As the United States moved from Victorian values to those of modern consumerism, the religious component of Freemasonry was increasingly displaced by a secular ideology of service (like that of ...business and professional clubs), and the Freemasons' psychology of asylum from the competitive world gave way to the aim of good fellowship" within it. This study not only illuminates this process but clarifies the neglected topic of fraternal orders and enriches our understanding of key facets of American cultural change.
Originally published in 1984.
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Did the Freemasons consciously affect the geographical growth of the USA in order to invest the layout of the states with a deeper, symbolic meaning? The narrative concentrates on the development of ...Masonic ritual during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuriesespecially their description of the 'ideal building' or Templethe concurrent construction of America and the role Freemasons played in it, and the emergence of a simple but highly symbolic mathematical formula that recurs regularly throughout the history of the Republic. Maps and diagrams illustrate the surprising coherence of the theory.
A Noble Fight examines the metaphors and meanings behind the African American appropriation of the culture, ritual, and institution of freemasonry in navigating the contested terrain of American ...democracy. Combining cultural and political theory with extensive archival research--including the discovery of a rare collection of nineteenth-century records of an African American Freemason Lodge--Corey D. B. Walker provides an innovative perspective on American politics and society during the long transition from slavery to freedom._x000B__x000B_With great care and detail, Walker argues that African American freemasonry provides a critical theoretical lens for understanding the distinctive ways African Americans have constructed a radically democratic political imaginary through racial solidarity and political nationalism, forcing us to reconsider much more circumspectly the complex relationship between voluntary associations and democratic politics._x000B__x000B_Mapping the discursive logics of the language of freemasonry as a metaphoric rendering of American democracy, this study interrogates the concrete forms of an associational culture, revealing how paradoxical aspects of freemasonry such as secrecy and public association inform the production of particular ideas and expressions of democracy in America.
With the dramatic rise of Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, art played a fundamental role in its practice, rhetoric, and global dissemination, while Freemasonry, in turn, directly influenced ...developments in art. This mutually enhancing relationship has only recently begun to receive its due. The vilification of Masons, and their own secretive practices, have hampered critical study and interpretation. As perceptions change, and as masonic archives and institutions begin opening to the public, the time is ripe for a fresh consideration of the interconnections between Freemasonry and the visual arts. This volume offers diverse approaches, and explores the challenges inherent to the subject, through a series of eye-opening case studies that reveal new dimensions of well-known artists such as Francisco de Goya and John Singleton Copley, and important collectors and entrepreneurs, including Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Baron Taylor. Individual essays take readers to various countries within Europe and to America, Iran, India, and Haiti. The kinds of art analyzed are remarkably wide-ranging—porcelain, architecture, posters, prints, photography, painting, sculpture, metalwork, and more—and offer a clear picture of the international scope of the relationships between Freemasonry and art and their significance for the history of modern social life, politics, and spiritual practices. In examining this topic broadly yet deeply, Freemasonry and the Visual Arts sets a standard for serious study of the subject and suggests new avenues of investigation in this fascinating emerging field.
Much like in the present day, building a house in the sixteenth century involved masons, carpenters and glaziers, among others, and in many cities such trades had separate companies to govern their ...own affairs. In Edinburgh, however, they banded together in a single body - the Edinburgh Incorporation of Mary's Chapel. Building Early Modern Edinburgh traces the history of the organisation, which sought to control the capital's building trades and defend their privileges. By utilising a range of previously missing charters and archival documents, the author offers a new perspective on the prestigious and important craft guild in its 543 years of existence. Developing a crucial theme of 'composite corporatism', and using the concepts of 'family' and 'household' to approach an urban institution, this book is a valuable resource of comparative material for the study of craft guilds and urban history in a global context.
The network of freemasons and Masonic lodges in the Middle East is an opaque and mysterious one, and is all too often seen - within the area - as a vanguard for Western purposes of regional ...domination. But here, Dorothe Sommer explains how freemasonry in Greater Syria at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century actually developed a life of its own, promoting local and regional identities. She stresses that during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, freemasonry was actually one of the first institutions in what is now Syria and Lebanon which overcame religious and sectarian divisions. Indeed, the lodges attracted more participants - such as the members of the Trad and Yaziji Family, Khaireddeen Abdulwahab, Hassan Bayhum, Alexander Barroudi and Jurji Yanni - than any other society or fraternity.
Friendship, an acquired relationship primarily based on choice rather than birth, lay at the heart of Enlightenment preoccupations with sociability and the formation of the private sphere. ...InBrotherly Love, Kenneth Loiselle argues that Freemasonry is an ideal arena in which to explore the changing nature of male friendship in Enlightenment France. Freemasonry was the largest and most diverse voluntary organization in the decades before the French Revolution. At least fifty thousand Frenchmen joined lodges, the memberships of which ranged across the social spectrum from skilled artisans to the highest ranks of the nobility. Loiselle argues that men were attracted to Freemasonry because it enabled them to cultivate enduring friendships that were egalitarian and grounded in emotion.
Drawing on scores of archives, including private letters, rituals, the minutes of lodge meetings, and the speeches of many Freemasons, Loiselle reveals the thought processes of the visionaries who founded this movement, the ways in which its members maintained friendships both within and beyond the lodge, and the seemingly paradoxical place women occupied within this friendship community. Masonic friendship endured into the tumultuous revolutionary era, although the revolutionary leadership suppressed most of the lodges by 1794. Loiselle not only examines the place of friendship in eighteenth-century society and culture but also contributes to the history of emotions and masculinity, and the essential debate over the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
Based on primary sources, this book analyses the historical creation, contents and development of the rituals of the Adoption Rite, with which women were initiated into Freemasonry since 1744. It ...gives a completely new perspective on this chapter of women's history.
The Brill Handbook of Freemasonry is a pioneering work that brings together, for the first time, leading scholars on Freemasonry--the largest, oldest, and most influential secret society in the world.
