Fraternal Regalia Catalogs

Odd Fellows Props: David's Harp

2016.021 AutoharpRecently, a generous donor presented this autoharp (at left) to the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library for our collection. The donor was intrigued by the label visible inside that mentions the Masonic Temple in Chicago, Illinois.  The reference to the Masonic Temple on the label relates to the location of the autoharp’s retailer rather than any implied Masonic ritual use.

A “Pianoette” like this one was first patented in 1916. For more on its development, see this website.  As the label indicates, Samuel C. Osborn was selling these instruments for $25 apiece.  While these were produced and sold for general musical use, there are similar autoharps that appear in catalogs for Odd Fellows lodges (see photo on right from a 1908 Pettibone Brothers Mfg. Co. catalog).  The catalog explains that it could be "very easily learned by anyone having any musical ability."Pettibone harp catalog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2001_084S1NPIn Odd Fellows ritual, a “self-playing harp” is a prop for the character of David in the fraternity’s First, or Friendship, Degree. The ritual traces the biblical story of David and Jonathan teaching that “Odd Fellows…should maintain their feelings and friendship to a brother under the most severe tests.”  David was known for his musical ability, which “had a pleasant effect upon the mind and a soothing effect upon the heart of King Saul.”  In our collection we have another autoharp (at left) that closely resembles several that are illustrated in Odd Fellows regalia catalogs from the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The harp shown on the cover of the 1910 C.E. Ward Company catalog (see photo at right) shows a very similar crescent shape and decoration (called the “chaldean design”) and sold for $6.50. Harp on Ward Catalog Cover

“Pianoette” Autoharp, 1916-1940, United States, gift of Larry W. Toussaint in memory of Allison Howard Toussaint, 2016.021.

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Self-Playing Harp, 1900-1930, United States, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library Purchase, 2001.084. Photograph by David Bohl.

References:

Rev. T.G. Beharbell, Odd Fellows Monitor and Guide, Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1881.


Aprons, Robes, and Thrones: Fraternal Regalia Catalogs in the Library & Archives Collection

A2000_56_1DS_web
This eye-catching cover depicts Hiram Abiff, the protagonist of Freemasonry’s first three degrees. A legendary character, Abiff is King Solomon’s chief architect. The character of Abiff is depicted heroically on this cover, standing next to a drafting board with his arm raised and his hands holding the most recognizable Masonic symbols—the square and compasses. Imaginative images such as this, as well as the costumes for sale in the catalog, could help members and candidates enter into the theatrical drama of Masonic initiation.

"Aprons, Robes, and Thrones: Fraternal Regalia Catalogs in the Library & Archives Collection" is currently on view in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives reading room at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. The two catalog covers shown here are among the objects on display.

Between 1865 and 1900, more than 235 fraternal organizations were established, comprised of nearly six million members. Participation in these groups played a large part in American life, with one in every five American men belonging to one or more fraternal societies from 1870-1910. Most of these groups communicated their ideas and symbols through ritual. Regalia, including fraternal aprons and costumes worn to portray kings, knights, and other figures were integral to some fraternal orders’ elaborate degree rituals.

A1998_005DS_web
The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic women’s auxiliary group. “Eastern Star” refers to the biblical passage found in the Book of Matthew in which the Three Kings travel to Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus: “We have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” The cover of this catalog depicts this scene.

American fraternalism boomed when theater was an increasingly popular form of entertainment. Nineteenth-century Americans enjoyed live theatrical performances that ranged from biblical re-enactments to vaudeville revues. Fraternal initiation degrees mirror this part of culture. Participants in fraternal ritual degrees wore costumes and used props and theatrical lighting to create a rich, dramatic experience that was different from everyday life.

Following the end of the American Civil War, regalia companies marketed and sold their factory-made regalia and supplies to fraternal lodges throughout the United States. Companies produced catalogs that advertised everything necessary to furnish a lodge, including regalia, furniture, minute books, and jewels. Costumes for characters portrayed in fraternal degrees could be purchased in an array of styles and prices. To make their products as attractive as possible, manufacturers produced catalogs illustrated by drawings, engravings, and photographs.

The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives collection holds over 300 Masonic and fraternal regalia catalogs, dating from the late 1860s to the present. Today, researchers and curators use regalia catalogs to visualize fraternal lodges and help identify historical regalia in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. For everyone, regalia catalogs are a visually sumptuous step back in time.

 

 

Captions:

Masonic Supplies Catalog No. 228, ca. 1920, Henderson-Ames Co., Kalamazoo, Michigan. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library Collection, Lexington, Massachusetts, Museum Purchase, A2000/56/1.

Catalog No. 620, Eastern Star Catalogue, ca. 1938, Ihling Bros. Everard Co., Kalamazoo, Michigan. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library Collection, A2016/003.


Exhibition Curator to Trace the Fashionable Roots of Masonic Regalia, 10/29

Join the Museum's Director of Collections Aimee Newell, Ph.D, for a tour of the exhibition, “Inspired by Fashion: American Masonic Regalia,” on Saturday, October 29 at 2 p.m. Newell, curator of the exhibition, will trace the fashion antecedants behind traditional Masonic costumes and regalia.

2008-039-27Popular television programs and movies have been known to poke fun at fraternal groups by featuring characters that belong to made-up fraternities with goofy names and even funnier hats and costumes. Do you remember Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble who were members of the “Royal Order of Water Buffaloes” on The Flintstones cartoon? Even among Freemasons, Masonic costume has been perceived as weird, funny or outlandish.

And, indeed, Masonic regalia can have an element of wackiness. But, we may think the same thing about the clothing we see in historic prints, paintings, and photographs from the 1700s and 1800s. Even people of the era reacted to what they perceived as the extremes of fashion by publishing cartoons and satires. Then, as now, fashion itself was as wacky, if not more so, than the regalia worn by Masonic groups.

Furthermore, when we start to look more closely, comparing Masonic costumes and photographs with clothing and images from the same time periods, we can see that regalia manufacturers often took their cues from fashion houses. Come and see garments and images from the Museum’s collection that demonstrate the four different design sources for Masonic garments – contemporary fashion, the military, Orientalism, and theater. Learn how there have always been connections between everyday style and Masonic fashion!

To participate in the gallery tour, meet Aimee Newell in the “Inspired by Fashion” gallery at 2 p.m. For more information, please call the Museum reception desk at 781 861-6559 or visit our website.

Image credit:

George S. Anderson, Grand Commander, Masonic Knights Templar of Georgia, 1860-1869. Smith and Motes, Atlanta, Georgia. National Heritage Museum, gift in memory of Jacques Noel Jacobsen, 2008.039.27.


The Brief, Sanctioned Life of the Modern Woodmen's Trick Chair

The Modern Woodmen of America (MWA) is a fraternal benefit society that was founded in 1883. They are still around today, existing as an insurance company - one of the many that started as a fraternal benefit society, complete with initiation ceremonies and rituals, but which eventually focused primarly on providing insurance. They are part of a larger groups of fraternal insurance companies, and by way of recognizing their fraternal roots, they still emphasize both fraternity and community.

MWCatalog1911_web But set your minds back nearly a hundred years ago, when the Modern Woodmen's drill team, the Foresters, would deftly spin, toss, and wield axes in unison as they marched in parades, and when joining a fraternal benefit society meant learning secret ritual work and promising to uphold certain moral values. All of this ritual work required props and costumes, and during the heyday of fraternalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, companies that supplied fraternal regalia and supplies did a booming business. Sometimes the fraternities themselves were the suppliers of all the material culture needs of a local fraternal group (the MWA calls these "camps" - which are synonmous with lodges in Freemasonry and other fraternal groups). Pictured here is the cover to the official 1911 supply catalog of Modern Woodmen of America.

The inside cover of this catalog has a few interesting notes, one entitled "Trick Chair Eliminated."

In 1894, in a revision to their ritual, the Modern Woodmen of America introduced the "Fraternal Degree," a degree which involved a series of mock-somber ceremonies all involving various trick or gag props designed to make the candidate look foolish (or humiliated, depending on your point of view) while making the other members laugh. Although it was, at the beginning of the 20th century, a sanctioned gag within an officially recognized degree of the Modern Woodmen of America, by 1909 the Trick Chair was deemed to have violated one of the organization's by-laws which prohibited the use of "hazardous appliances." And so the MWA committe in charge of degree work wrote the Trick Chair out of the official ritual in 1910, officially - although not necessarily in practice - banning its use. Pictured below is a page from the "Premium Book," a supplemental supply catalog that was published by the Modern Woodmen of America for its members. Although undated, because this catalog states that "the new Ritual permits the use of the following articles," we know that this particular supply catalog was published before the 1909 revisions to the ritual, which eliminated the Trick Chair.

A97_057_2_web A history of the Modern Woodmen of America, written and published by the group in 1935, put it more succinctly in their comment on the 1910 revision of the ritual: "a number of the hazardous and undignified parts of the fraternal degree were dropped." In addition to the elimination of the Trick Chair, the 1911 supply catalog also notes that the Lung Tester, Judgement Stand, and Boxing Outfit had also been discontinued. These discontinuations appear to have been the direct result of a number of lawsuits that some injured candidates had brought against the Modern Woodmen of America in the first decade of the 20th century.

Gags, tricks, and other hazing-related elements of fraternal groups reveal much about the so-called golden age of fraternalism in the US - the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although usually not sanctioned by the fraternal groups, the equipment for performing these gags on new initiates were readily available from the same companies that supplied regalia, lodge furniture and other supplies to various fraternal organizations. Probably the most well known of these gags involves pushing a hoodwinked (blindfolded) candidate around a lodge room on a wobbly-wheeled fake mechanical goat. Indeed, "riding the goat" was central to the MWA's Fraternal Degree. William D. Moore, in an article called "Riding the Goat: Secrecy, Masculinity, and Fraternal High Jinks in the United States, 1845–1930," (abstract is available here) makes a compelling case that the goat's popularity - and, I would add, the popularity of other related "high jinks" - took hold at a time when ideas of American masculinity were reshaping themselves. Moore concludes that, in part, "riding the goat" (and, by extension, related gags and tricks) can be seen as "experiment[s] with evading the strictures of Victorian deportment."

Of course, many people were concerned about this kind of hazing even as it was happening. The existence of such gags and hazing - whether sanctioned or not - is in stark contrast to most fraternal degree rituals, which tend to focus on the betterment of the candidate, and often use allegory and metaphor in a dramatic presentation to illustrate these ideas and to emphasize moral and ethical behavior. Because fraternal rituals are generally fairly serious and self-reflective, the existence of gags and tricks was often a source of contention among those who thought the high jinks were a welcome levity and those who thought that they were undignified and counter-productive. In most cases, the leaders of fraternal groups did not sanction these so-called "side degrees," although they existed and persisted during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as unsanctioned activities that took place in many fraternal lodge rooms. The case of the Modern Woodmen of America is an interesting illustration of how one fraternity - at least briefly - officially sanctioned the use of such gags (and even noted that their membership grew because of it) before eventually deciding to put such goats and trick chairs out to pasture.

Both images above come from our collection of fraternal regalia catalogs (FR002):

Modern Woodman of America Supply Department Catalog. Modern Woodman Press, 1911.

Modern Woodmen of America Premium Book. Rock Island, IL: Modern Woodman Press, ca. 1900.