ABSTRACT
Fraternal orders were enormously popular in the United States during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. B. H. Meyer estimated that in 1901 5 million US citizens belonged to more than 600 separate orders, and by 1927—the point at which membership began to decline—30 million were members of some fraternal group. The fraternal lodge, then, was a place where workers rubbed shoulders with merchants, bankers, politicians, and white-collar employees. Lodge brothers were bound to one another by an elaborate hierarchical system that utilized rituals, oaths of secrecy, and pledges of fraternity and mutual assistance. In the absence of worker communities and organizations, fraternal orders would hold an important appeal. Many fraternal orders began during the late nineteenth century as insurance companies for the working classes. Republican ideology, which stressed the equality of all, opportunity, and the wonders of entrepreneurial behavior, dominated nineteenth-century US life, and this language was reinforced within fraternal orders.
