Secret Societies in America: Foundational Studies of Fraternalism

Secret Societies in America: Foundational Studies of Fraternalism Selected and Edited by William D. Moore and Mark A. Tabbert iii Secret Societies in America: Foundational Studies of Fraternalism A Cornerstone Book Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers An Imprint of Michael Poll Publishing Copyright ' 2011 by William D. Moore and Mark A. Tabbert All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without permission in writing from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Cornerstone Book Publishers New Orleans, LA Cover Images: Officers of the Grand Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, of Idaho, 1876. Courtesy of the Grand Lodge of Idaho, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons. John C. H. Grabill, Photograph of Grand Lodge I. O. O. F. of Dakotas, Street Parade, May 21, 1890. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photo- graphs. LOT 3076-5, no. 3175. Photo editing by Arthur W. Pierson Photography, Falls Church, Virginia (www.piersonphoto.com) First Cornerstone Edition - 2011 www.cornerstonepublishers.com ISBN: 1-613420-24-2 ISBN 13: 978-1-61342-024-9 MADE IN THE USA The American has dwindled into an Odd-Fellow, - one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness . who . ventures to live. by the aid of the mutual insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently . - Henry David Thoreau Introduction by William D. Moore FRATERNAL organizations were a characteristic feature of American society during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout the nineteenth century Americans had organized and joined voluntary ritualistic groups, basing their activities upon a model established by Freemasons in North America as early as the 1730s. In 1897, W.S. Harwood, writing in the North American Review, dubbed the post-bellum period the PGolden Age of Fraternalism.Q1 He noted that fraternal organizations, then commonly called Psecret societies,Q claimed 5.5 million members while the total U. S. adult population was approximately 19 million. At the time, the five largest fraternal groups N Freemasons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and Knights of the Maccabees N had a combined membership of more than 2.5 million. Albert C. Stevens, compiler of the invaluable Cyclopedia of Fraternities, estimated that 40 percent of all adult males held membership in at least one fraternal order.2 By bringing together foundational studies of American fraternalism, this volume seeks to assist and promote the burgeoning scholarship on this aspect of American life. Throughout most of the twentieth century, American scholars largely ignored groups like the Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Columbus, the Patriotic Order of Sons of America, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Ancient Order of Foresters, and even the Freemasons. Individuals who sought to examine and explain the American experience disregarded the fraternal affiliations of prominent figures, including presidents and captains of industry, or treated these biographical details as peculiar and inconsequential. Ritual-based orders, and their millions of members, were largely perceived to be unworthy of scholarly investigation. Fraternal Studies Following the celebration of the American bicentennial in 1976, however, a cohort of scholars forged a new and vital literature which has demonstrated the significance of these groups to vii American society. Founded by the Supreme Council, 33:, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA, as a patriotic gift to the American people, the Museum of Our National Heritage, in Lexington, Massachusetts, generated the earliest contributions to this scholarship. Under the leadership of Clement M. Silvestro, an accomplished and respected museum professional who previously had served as director of the American Association for State and Local History and associate director of the Chicago Historical Society, this institution established a mission of collecting and analyzing the material culture of American fraternalism.3 Barbara Franco, a graduate of the Cooperstown Graduate Program in museum studies, mounted a series of innovative and influential exhibitions, with accompanying catalogues, which insightfully examined the fascinating, but underappreciated, physical manifestations of AmericaSs culture of voluntarism.4 While Franco and the Museum of Our National Heritage were exhibiting fraternal materials, other scholars also became interested in the subject. In 1982, Harper & Row published Christopher J. KaufmanSs Faith & Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus, 1882-1982.5 Although in many ways his work is a conservative organizationally commissioned institutional history, Kaufman successfully demonstrated that the Knights of Columbus had played a significant role in the development of the American Catholic church and within American society as a whole. Princeton University Press in 1984 published Lynn DumenilSs Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880 N 1930 which originated as her doctoral dissertation at the University of California Berkeley.6 This seminal work sought to understand the role of voluntary associations within the industrializing United States and focused upon issues related to the secularization of the fraternity. Dumenil argued that Freemasonry mirrored American society, and thus an analysis of the group could provide insight into middle-class attitudes towards work, leisure, success, morality, and religion during a period of profound change resulting from industrialization, urbanization, and modernization.7 Both Kaufman and Dumenil examined groups with exclusively male memberships, but neither utilized gender as a mode of analysis. Kaufman viewed the Knights as Catholics; Dumenil viii understood the Masons as bourgeois. Neither author focused upon these groups as representing men purposefully gathering with other men. In the early eighties, gender studies were still largely concerned with the social construction of femininity. Scholars were not yet investigating how American manhood was defined historically. In 1989, two monographs propelled the study of masculinity to the forefront of scholarly discussions of American fraternalism. Mary Ann ClawsonSs Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender, and Fraternalism offered a sociological argument which posited that fraternalism was a resource with which Americans constructed power relations in a manner that emphasized gender identity while camouflaging class distinctions.8 Grounded in social history, ClawsonSs study is rich in numerical details concerning membership demographics and financial relationships. The same year, Mark CarnesS Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America proffered a psychosexual analysis of American fraternal rituals.9 Carnes built upon Dumenil, but examined what the rituals performed by fraternalists revealed about how participants situated themselves within the world and in relation to existential human issues such as death, kinship, and interpersonal responsibility. CarnesS impact upon the field is visible in FrancoSs subsequent article PThe Ritualization of Male Friendship and Virtue in Nineteenth-Century Fraternal OrganizationsQ which appeared in 1997.10 During this period, the American historical establishment encouraged scholarship that investigated how institutions have structured culture and society. Carnes, Clawson, and Dumenil participated in this discourse. Subsequent scholars, seeking to further illuminate these issues, continued to scrutinize the history and practices of fraternal groups. In Service Clubs in American Society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions, Jeffrey Charles provided the first serious analysis of the twentieth-century groups which evolved out of the nineteenth-century secret orders.11 Similarly, in his volume entitled From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, David Beito examined the social, medical and financial benefits provided by fraternal organizations.12 Steven C. BullockSs Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840 will be, for the foreseeable future, the most essential resource for individuals examining the first century of Masonry in the United States.13 ix In the new century, scholars have used fraternal organizations to examine the bonds which link individuals together to form society. Robert PutnamSs much-cited Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community made the term Psocial capitalQ part of our common American vocabulary.14 Putnam suggests that the decline of secret societies in the twentieth century is one manifestation of a larger decay of American social institutions which has left individuals alienated and disconnected from their families, friends, and neighbors. Reacting to PutnamSs work, Theda Skocpol, a sociologist at Harvard, led a group of scholars to examine the influence of fraternal groups upon black Americans. This work culminated in PWhat a Mighty Power We Can BeQ: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality published by Princeton University Press.15 In contrast to Putnam and Skocpol, Jason Kaufman has argued, in his For the Common Good? American Civic Life and the Golden Age of Fraternity, that fraternal societies were corrosive, rather than beneficial, and that they

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