ABSTRACT
Middle-class men's claims for new forms of manliness found one of their most powerful expressions in formal associations. Men organized themselves in myriad ways, promoting their economic interests, providing soup kitchens for the poor, cultivating the arts, reaching into populated urban areas and rural outposts. The relative positioning of men and women in middle-class associations can also be seen in Birmingham's Botanical and Horticultural Society. The men's committee which gradually established the rules and regulations of the Botanical and Horticultural Society held shared assumptions as to women's dependent status. In 1723 the newly created Grand Lodge issued the first written Book of Constitutions which expressly stipulated that no women were to be members. Strict divisions between men and women were least sustained in philanthropic societies for there women were needed to deal with female cases. Public lecturing was yet another new career for men, often utilized as an extra source of income by penurious Unitarian ministers.
