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“Unlike the modern welfare state,” writes Christopher Black, “involvement with confraternities satisfied more than basic physical needs. For donors and recipients, for those praying and those being prayed for, for comforters and patients, the confraternities could satisfy the needs for fraternity, social solidarity and spiritual comfort in this world as they contemplated the possibilities of joining the ultimate fraternity of Christ and his saints” (Italian Confraternities, p. 281Google Scholar).

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⁹ One of the founders of Londonderry, for example, was a craft guild. Black, Antony, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 55–65, 151Google Scholar; Mackenney, , Tradesmen and Traders, p. 7Google Scholar; Epstein, Steven A., Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

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Ben R. McRee writes that confraternities even at their apex constituted “but one link in the chain of medieval poor relief,” which included “hospitals, help-ales [cooperative feasts], monastic alms, family aid, individual acts of charity, handouts to mourners at funeral and obit services, and parish assistance” (“Charity and Gild Solidarity,” p. 224).Google Scholar

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A good measure of the waning health of English confraternities and guilds was a fall-off in bequests from wills, a major source of funds. From 1522 to 1539, 23.6 percent of wills in London included such bequests, but between 1539 and 1547 this figure declined to just 8.5 percent; see Brigden, , “Religion and Social Obligation,” p. 101Google Scholar. While the grand totals of will bequests to charity of all types continued to increase after the Chanceries Act, such bequests did not recover in per-capita terms until the 1650s; see Stack, Paul, Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Longman, 1988), pp. 164–65.Google Scholar

¹² Brigden, , “Religion and Social Obligation,” pp. 104–7Google Scholar. A leading form of organized mutual aid during this period was the “help ale” (or cooperative feast); see Bennett, Judith M., “Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early Modern England,” Past and Present, no. 134 (02 1992), pp. 19–41.Google Scholar

¹³ Hamill, John, The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry (Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire: Crucible, 1986), pp. 15–16, 21Google Scholar; Lipson, Dorothy Ann, Freemasonry in Federalist Connecticut (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 35–37Google Scholar. For another recent study, see Jacob, Margaret C., Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Hamill, , The Craft, pp. 27–40Google Scholar; Stevenson, David, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 7, 22, 123–24, 156, 197–98, 216–33.Google Scholar

Originally, “Free Mason” was a contraction of “freestone mason.” The term referred to a specialist “who worked in freestone—usually limestone—capable of being immediately carved for decorative purposes” (Hamill, , The Craft, p. 27).Google Scholar

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²¹ Ibid., pp. 50–62; Wright, Conrad Edick, The Transformation of Charity in Postrevolutionary New England (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), pp. 106, 213–19Google Scholar; Bullock, Steven C., “The Revolutionary Transformation of American Freemasonry, 1752–1792,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 47 (07 1990), pp. 360–63Google Scholar; Huss, Wayne A., The Master Builders: A History of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania, Volume 1, 1731–1873 (Philadelphia: Grand Lodge F. & A.M. of Pennsylvania, 1986), pp. 286–91.Google Scholar

Bullock argues persuasively that the schism between the “Modern” and “Ancient” factions of American Freemasonry speeded the occupational shift in the composition of the membership. The Moderns drew almost wholly from the mercantile and professional classes, while the Ancients attracted large numbers of artisans. The Revolution served to discredit the Moderns, who tended to be Tories, thus assuring the spread of the more-inclusive Ancients. The split had originated in England in the 1730s after the Ancients had accused the Moderns of corrupting the original meaning of the ritual. See Bullock, , “The Revolutionary Transformation of American Freemasonry,” pp. 348–49.Google Scholar

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²⁸ The six societies were the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, the Charitable Irish Society of Boston, the Boston Marine Society, the Episcopal Charitable Society of Boston, and the Massachusetts Charitable Society. Copies of the original bylaws from the eighteenth century can be found in The Constitution and By-Laws of the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston (Boston: Press of Farrington Printing Company, 1896), pp. 36–40Google Scholar; Buckingham, Joseph T., Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (Boston: Press of Crocker and Brewster, 1853), pp. 6–9Google Scholar; The Constitution and By-Laws of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston (Boston: James F. Cotter and Company, 1876), pp. 22–26Google Scholar; Baker, William A., A History of the Boston Marine Society, 1742–1981 (Boston: Boston Marine Society, 1982), pp. 302–3, 308–9Google Scholar; “The Articles and Rules of the Episcopal Charitable Society in Boston” (1724), in Shipton, Clifford K., ed., Early American Imprints, 1639–1800 (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1967–1974)Google Scholar; and Massachusetts Charitable Society, “Rules and Articles” (1762), in Shipton, ed., Early American Imprints.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ Clinton, G. W., “Objections to Our Order Answered,” The Gavel, vol. 2 (09 1845), p. 29Google Scholar. As might be expected, of course, the widespread appeal of ritualism during this period was multifaceted and defies simple explanations. For a provocative discussion of the role of psychological factors, including gender, see Games, Mark C., Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

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The Knights of Labor was founded in 1869, only a year after the AOUW. For a discussion of some similarities between these organizations, see Clawson, , Constructing Brotherhood, pp. 138–43.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ See also Beito, David T., “The ‘Lodge Practice Evil’ Reconsidered: Medical Care through Fraternal Societies, 1900–1930,” Journal of Urban History, vol. 23 (07 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar