[JRFF 6.2 (2015) 283–285] ISSN (print) 1757–2460 https://doi.org/10.1558/jrff.36818 ISSN (online) 1757–2479 Book Review ADELE, Lynne and Bruce Lee Webb, As Above, So Below: Art of the American Fraternal Society, 1850-1930 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015), xxi + 266 pp., $60.00, Hbk, ISBN: 9780292759503. NEWELL Aimee E., The Badge of a Freemason: Masonic Aprons from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library (Lexington, MA: Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, 2015), 247 pp., $39.95, Hbk, 9781889541020. Reviewed by: Mark Dennis, Curator of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, UK. Email: [email protected] In early 2015 Aimee Newell, Director of Collections at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum, suggested in an email to fellow curators and academics that ‘the material and visual culture of freemasonry and fraternalism is woefully understudied and offers potential for a great deal of academic progress on the subject’ . It is therefore timely and appropriate that two books have been published recently on that aspect, one by Newell herself. The books provide contrasting perspectives on the materiality of fraternity, one by an academic (Newell) working in a museum of freemasonry and the other from a collector (Bruce Lee Webb) who is a member of many fraternities and runs a gallery selling fraternal art. Webb is co-authored by Lynne Adele an independent art historian with a background in folk and outsider art. Their respective contributions are not clearly distinguished in the text. Adele and Webb’s book is the broader based of the two, aiming to give an introduction to American fraternity in the round and the ways in which we can engage with it through material culture, be that folk art, regalia or architecture. The book is structured by object type with an introduction and also a chapter that introduces the organizations and their histories. The structure makes it a book more to dip into than read cover to cover. It is based very much on Webb’s private collection and an exhibition under the same title in 2011. The title itself enters the contested world of the subject matter, deriving from hermetic principles with some Christian websites (e.g. www.chick.com) even suggesting that this view of symmetry and relationship between the supernatural and the material world is a gateway to Satanism. The book takes a very internal view of the objects rather than setting them in a broader cultural context. That said, its range is considerable and most of the items are new to publication. The 266 pages and 230 plus images consider individual objects, groups of individuals and the internal and external worlds of architecture that they inhabited. Introductions by the authors and a foreword by fellow enthusiast David Byrne give a personal testimony that contextualizes the relationship of the authors with the subject. These are not cold and clinical examiners of a curious tradition, rather they have empathy with it, which is a strength of the book. It is, however, also a source of concern in terms of academic distance from the subject matter. Their interests declared they are however on sound ethical ground. Chapters are included © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018. 284 Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism on charts and certificates, costume and even magic lantern slides. Throughout there are sprinklings of explanation of the symbolism shown and although this is, perforce, not complete it gives a strong atmosphere to the basic descriptions. Adele and Webb consider the difficulties of collecting and interpreting items from organizations where only members are fully aware of their significance. Webb writes of his early experience with a member of the Oddfellows who first challenged his ownership of items that had come from an Oddfellows’ Lodge but, once convinced that they had been properly obtained, recruited Webb into that fraternity. Webb cites his membership of four masonic orders and four fraternities in his biographical note. In modern ethnography collections the issues of cultural appropriation are at the forefront (especially in anthropological studies) but in this world of fraternity the creators and users are not generally considered. The partially internal view presented by Webb addresses this. Newell’s book is far more focused and comprises an essay on the freemason’s apron followed by a catalogue with more than 100 examples chosen to represent the diversity of material but also to highlight aprons that have provenance or provable links in their imagery to known sources. This makes the book doubly valuable as it is a source of research data as well as interpretation. The essay gives a clear introduction but is intended for a general audience which requires an introduction to masonic history (and thus does not reference any theorists in material culture). This is the book of an academic outsider and anthropologist. Due debt is paid to an earlier work on aprons in the Scottish Rite Museum collection, Bespangled Painted & Embroidered: Decorated Masonic Aprons in America 1790-1850 by Barbara Franco and Clement M. Silvestro (1980) and some modest overlap of items is acknowledged but only where additional information is now available. This current work also has access to full colour throughout, not a facility available 35 years ago. The catalogue structure suggests that it too should be dipped into but this is a book that merits reading in order with a notepad in hand. The aprons gradually reveal aspects that you may not expect of them. The evolution of design and the lives of their makers and wearers is discussed but, also the slipperiness of legendary histories and old caption cards, the significance of the apron as heirloom, biographical object or war trophy and even the influence of freemasonry on Native American tradition. This cumulative depth of information from an apparently simple set of items is a shining example of how material culture can focus us on hidden aspects of history that are missing from the written record. Academics including Igor Kopytoff (1986) have looked at this by creating object biographies and tracking how objects change in and out of the commodity state. Newell references this approach (p. 209). Viewed from this perspective these aprons have gone from commercial products to items of useable regalia and finally to museum objects that are simultaneously valueless (since they can never be sold or used) and priceless (as encapsulating both moments of history and the ongoing stories of their previous owners). If there is an inevitable gap it is the relative lack of testimony from the previous users about the significance of the aprons to them. Perhaps as more items are acquired this testimony could be collected. The academic Daniel Miller (2009) has considered this layering and fading of memory in the context of war relics. The story of an apron captured from a Confederate freemason by General Mahlon D. Manson at the Battle of Logan’s Cross Roads in 1862 and then preserved as a trophy is a parallel example in this book, Newell writing that it was ‘treasured by three generations of his family’ (pp. 192–93) but their motivation and whether they were freemasons is unclear. Both books have the strengths and weaknesses that reflect their gestation and also their intended readership. Both are illustrated sumptuously. In the case of Newell’s © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018. Dennis Book Review 285 book, The Badge of a Freemason, the publishers have produced an extremely high quality result which is both clear and stylish. However, sometimes plain aprons and jewels are treated with large images and more detailed items are represented by smaller images. Adele and Webb’s book, As Above, So Below, has a less structured design approach and pictures are inserted around the text in a slightly old-fashioned way that rather suits the subject matter. What then of the role of these books in the emerging study of fraternal material culture? The foreword to Adele and Webb’s book by musician and fraternal collector, David Byrne, refers to the fraternal world as characterized by ‘inspiring and wacky solemnity’ (p. xiii) encapsulating rather nicely the serious and frivolous aspects of this field of study that simultaneously attract and repel researchers. Both of these works belong on the bookshelves of academics, heritage institutions and the curious alike. They represent another major step forward in making available and interpreting the material culture of fraternity and it is to be hoped that they will spur on individuals and institutions to produce quality publications that are more than just coffee table books of dramatic curios. Read as themselves they are informative, engaging and attractive but read with a wider perspective they are so much more. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018..