‘From the Library of Publicity Lodge No. 1000’

  

Latin mottos: ‘Let There Be Light’
and ‘Know Thyself.’

Speaking of fine arts (see post below), there was one lot on eBay last week of particular interest to my lodge. I didn’t bid, but I hope one of the brethren won it when the gavel dropped last night. I’d told them about it via our Faceypage.

It is a bookplate from what, I suppose, was a library maintained by Publicity Lodge. I don’t know where the stacks might have been, but I’ll guess the lodge once upon a time leased one of those small offices that inconspicuously occupy the odd-numbered floors of Masonic Hall. Maybe part office for the treasurer and secretary, and lodge library, and storage, and smoking lounge. I wish we could do that today.

You’re wondering why the lodge would keep a library when the Livingston Library is on 14. From the look of this bookplate, I’ll guess it dates to the 1930s, and that’s when the Livingston Library was born. Maybe there was no Publicity library. The lodge published a history in the early ’30s, and maybe this bookplate was commissioned specially for the book’s print run. This is all guesswork on my part. I’ll have to delve into the voluminous lodge minutes to see what was going on there.