existed.
- The Pullman Strike SabotageThis theory held that during the Pullman Strike of 1894, railroad owners and their allies deliberately arranged acts of arson and destruction against rail property in order to blame the unions, discredit Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union, and justify federal military intervention. In its strongest form, the theory claims that company agents, detectives, or provocateurs burned cars and yards on purpose so the strike could be redefined from a labor dispute into a national emergency. The documented record clearly shows that violence and fires did erupt after federal troops entered Chicago, and that the General Managers’ Association was coordinating an aggressive anti-union response. What remains unproven is the central sabotage allegation itself.
- The Great Chicago Fire (1871)This theory held that the Great Chicago Fire was not an accident but the work of a coordinated radical conspiracy—often described in later retellings as the “Communist International,” though contemporaries more commonly blamed “communists” or “the International.” In the fire’s aftermath, rumors spread that organized incendiaries had deliberately set multiple blazes in order to destroy the city, destabilize social order, or launch class war. The historical record clearly shows that such rumors circulated and that Chicago newspapers used explicitly anti-communist language about alleged “North Side incendiaries.” What remains unproven is the conspiratorial claim itself. The fire’s true origin was never established with certainty, and no evidence demonstrated a coordinated revolutionary arson campaign.
- The Negro Plot (Post-Civil War)This theory held that after emancipation, freedpeople were being secretly armed and organized by northern “carpetbaggers,” Radical Republicans, and other white allies for a coming race war or mass slave uprising in reverse. Across the Reconstruction South, many white communities imagined “the big insurrection” as an imminent event, even when evidence was thin or wholly absent. The historical record clearly shows that these fears were widespread and that they helped justify white paramilitary violence, disarmament campaigns, and the repression of Black political participation. What remains unproven is the central conspiratorial claim that former slaves and carpetbaggers were coordinating a region-wide hidden insurrectionary network.