Social-capital formation and American Fraternal Association: New empirical evidence

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 1-36

  Kaufman, Jason ^a   Weintraub, David ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NewYork Presbyterian Hospital   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646728927     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/002219504323091225     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, 1993);
2. Robert D. Putnam, idem, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, 2000).
3. For ramifications and critiques of Putnam's ideas, see this journal's special double issue, "Patterns of Social Capital: Stability and Change in Comparative Perspective, "Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXIX (Winter/Spring), 339-782.
4. Idem, Making Democracy Work, 167;
5. James S. Coleman, "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital," American Journal of Sociology, XCIV (1988), 895-8120.
6. Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (New Haven, 1989);
7. Mary Ann Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender, and Fraternalism (Princeton, 1989);
8. Lynn Dumenil, Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1939 (Princeton, 1984);
9. Gerald Gamm and Putnam, "The Growth of Voluntary Associations in America, 1840-1940," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXIX (1999), 511-557;
10. W. S. Harwood, "Secret Societies in America," North American Review, CLXIV (1897), 617-624;
11. Kaufman, For The Common Good? American Civic Life and the Golden Age of Fraternity (New York, 2002);
12. Putnam, Bowling Alone.
13. Putnam, Bowling Alone;
14. cf. Alejandro Portes and Patricia Landholt, "The Downside of Social Capital," Journal of Democracy, XXVI (1996), 18-21;
15. Sidney Tarrow, "'The Very Excess of Democracy': State Building and Contentious Politics in America," in Anne N. Costain and Andrew S. McFarland (eds.), Social Movements and American Political Institutions (Lanham, 1998);
16. Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (New York, 1998).
17. See David T. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (Chapel Hill, 2000);
18. Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society (New York, 1993);
19. Putnam, Bowling Alone;
20. Alexander von Hoffman, Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850 to 1920 (Baltimore, 1994).
21. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 396-399.
22. Other proponents of the procedural perspective include Michael S. Joyce and William A. Schambra, "A New Civic Life," in Michael Novak (ed.), To Empower People (Washington D.C., 1996);
23. Mark E. Warren, Democracy and Association (Princeton, 2001).
24. Representative of the second, "pragmatist" camp are Elisabeth S. Clemens, The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925 (Chicago, 1997);
25. Theda Skocpol, "The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy," Social Science History, XXI (1997), 455-479;
26. Theda Skocpol, idem, Marshall Ganz, and Ziad Munson, "A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States," American Political Science Review, XCIV (2000), 527-546.
27. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State;
28. Etzioni, Spirit of Community;
29. Joyce and Schambra, "A New Civic Life";
30. Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion (Wheaton, Ill., 1992).
31. On health and life insurance benefits, see Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State;
32. Kaufman, For The Common Good? The question of values in the works of Beito, Etzioni, Olasky, and Joyce and Schambra is vague in conception and subjective in content. Our aim is to assess the data at hand with their claims in mind. The extent to which it is desirable for individuals to learn these values is not at issue.
33. Putnam, Bowling Alone;
34. cf. Mark S. Granovetter, "The Strength of Weak Ties," American Journal of Sociology, CXXVIII (1973), 1360-1380.
35. Other works that discuss civic associationalism and bridging ties include Amy Gutmann (ed.), Freedom of Association (Princeton, 1998);
36. Kaufman, "The Political Economy of Inter-Denominational Competition in Late 19th Century American Cities," Journal of Urban History, XXVIII (2002), 445-465;
37. Kaufman, idem, "Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners: The Knights of Labor Revisited," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXI (2001), 553-579;
38. Portes and Landholt, "The Downside of Social Capital";
39. Nancy L. Rosenblum, Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America (Princeton, 1998);
40. Schudson, Good Citizen;
41. Warren, Democracy and Association.
42. Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood; Buffalo Street Guide and Knights of Pythias Lodge Directory (Buffalo, 1894). We thank Clawson for sharing copies of these data with us.
43. Alvin J. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations (Westport, 1980), 184-185.
44. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, comments, "When one examines the history of the KOP [Knights of Pythias], he cannot help but note that this fraternity is a classic example of the rise and fall of a fraternal order" (185).
45. Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson, "A Nation of Organizers," also identify the Knights of Pythias as one of the forty-six associations that enrolled more than 1% of the adult male population of the United States.
46. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State;
47. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood;
48. Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood;
49. Kaufman, For The Common Good?
50. An attempt to locate information about individual fraternal membership by examining obituaries in local newspapers found only sporadic and inconsistent data.
51. Background research for this article discovered one comparable source of information about members of Knights of Pythias lodges in New York City for 1891 - Logen-Kalender der Deutschen Logen Knights of Pythias, der Stadt New York: nebst Namens- Verzeichniss des Beamten und Logenmitglieder sammtlischher Deutscher Logen New Yorks (New York, 1891). Because this directory provided no information about occupations, it proved an inadequate companion to the data analyzed herein. Note that so-called "uniformed encampments" of the Buffalo Pythians are not included in this analysis, because they lack sufficient information about their membership and meeting times and because they represent elite "second-level" organizations comprised of high-ranking Pythians. Two of the lodges included in the 1894 Buffalo Pythians directory were also excluded because their membership lists were not published. The analysis is as complete as possible using the Buffalo directory.
52. Census data derives from Steven Ruggles et al., Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 2.0. (Minneapolis, 1997).
53. For a similar approach to the study of network ties within and across neighborhoods, see Roger V. Gould, Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune (Chicago, 1995).
54. Matthews-Northrup Co's New Map of the City of Buffalo (Buffalo, 1895); Buffalo City Directory of 1894. For cases in which no address was listed in the Pythian directory, an attempt was made to locate that individual's address in the general Buffalo city directories for 1894, 1895, and 1896, though in about one-half of these cases, we lacked the means to differentiate between multiple individuals sharing the same name. Addresses were taken from the Buffalo City Directory only in the event of a single entry matching that given in the original Pythian directory. In a few cases, the Buffalo City Directory listed a different address than the Buffalo Pythian directory, possibly because the listings were for different individuals with the same name or, more likely, because the individual in question had moved at some point during the period. These cases were omitted from our analyses as well.
55. Adobe Illustrator software allows various "layers" of text-based markers to be attached to a graphics file, permitting a separate layer to be created for each lodge, as well as a comprehensive layer showing them all in relation to one another. Unfortunately, we were unable to derive a satisfactory measure of the direction as well as the distance of members' residences from their lodge. Anyone interested in taking the extra steps necessary for measuring directional dispersion should contact the authors.
56. Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973). Of the many occupation-coding schemes available, Thernstrom's was most appropriate, given that it was developed to index occupations from a similar time (the late nineteenth century) and place (a northeastern city).
57. Similar steps were taken with regard to any occupation in which the difference between being an employee and self-employed would have made a difference in coding. Examples include barber, carpenter, upholsterer, cigarmaker, etc. This search was sometimes complicated by businesses changing hands within families or changing location. Every attempt was undertaken to determine whether the Pythian in question was plausibly an owner or co-owner of said business. Another problem was the case of employee-owned, low-status businesses, such as a shoeshine stand or pushcart. Following Thernstrom's lead, we generally classified even these small business owners as "low white collar" workers, given that they owned the means of production and worked for themselves.
58. Buffalo City Directory for the Year 1895 (Buffalo, 1895);
59. Jonathan Van Valkenburg, The Knights of Pythias Complete Manual and Text-Book, Revised Edition (Canton, 1886);
60. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations;
61. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood;
62. Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood;
63. Hartmut Keil, "Immigrant Neighborhoods and American Society: German Immigrants on Chicago's Northwest Side in the Late Nineteenth Century," in idem (ed.), German Workers' Culture in the United States, 1850 to 1920 (Washington, D.C., 1988);
64. Brenda K. Shelton, Reformers in Search of Yesterday: Buffalo in the 1890s (Albany, 1976).
65. Lagen-Kalender der Deutschen Logen Knights of Pythias, 1891.
66. Rank-and-file attendance seemed to be a delicate subject among the Pythians. Despite the lack of formal instructions about keeping track of attendance, several passages in the 1886 Pythian manual stress its importance. One passage specifically chides former officers from neglecting their duties as regular members following their time in office. It also appears that lodge procedure was designed not to call too much attention to attendance, in the face of what might have been an attendance problem.
67. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 200, 192.
68. Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson, "Nation of Organizers";
69. Skocpol, "Tocqueville Problem."
70. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 220-222.
71. New York Times index provided by Proquest Historical Newspapers. "Knights of Pythias Assembly," The New York Times, 2 April 1898;
72. "Hospital at Chattanooga," The New York Times, 17 Aug. 1898, which reports that the hospital was opened to "accommodate" all "sick soldiers that belong to that order." Apparently, non-Pythians were not eligible to receive care at this facility.
73. "Congress of Benefit Societies," the New York Times, 11 Nov. 1891;
74. "The Insurance Code Fight," The New York Times, 11 April 1892.
75. Comparable accounts of fraternal mobilization around insurance-related issues can be found in Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State, 143-160;
76. Kaufman, For The Common Good?, 144-160.
77. See, for example, Clemens, People's Lobby;
78. Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson, "Nation of Organizers";
79. Skocpol, "Tocqueville Problem."
80. "Liquor Dealers Ruled Out," Buffalo Evening News, 1 Sept. 1894;
81. "Pythians Opposed to Liquor Dealers," the New York Times, 6 Sept. 1894;
82. "May Expel The Liquor Dealers," The New York Times, 1 Sept. 1894;
83. Shelton, Reformers in Search of Yesterday, 169.
84. "Pythian Supreme Lodge," Buffalo Evening News, 5 Sept. 1894;
85. "Encampment of Pythians," the New York Times, 28 Aug. 1894;
86. "Baltimore German Pythians in Revolt," the New York Times, 26 Dec. 1894;
87. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, 186;
88. "Quarrelling Pythians in Court," the New York Times, 5 March 1896;
89. "Knights of Pythias Lose," the New York Times, 30 May 1897.
90. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 66.
91. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State;
92. Kaufman, For The Common Good?;
93. Francis De Raismes Kip, Fraternal Life Insurance in America (Philadelphia, 1953);
94. Viviana Zelizer, Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States (New York, 1979);
95. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, vi-vii.
96. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, 185;
97. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 201.
98. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, 184;
99. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 160, 175;
100. Kaufman, For The Common Good?
101. On the ability of the fraternal organizational form to bridge geographical distance, see Skocpol, "Tocqueville Problem";
102. Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson, "Nation of Organizers."
103. On the neighborhood orientation of fraternal as well as other forms of civic association, see Joyce and Schambra, "New Civic Life," 12;
104. Von Hoffman, Local Attachments, 157;
105. Keil, "Immigrant Neighborhoods and American Society," 39;
106. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 20-23.
107. Putnam, Bowling Alone;
108. Etzioni, Spirit of Community.
109. On fraternalism and working-class solidarity, see Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood.
110. On fraternalism and middle-class respectability, see Stuart M. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760-1900 (New York, 1989);
111. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood.
112. Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood, 104-106, comes to similar conclusions through an analysis of 1891 Buffalo Pythian data.
113. Logen-Kalendar der Deutschen Lagen Knights of Pythias.
114. Buffalo City Directory, 1895;
115. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations. The lodges mentioned were selected because their members' ethnic orientation is explicitly mentioned in the city directory, as listed above.
116. See Kaufman, For The Common Good?
117. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, 184-185. The reason for the existence of two separate orders for women was a dispute about ritual. The Pythian Sisters of the World adopted the ritual written by Joseph Addition Hill and formally approved by the men's Supreme Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, whereas the members of the Pythian Sisterhood insisted on adopting their own ritual, written by Alva A. Young. The two orders merged in 1907.
118. Kaufman, For The Common Good?
119. This directory was not utilized for a wider comparison of Pythian members because it does not offer specific street addresses or occupational information.
120. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations, 185;
121. Van Valkenberg, Knights of Pythias Complete Manual, 166-167. Investigating the presence of Pythian lodges in other locales would have required the laborious task of tracking down 1894 city directories for each city or town in question. Nonetheless, the number of out-of-town addresses given in major cities like New York or Chicago or Albany suggests that local options were available to them.
122. Cf. Skocpol, "The Tocqueville Problem";
123. idem, Ganz, and Munson, "A Nation of Organizers."
124. Cf. Blumin, Emergence of the Middle Class;
125. Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook, "Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks," Annual Review of Sociology, XXVII (2001), 415-444.
126. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York, 1988; orig. pub. 1835-1840).
127. On fraternal opposition to universal health-care legislation, see Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State;
128. Kaufman, For The Common Good?