Ezra A. (Ezra Asher) Cook

Ezra A. Cook (1841–1911), also listed as Ezra Asher Cook, was an American religious publisher and polemic writer closely tied to the National Christian Association in Chicago. Sources from the association’s history place him among its early figures, and archival records for The Christian Cynosure identify him as its publisher and, at times, editor.

Cook is most often remembered today for Ku Klux Klan Secrets Exposed, a book issued under his name that attacks the revived Ku Klux Klan and presents itself as an exposé of its methods and beliefs. Archival and public-domain records also connect his name with many years of publishing anti-secret-society material, especially work aimed at Freemasonry and related organizations.

His writing came from a very specific religious and political world, and modern readers may find parts of that world sharply partisan or narrow. Still, his books and periodicals remain useful historical documents for understanding Protestant reform movements, anti-secret-society activism, and the arguments surrounding the Klan in the early 1900s.