Untitled - Portal Libertarianismo

2 introduction
third types devoted somewhat less attention to rituals but openly solicited recruits
with the lure of health and life insurance protection. These distinctions
were not hard and fast, however, and all three varieties shared a common emphasis
on mutual aid and reciprocity. As a spokesman for the Modern Woodmen
of America (mwa) (which called its members “neighbors” and its lodges
“camps”) wrote in 1934, a “few dollars given here, a small sum there to help a
stricken member back on his feet or keep his protection in force during a crisis
in his financial affairs; a sick Neighbor’s wheat harvested, his grain hauled to
market, his winter’s fuel cut or a home built to replace one destroyed by a midnight
fire—thus has fraternity been at work among a million members in 14,000
camps.” 3
The provision of insurance was the most visible manifestation of fraternal
mutual aid. By 1920 members of societies carried over $9 billion worth of life
insurance. During the same period lodges dominated the field of health insurance.
They offered two basic varieties of protection: cash payments to compensate
for income from working days lost and the care of a doctor. Some societies,
such as the sba and the mwa, founded tuberculosis sanitariums, specialist
clinics, and hospitals. Many others established orphanages and homes for the
elderly. 4
More Americans belonged to fraternal societies than any other kind of voluntary
association, with the possible exception of churches. A conservative
estimate would be that one of three adult males was a member in 1920, including
a large segment of the working class. Lodges achieved a formidable presence
among blacks and immigrant groups from Eastern and Southern Europe.
Lizabeth Cohen points out that in the 1920s, ethnic social welfare organizations,
most notably fraternal societies, “provided more assistance than other institutions,
public or private, which were only viewed as a last resort.” Along the same
lines, August Meier observes that lodges among blacks during this period reflected
“the thinking of the inarticulate majority better than any other organizations
or the statements of editors and other publicists.” 5
The perspective of this book differs from the two best-known general studies
on the subject, Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America,
and Mary Ann Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender, and Fraternalism.
Carnes identifies changing conceptions of gender and masculinity as
the keys to explaining the rise and fall of lodges. He asserts that ritualistic societies
appealed to the psychological needs of white, male Victorians who sought
masculine substitutes for their emotionally distant fathers. Clawson approaches
these issues from a different angle. She also highlights the influence of gender