Although in our time fraternal orders don't get much respect think of Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton tromping off to the Loyal Order of Raccoons Lodge), they were serious business in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Clawson takes fraternal orders to be windows into the hidden recesses of the American white male psyche; peeking through, she sees a contested terrain, plagued by self doubts and the terror of humiliation.
61 in Oakland, California.(53) Dumenil's study is of more than local importance since
fraternal orders universally subscribed to the masonic practice of initiations and symbolic dramas.(54) To begin with, in order to join Live Oak Lodge between 1880 and 1920, a man would have to pay annual dues of between $6-12, an initiation fee of between $50-100, and considerably more for the additional degrees of membership.
This group was instrumental in creating local newspapers and an array of
fraternal orders and churches that further served the community.
The logic behind the Red Men's benefit program likewise revealed their attachment to middle-class notions of risk and highlighted the class-based differences between
fraternal orders on the Comstock.