‘Caring for Your Masonic Treasures’

     

Somehow there still is a Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington, and the good people there have revised their old brochure Caring for Your Masonic Treasures, Jeff Croteau recently reported to the Masonic Library and Museum Association. Info includes:

• The kinds of materials you might encounter in your collection
• The ideal conditions in which to store your collections
• The types of storage enclosures (boxes, folders, etc.) to use when storing your collections
• How to contact and hire a professional conservator to repair damaged documents and books

The guidelines in this booklet will help you feel confident that you are doing what you can to help insure the long-term preservation of your documents, photographs, and books.


There is a PDF for download here, and there is a digital booklet format here.
     

‘Repetitive tasks in dusty conditions’

  
Repetitive tasks in dusty conditions?! There was a time when that meant lodge night, but this concerns the unglamorous side of Masonic library and museum function. Oh sure, we look at Aimee and Jeff, and so many others, like Glenys, Tom, Bill, and more as near mythical beings who keep and preserve the archives of Masonry for posterity, and look damn good doing it too, but inevitably there are times when hands get dirty. To wit: The Scottish Rite Masonic Library & Museum at the Supreme Council campus in Lexington could use a few helping hands.

The Wallace M. Gage Masonic Collection at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library at Lexington. Ill. Gage was a big wheel in New Jersey Freemasonry who bequeathed his Masonic books to the Library. He died in 2004.

The announcement:

Volunteer at the Museum & Library for our Masonic Work Day

Do you like history? Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a curator or a librarian? Come join the staff of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library and find out!

Masonic Work Day
Saturday, June 22, 2013
9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
Lexington, Massachusetts

We are looking for ten volunteers to spend the day helping us with collections-related projects. Projects may include: inventory of objects and library collections; housing and numbering objects and archival collections; computer data entry. No experience needed! Training and lunch will be provided.

Please note that most projects will require prolonged periods of standing and that exposure to dust and/or mold is possible. Most projects will consist of repetitive tasks.

We are accepting registrations on a first-come, first-served basis. Please e-mail Aimee E. Newell, Director of Collections, at anewell(at)monh.org with your name and contact information to sign up, or with questions.

If you can’t make it on June 22, but would like to learn more about volunteering on a regular basis, please let us know.
  

‘A physical representation’

     

I feel like I’m the last one to have seen it, but just in case, let me bring to your attention the Grand Lodge of California’s excellent short film that was posted to YouTube two months ago. Titled Emblems of Innocence and Honor: The Masonic Apron, it runs just about ten minutes and does an excellent, credible job of explaining the evolution of the Masonic apron, thanks to interviews with Dr. Aimee Newell of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington, Massachusetts; Bro. Adam Kendall, of the Henry Wilson Coil Library and Museum of Freemasonry in San Francisco; and Bro. Patrick Craddock, proprietor of The Craftsman’s Apron.

The title of this edition of The Magpie Mason quotes Craddock. In the final minute of the video, he explains his role as a craftsman of bespoke Masonic regalia. “I want to create aprons that a brother says ‘This is me. This is a physical representation of my commitment to the Craft.’ ”

I guess there’s no sense reading about it when you can watch it–and I’ll spare you my obligatory rant about New Jersey Masonry, where no lodge or brother has the freedom to commission aprons that speak to individuality. Enjoy.
     

'Perspectives'

    

Perspectives on American Freemasonry

and Fraternalism Symposium

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library

Lexington, Massachusetts

Saturday, April 28

From the organizers:

The symposium seeks to present the newest research on American fraternal groups from the past through the present day. By 1900, more than 250 American fraternal groups existed, numbering 6 million members. The study of their activities and influence in the United States, past and present, offers the potential for fresh interpretations of American society and culture.

Seven scholars from the United States, Britain, and Belgium will fill the day’s program.

Jeffrey Tyssens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel – The Goatee’s Revenge: A Founding Myth and a Founder’s Cult in American Fraternalism. (Nota Magpie: I don't know what "Goatee" is. This scholar has written previously about the goat in American fraternalism, so I'm not expecting a talk on facial hair.)

Yoni Appelbaum, Brandeis University – The Great Brotherhood of Toil: The Knights of Labor as a Fraternal Order.

Adam G. Kendall, Henry W. Coil Library and Museum – The Shadow of the Pope: Anti Catholicism, Freemasonry, and the Knights of Columbus in 1910s California.

Samuel Biagetti, Columbia University – A Prehistoric Lodge in Rhode Island? – Masonry and the Messianic Moment.

Alyce Graham, University of Delaware – Secrecy and Democracy: Masonic Aprons, 1750-1830.

Bradley Kime, Brigham Young University – Masonic Motifs in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Kristofer Allerfeldt, University of Exeter – The Significance of Fraternalism in Three Criminal Organizations of Late Nineteenth Century America: The Mollie Maguires, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Mafia.

All symposium attendees are invited to a public lecture by Michael Halleran, Independent Scholar, titled Gentlemen of the White Apron: Freemasonry in the American Civil War. 1 p.m. in the Maxwell Auditorium.

Registration costs $65 per person ($60 for museum members), and includes morning refreshments, lunch, and a closing reception. To register, click here and follow the instructions.

It will be great to be with Bro. Adam and Dr. Kristofer again. Both are veterans of the first symposium at Lexington two years ago, and they also lectured at ICHF last spring. I'm really looking forward to this day. I recommend it without any equivocation, mental reservation, etc.
    

‘Dividing our time’

“…for the more noble and glorious purpose

of dividing our time.”

Earlier this evening, Bro. Aaron made a comment on Facebook about the famous Dudley Masonic Emblem Watch. We’ve all seen one, even if only from a distance. It’s one of those dreamy heirlooms from the 1920s many desire, but few obtain.

The Magpie Mason only gets to look at ’em in museums and other displays.

This beautiful specimen is inside one of the glass display cases in the lodge anteroom at Philanthropic Lodge in Marblehead, Massachusetts. I had the good fortune to visit earlier this month while on my way to Lexington for the symposium.

The card next to the watch reads:

The Dudley Masonic pocket watch is a classic of watch-making excellence. Designed by William Wallace Dudley and manufactured by the Dudly Watch Company of Pennsylvania about 1920-1925, only a few thousand were ever made. The unique design feature of the watch is that Masonic working tools were used as the bridgework to support the gears. The watch had a crystal on the back so the beauty of the internal works could be enjoyed.

There is more to be learned in the ads that marketed this timepiece to the brethren. The September 1926 issue of The Master Mason magazine includes this advertisement:

Generous terms of sale. I wish it listed the retail price. As this edition of The Magpie Mason goes to press, one of these watches is being offered on eBay by a seller in Cape Cod. The bidding currently is at $2,125.99. Interestingly, a seller in Maryland is offering the original paperwork that once must have accompanied an original buyer’s purchase. I wonder if that first owner had responded to the magazine ad.

Speaking of Lexington, there is another pocket watch highly prized by Masons and collectors that is on exhibit at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library: the Arbaco.

Its triangular shape is similar to the Waltham, one of which also can be had on eBay now.

‘New Perspectives’

Scores of scholars and their supporters descended on the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington, Massachusetts last Friday to take part in the institution’s first academic symposium. Titled “New Perspectives on American Freemasonry and Fraternalism,” the event attracted students of Freemasonry from across the nation and abroad, seven of whom were selected to present papers: Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida; Hannah M. Lane, Assistant Professor of History at Mount Allison University; Nicholas Bell, Curator at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; David Bjelajac, Professor of Art History at George Washington University; Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Michigan-Flint; Kristofer Allerfeldt of Exeter University; and Adam Kendall, of the Grand Lodge of California’s Henry Wilson Coil Library and Museum of Freemasonry.

The subjects broached by the lecturers varied from how best to analyze Masonic history to the socio-economic significance of lodge membership in the nineteenth century, to the works of Masons in the fine arts, to American Masonry’s struggles against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Approximately sixty scholars and other supporters of Masonic education made this inaugural event a great success. It may become a bi-annual tradition.

From left: Adam Kendall, Collections Manager at the Grand Lodge of California’s Henry Wilson Coil Library and Museum of Freemasonry; Kristofer Allerfeldt of Exeter University; and John L. Palmer, Editor of Knight Templar magazine. Both Kendall and Allerfeldt presented papers on American Freemasonry and the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s, outlining the struggles of the grand lodges of California and Kansas to resist Klan infiltration of the Craft, and to contain the KKK within society at large.

Steven C. Bullock of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and author of Revolutionary Brotherhood, and Dr. Andreas Onnerfors, Director of the University of Sheffield's Centre for Research into Freemasonry were among the scholars in attendance.

'At the bindery'

If you ever considered joining the Masonic Book Club, now is an opportune time. The 2009 book is late, but I'm told it is now at the bindery, the last step before shipping.

Members should receive the book, a reprint of Prof. John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy from 1798, in about three weeks.

A little more information is here.

This copy of Proofs of a Conspiracy is a fourth edition published in 1798. It is among the items displayed at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library at Lexington, Massachusetts in its current exhibit on anti-Masonry.

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library (previously the National Heritage Museum) is now exhibiting Freemasonry Unmasked!: Anti-Masonic Collections in the Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives. More information is forthcoming on The Magpie Mason, but in the meantime click here.

‘A big year for Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library’

     
There’s a lot of good news coming out of Lexington for 2010. The museum and library on the campus of the headquarters of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite will add a few activities both on-site and off.

Before I get to those items, a change of name has been announced for this cultural center. The National Heritage Museum Library has been renamed the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library. What’s in a name? A lot, in this case. When the museum was established for our country’s bicentennial celebration in 1976, Supreme Council made it clear that the facility was not to be a Masonic museum looking inward, but was a gift to the people of the United States dedicated to the preservation of our common history. Its name was the Museum of Our National Heritage, which during the past decade was abbreviated to the National Heritage Museum. It was announced last month that the new name was chosen to reconnect the museum to Freemasonry in the public eye. “As we are all proud of our fraternity, the name-change better reflects who we are to the public, and puts the names ‘Masonic’ and ‘Scottish Rite’ in the forefront,” says the announcement from Supreme Council. Now flanking its front doors are the Square and Compasses, and the Double Headed Eagle.

I like it. I do not know if this is another aspect of the Sovereign Grand Commander’s stated preference to see the Scottish Rite reorient its focus from doing nice, expensive things for utter strangers (when we ought to be concentrating on helping our brethren in need), but this change appears to reflect that spirit, and I applaud it.

But about the new activities at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in 2010 (and this might even be breaking news) (and I hope I don’t get in trouble for this):

The Museum and Library will hit the road, taking a program and related artifacts to the brethren around the jurisdiction. The plan is to travel into the field four times a year to Councils of Deliberation and/or Valleys. Arrangements will be made on a first come, first served basis, with the traveling to be divided as equally as possible between locations on the East Coast and in the interior.

Big Change No. 2 – and this is really exciting! 96 days and counting! – is the first of what hopefully will be biannual symposia that showcase Freemasonry in an academic light. (I mean, they’re in Lexington, Massachusetts. How many colleges and universities are there within a 30-minute drive?)

From the official announcement:

Friday, April 9

New Perspectives on American Freemasonry

This symposium seeks to present the newest research on American fraternal groups from the past through the present day. By 1900, more than 250 American fraternal groups existed, numbering 6 million members. The study of their activities and influence in the United States, past and present, offers the potential for new interpretations of American society and culture.

A keynote paper by Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida, and author of Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717-1927, will open the day. Titled “Worlds of Brothers,” Harland-Jacobs’ paper will survey and assess the scholarship on American fraternalism and Freemasonry. Drawing on examples from the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s, she will demonstrate that applying world history methodologies pays great dividends for our understanding of fraternalism as a historical phenomenon. Harland-Jacobs will conclude with some thoughts on how global perspectives can benefit contemporary American brotherhoods.

I received an unsolicited review copy of Harland-Jacobs’ book upon its publication in 2007, and I loved it. Its title put me off initially, because “imperialism” is an epithet in academia (and for some, maybe Freemasonry is also), but her book quickly revealed itself to be a just and true accounting of Masonic history, exhaustively researched, engagingly written, and actually laden with small facts that really grab the eyes of those who notice them. It’s not a love letter; it shows flaws and hypocrisies, but it is undeniably fair. Anyway, back to the press release:

Six scholars from the United States, Canada, and Britain will fill the day’s program:

Damien Amblard, doctoral student, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, “French Counter-Enlightenment Intellectuals and American Anti-masonry: A Transatlantic Approach, 1789-1800” (NB: Mr. Amblard spoke at the second ICHF in Edinburgh.)

Hannah M. Lane, Assistant Professor, Mount Allison University, “Freemasonry and Identity in 19th-Century New Brunswick and Eastern Maine”

Nicholas Bell, Curator, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, “An Ark of the New Republic”

David Bjelajac, Professor of Art History, George Washington University, “Freemasonry, Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and the Fraternal Ethos of American Art”

Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch, Assistant Professor of History, University of Michigan – Flint, “Brothers of a Vow: Secret Fraternal Orders in Antebellum Virginia”

Kristofer Allerfeldt, Exeter University, “Nationalism, Masons, Klansmen and Kansas in the 1920s”

The symposium is funded in part by the Supreme Council, 33°, NMJ-USA. Registration is $50 ($45 for museum members) and includes morning refreshments, lunch and a closing reception. To register, complete the Registration Form and fax to 781-861-9846 or mail to Claudia Roche, National Heritage Museum, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421. Registration deadline is March 24, 2010. For more information, contact Claudia Roche at croche@monh.org or 781-861-6559, x 4142.

And last, but not least (because it is underway now) is the installation of artist Peter Waddell’s 21 painting exhibition titled “The Initiated Eye: Secrets, Symbols, Freemasonry and the Architecture of Washington, DC.” It opened two weeks ago, and will run through January 9, 2011. That’s 2011.

Images courtesy of The Octagon Museum.

If the title sounds familiar, it’s because this exhibit premiered in Washington (it was commissioned by the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia) in 2005, and since has traveled the country. Augmenting the 21 paintings are 40 artifacts from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum. See all the paintings and read about them here.