New to the Collection: Pyramid Court Daughters

Members of Pyramid Court No. 17, 1960s. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 2022.008.4.

In this photograph, new to the collection in 2022, a group of women wearing white dresses and either white fezzes or a crown poses for a photo with a man in a suit wearing a darker fez. This image features members of a women’s auxiliary group of Prince Hall Shriners, the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Nobles Mystic Shrine of North and South America and Its Jurisdictions, Inc. in Philadelphia in the 1960s. Historically Black fraternal groups in the United States have a fascinating history and objects like this photograph help us better understand it.

Based on organization proceedings and area newspapers, this photo appears to show members of Pyramid Court No. 17, Imperial Court Auxiliary, A.E.A.O.N.M.S., Philadelphia along with one member of Pyramid Temple No. 1, A.E.A.O.N.M.S., also of Philadelphia. The A.E.A.O.N.M.S. was founded in 1893 in Chicago as a charitable, benevolent, fraternal, and social organization, dedicated to the welfare and extension of Prince Hall Freemasonry. Its women’s auxiliary was founded in 1910 in Detroit. The latter group was established at the behest of a committee headed by Hannah Brown, Esther Wilson, and Lucy Blackburn, wives of Prince Hall Shriners from Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C. These women and others had already created eight “courts” (similar to Shrine Temples or Masonic lodges) for female relatives of A.E.A.O.N.M.S. members. In 1909, they requested an official “Grand Court” to oversee the activities of the local groups.

This international organization, then known as the Imperial Grand Court of the Daughters of Isis, is now called the Imperial Court. The organization boasts more than nine thousand members that meet in more than two hundred courts throughout the United States, as well as Canada, Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Korea and Western Europe. Members are known as Daughters.

Their regalia includes ceremonial collars worn with white dresses, shoes, and gloves, along with white fezzes or crowns. Decorated with embroidery and/or rhinestones, these fezzes bear the name of the owner’s court and a profile of the Egyptian goddess Isis. When a Daughter serves as Imperial Commandress, the presiding officer of a court, she wears a crown in place of a fez. In this photograph, since a woman in the center of the group wears a crown, she was likely the Imperial Commandress of Pyramid Court No. 17 when the photo was taken.

In their analysis of African American fraternal groups over a period of around one hundred fifty years, social scientists Theda Skocpol and Jennifer Lynn Oser found that “black women played an unusually strong role in African American fraternal federations.” The Imperial Court is an excellent example of Black women leading fraternal groups. It exists because women who were already organizing local courts applied for official recognition from A.E.A.O.N.M.S. The auxiliary’s schedule of meetings, fundraising events, and annual sessions is very similar to that of the brother organization.

In the past and today, the women’s and men’s groups under the umbrella of the A.E.A.O.N.M.S. gather together at an annual joint session. Daughters of the Imperial Court Auxiliary and Nobles of A.E.A.O.N.M.S. work together at all levels to accomplish the charitable, social, and Masonic goals of Prince Hall Shriners.

If you know of or have any materials related to the A.E.A.O.N.M.S. or its women’s auxiliary, please let us know by writing in the comments section below.

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References and Further Reading:

• 84th annual Imperial council session of the Imperial Council of the ancient Egyptian Arabic order nobles of the mystic shrine (Miami Beach, FL: Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Inc., Daughters of Isis, Imperial Courts, 1977). Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives.
• African American Freemasonry & Fraternalism collection. Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections.
• Marshall Ganz, Ariane Liazos, Theda Skocpol. What a Mighty Power We Can be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006).
• Jennifer Lynn Oser, Theda Skocpol. Organization despite Adversity: The Origins and Development of African American Fraternal Associations. Social Science History 28, no. 3 (2004).
• Ymelda Rivera Laxton. Caesar Robert Blake, Imperial Potentate. 2020.
• Joseph A. Walkes. Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Inc. (Prince Hall Affiliated): A Pillar of Black society, 1893-1993 (Detroit: Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of North and South American and Its Jurisdictions, Inc. (P.H.A.), 1993).

Knights of Labor

Bread platter, 1876. Bakewell, Pears, & Co., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Museum Purchase, 96.053. Photograph by David Bohl.

In 1869, Uriah S. Stephens (1821-1869), founded the Knights of Labor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The organization, first named the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, replaced the unsuccessful Garment Cutters Union of Philadelphia. Historians recognize it as one of the largest labor organizations in America in the 1880s. In the beginning, the group chose members very selectively. At the time, the Order was sometimes called the “secret society of tailors.”

The Order was both a fraternal order and a labor union created to protect its members. The Order supported an eight-hour day, abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work, and political reforms including the graduated income tax. The group was one of the first unions to advocate for all emerging industrial working class, such as women, some immigrant groups, and African Americans.

The Knights of Labor enjoyed immense popularity in the 1880s and reached 700,000 members by 1886. After some unsuccessful unionizing campaigns, deadly labor union rallies, and government efforts to impede labor organizing, members lost faith in the effectiveness of the Order as a labor union. Membership decreased by the late 1890s. The American Federation of Labor largely replaced the group by the early 1900s.

 This pressed glass bread platter in the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library collection commemorates the Knights of Labor during the height of their popularity. The platter, probably manufactured by the Bakewell, Pears, & Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1876, features symbols of industry and agriculture―a farmer with a sickle and sheaf of wheat, train and engine, horse, and ocean steam vessel. At center is a man with a hammer shaking hands with a knight, and the phrase “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.”

Bread platters like this one were an extremely popular form of tableware in the Victorian era. Glass manufacturers produced platters that commemorated or memorialized political figures, organizations, or events. 

Do you have any objects related to the Knights of Labor? Tell us about them in the comments section below. 

 

 

Digital Collections Highlight: 1760 Masonic Lodge Summons

The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website contains a rich collection of digitized documents from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. Among these items is an engraved lodge summons (pictured at left), printed in 1760. Henry Dawkins (c. 1735-c.1790) engraved this summons, which was sent to members of Philadelphia's Lodge No. 2, Ancient York Masons. This summons, or invitation, was circulated on May 13, 1760, to inform members of the lodge that a meeting was to take place at the house of Brother James Bell. Richard McNeall, who had been appointed Secretary of the lodge at its March 11, 1760 meeting, signed the summons in the lower left hand corner.

Dawkins, who engraved the summons, was a Freemason who was raised in Philadelphia's Lodge No. 1, Ancient York Masons, on September 11, 1759. The following year, Lodge No. 1 was renumbered to Lodge No. 2 and, at the time of this summons, Dawkins was still a member of the lodge. James Bell, at whose house the May 1760 took place, was raised a Master Mason in Lodge No. 2 in January 1760.

Interested in viewing more early printed Masonic documents or taking a closer look at this 1760 summons? Visit the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website, which provides access to images of a diverse selection of documents in the collection, including a 1768 summons engraved by Paul Revere.