"Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America" tells the story of the burgeoning nineteenth-century growth of "secret societies." These were clubs, the existence of which was far from secret, but which involved their members, mainly middle-class men, in secret ritualistic activities. By the end of the century, according to one source cited by Carnes, as many as 40% of American males belonged to one or another such society. What accounted for this popularity? From the "sodalities in taverns" they were the eighteenth century, as the nineteenth century progressed, Freemasonry and Oddfellowship became more and more formal and ritualistic, the emphasis changing from the festive board to somber, quasi-religious ceremony. Entirely new orders were created, imitating the older ones. Many adopted a policy of teetotalism. Some of this was in reaction to the Anti-masonic movement that arose in the 1820s after the disappearance and alleged murder of "Captain" William Morgan by Freemasons.
Carnes correctly ties the Anti-masonic movement to the influence of women. The connection between teetotalism and early feminism is well-documented. Maurice Healey quite perceptively suggests that prohibitionism was a popular feminine cause because women believed it would force their husbands to spend their time at home attending to domestic duties, rather than at taverns, and their money on fineries for their wives, rather than on strong drink. Yet while making the connection between Anti-masonry and female influence, and pointing out that lodge affiliation amongst males was in many ways both cause and consequence of the feminization of religion, Carnes attributes teetotalism in the lodges to rising "middle-class values." He neglects the obvious connection between female influence and low Protestantism's elevation of teetotal abstinence to a Christian virtue - though completely foreign to Him who made water into wine at Cana. Finally, how much religious antipathy to the orders was simply a consequence of their successful charitable fundraising, which some critics may have felt diverted money from its appropriate channel through the churches?
Carnes relies heavily on nineteenth century ritual exposés of the various fraternities, while neglecting, or perhaps avoiding, much excellent historical work that has been done by such bodies as Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, E.C., the American Lodge of Research, and the Scottish Rite Research Society. He falls into errors that someone familiar with fraternal orders from personal experience would not have done. For example, he states (p. 178) that "...the crucial story concerning Hiram Abiff in the Master Mason degree was introduced into Masonic ritual in 1825." The Hiramic legend in Masonry is at least a century older than this, being found in such early exposés as Pritchard's "Masonry Dissected" (1730). Carnes's explanation of the Ancient/Modern division in Freemasonry is equally ill-informed.
Another area in which Carnes's coverage is faulty concerns supposed drastic revisions in ritual during the mid-nineteenth century. It is true that American masonic ritual differs substantially from that in use in England. American ritual is derived from William Preston, whose late eighteenth-century recensions were used only by his splinter Grand Lodge in the north of England. They little resembled the work of London lodges except in the essential obligations, words, and grips. Preston's work was adapted by the American Thomas Smith Webb in the early nineteenth century, widely spread by the masonic lecturer Jeremy Cross, and has remained essentially unchanged since then. English ritual changed dramatically with the union of the Ancients and Moderns under the Grand Mastership of the Duke of Sussex in 1814. The one major American masonic ritual change of the nineteenth century was that of conducting lodge business on the Third rather than the First Degree. Otherwise, American ritual more resembles Scottish than English practice. Far from having been radically revised, it represents the survival of archaic usage amongst an immigrant population - a phenomenon well-known to linguists and anthropologists.
Albert Pike's career is discussed more factually in Carnes's book than in most sources. However, the claim that Pike completely re-wrote the degrees of the Scottish rite is repeated here uncritically. The Francken manuscript, one of the eighteenth-century source documents for Scottish rite ritual, shows that in most cases Pike elaborated on established themes. He seldom created anything completely original. Carnes, despite his emphasis on fraternalism as a northern, urban phenomenon, sets little importance on the distinction between the Northern and Southern Jurisdictions of the Scottish Rite (Pike's authority was over the Southern Jurisdiction). He pays no attention to the intense jurisdictional conflicts, including that over Cerneauism, which raged in the northeast during the middle nineteenth century.
Carnes is confused about York rite ritual. For example, the the Past Master degree as a prerequisite for the Royal Arch was not an American innovation, but a survival of the requirement that the candidate have "passed the chair." In England, this archaism was completely abolished. In American Royal Arch work the High Priest is not a chaplain, but the presiding officer. This is a real departure from English work, where the First Principal represents the King. Carnes often conflates and confuses Freemasonry with Oddfellowship, Pythianism, and other orders. At the same time he misses some obvious points, such as that Oliver Kelley, founder of the Grange, was the first man made a mason in the first masonic lodge in Minnesota (today's Saint Paul Lodge No. 3). Oddfellowship's First Degree borrows from the masonic Order of the Secret Monitor, and the Knights of Pythias borrow a part of their Third Degree from another masonic side-degree.
Freemasonry never involved an insurance scheme, whereas most of the other fraternal orders did. The Woodmen, for example, even now have a sizable insurance operation headquartered in Omaha. This difference was reflected in the different class of people from which Freemasonry derived its membership as compared to the insurance-based orders. Carnes does not emphasize this contrast, yet it seems more significant than his treatment implies. The decline of many orders may be traced to the Great Depression, which led to the introduction of unemployment compensation, Social Security, pension plans and employer-funded benefits. These rendered fraternal insurance much less important. The foregoing may seem a litany of fault-finding. Still, Carnes's book is worthwhile, and blazes a trail for further investigation.
