Freemasons

Few organizations have produced as many pictures about themselves as the Freemasons. Lodge certificates, membership charts, aprons, banners and portraits all carried the same set of symbols, and they were printed in large numbers for more than 200 years.

Modern Freemasonry took its organized form in London in 1717, when 4 lodges joined to create a Grand Lodge. The fraternity grew out of the old guilds of working stonemasons, and its symbols come from their tools. The square and compass, the level and the plumb line were given moral meanings about honesty and right conduct. The all-seeing eye, the pillars and the checkered floor came along with them.

Masonry crossed to the American colonies early. Benjamin Franklin was a Mason and printed one of the first Masonic books in America. George Washington was a Mason, and in 1793 he laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in a Masonic ceremony, wearing an apron. That event was painted and reprinted many times in the 1800s, and it appears in Masonic prints for generations.

The late 1800s were the great age of American fraternal orders, and the Masons led the way. Towns built Masonic temples on their main streets, often the most impressive building after the courthouse and the churches. Related groups grew up beside the main lodges, including the Shriners, founded in the 1870s and known for their red fezzes and parades.

The printed material rewards a close look. A Masonic certificate or chart is crowded with symbols, and every one of them was meant to be read. Many were printed by ordinary commercial lithographers alongside their other work, then filled in by hand with a member's name and lodge. The parade photographs show something else, a fraternity that was proud to be seen in public, aprons and all, in towns large and small.