‘Don’t be the guy who misses this’

    

It’s almost here!

A dedicated cadre of New Jersey brethren have planned a well rounded celebration of Scottish Masonic history for Saturday the 19th. All the details are contained in the graphics. Click to enlarge.

See you there.

     

‘John Skene conference registration is open’

   

Registration is open for the John Skene conference in New Jersey! The event last year was something of a rehearsal, but this time will be the real thing. Click here for tickets information. Send email here for more info. From the publicity:

John Skene:

Masonic Influences

on the Development

of Early America

August 18-19

New Jersey

Friday, August 18

6:30 p.m. Meet & Greet

Courtyard by Marriott

30 Western Drive, Westampton

Attire: Tastefully Casual

Saturday, August 19

9:30 Memorial Service

Peachfield

180 Burrs Road, Westampton

Attire: Tastefully Casual for guests; Jacket & Tie for hosts/staff

11 a.m. Lunch

Crescent Shriners International

700 Highland Drive, Westampton

Attire: Tastefully Casual for guests; Jacket & Tie for hosts/staff

Following Lunch: Seminar

Speakers include:

Robert L.D. Cooper is a Scottish Freemason as well as a recognized historian and expert on Scottish Freemasonry. He has authored numerous books and articles on Freemasonry and lectured in Masonic lodges and other venues across the world.

Steven Bullock is professor of history at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and is the author of Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840. Professor Bullock has spoken widely to academic and public groups; commented on Masonry and American history on ABC and NPR; and appeared in documentaries airing on History and National Geographic channels, Channel Four (France), and elsewhere.

Robert Johnson is the host of Whence Came You?, a Masonic podcast, and is co-author of It’s Business Time: Adapting a Corporate Path for Freemasonry. He serves on the Grand Lodge of Illinois Masonic Education Committee.

Robert Howard is a student of history, served (2016) as Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey, and is a Past Master of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786. He has written a number of articles for the New Jersey Freemason, facilitated the Grand Lodge’s mentoring program, and has made a number of Masonic presentations to lodges around the state.

Erich M. Huhn is Secretary of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786. He is the author of New Jersey’s Masonic Lodges, and is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and Culture at Drew University in New Jersey.

7 p.m. Dinner

     

‘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.