Americans used to be “joiners.” In the days when there wasn’t much social safety net, and you couldn’t even call a fire truck or an ambulance from the next village, you depended on your neighbors, and they depended on you. You also socialized with them, whether you liked them or not.
While some joined churches, fire companies, or literary clubs, many Americans enthusiastically signed up for fraternal groups. Besides their social function they provided for mutual aid and benefit… especially for sickness and funerals, which could quickly ruin a family. Groups often also assisted non-members in the community.
Many groups espoused a generic religiosity, and for some members that substituted for creed-driven denominations. Because of that vagueness, the secrecy, and the fear of lodges becoming political and economic power bases, some church denominations banned their members from joining. An early Bath mob attacked the Masonic lodge, burning their records in the alley and putting them out of business for decades.
Most groups enjoyed exotic regalia, portentous titles, and secret ceremonies, adding a dimension of entertainment to a community-service organization. This also entertained non-members, and “the lodge” became a go-to staple of comedy.
Unfortunately the secret aspects created a vacuum which suspicious, frightened, or hostile imaginations hastened to fill. Many early leaders of the United States were Freemasons, as were many early leaders of Mormonism, and of the French Revolution. An entire industry emerged to “reveal” (or invent) conspiracies by the secret societies.
Most groups were male only (with ladies’ auxiliaries), and whites only – though some had companion African Americans groups. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s drew on long-standing lodges for its organization and practice. Some groups partnered with the Klan to sell real estate for whites-only planned developments in the Florida Land Boom.
Here in our area, the two biggest lodges were Masons and Grange.
Francis McDowell of Wayne was one of eight founders of the National Grange, and Grange listed 44 Steuben branches in their 1935 directory. The wheat sheaf is their symbol, and the words P of H (Patrons of Husbandry) also appear. Grange was co-ed from the start, and the youth arm is Junior Grange. Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Norman Rockwell were Grangers.
Looking just at Steuben County, the national website lists current Granges in Addison, North Cameron, Bath, Towlesville, Canisteo, Stephens Mills, and Wheeler, plus the county-level Pomona Grange. Grange has a strong presence at almost every county fair in America, and they operate the Steuben County Dairy Festival. You don’t have to be a farmer to be in Grange, but the association has been so strong that numbers have dwindled along with the agricultural population – locally and nationwide, many Granges are endangered.
Freemasonry (of various stripes) goes back to the earliest days of our region’s white occupancy. The 1891 Steuben County directory showed 28 groups, including nine (!) in Hornellsville and one each in such small towns as Rathbone, Troupsburg, Dansville, Greenwood, and Woodull. The nymasons.org site currently lists lodges in Avoca, Addison, Corning-Painted Post, Bath, Hammondsport (Glenn Curtiss was a member), South Dansville-Wayland, and Greenwood. They have their own building at Steuben County Fairgrounds, but the former Scottish Rite Cathedral in Corning is probably our most prominent Masonic feature.
So prevalent was Masonry that its terminology became common speech – hoodwink, on the level, on the square, and third degree all started out in the lodge.
There have been at least 14 Masonic presidents, from Washington to Ford. Order of the Eastern Star is the auxiliary, with DeMolay for boys and Order of the Rainbow for girls. Their most common symbol is the square and compass, and you will often find Eastern Star carvings or medallions in cemeteries.
Many of the fraternal orders still exist, but numbers have suffered severely as Americans have lost their enthusiasm for “joining,” along with their yen for costumes and secret rituals. In many ways the “service clubs” – Lions, Rotary, Jaycees, Kiwanis, Zonta, Quota, and more – have taken their place.