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During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more Americans belonged to fraternal societies than to any other kind of voluntary association, with the possible exception of churches. Despite the stereotypical image of the lodge as the exclusive domain of white men, fraternalism cut across race, class, and gender lines to include women, African Americans, and immigrants. Exploring the history and impact of fraternal societies in the United States, David Beito uncovers the vital importance they had in the social and fiscal lives of millions of American families.

Much more than a means of addressing deep-seated cultural, psychological, and gender needs, fraternal societies gave Americans a way to provide themselves with social-welfare services that would otherwise have been inaccessible, Beito argues. In addition to creating vast social and mutual aid networks among the poor and in the working class, they made affordable life and health insurance available to their members and established hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the elderly. Fraternal societies continued their commitment to mutual aid even into the early years of the Great Depression, Beito says, but changing cultural attitudes and the expanding welfare state eventually propelled their decline.

"David T. Beito has written a book of significance to many subdisciplines of history, including urban history, social history, African-American history, and immigration history. Concentrating on the oft-ridiculed fraternal lodges, Beito argues that Americans have gone from a welfare system of mutual aid based on reciprocity to one of paternalistic dependency based on hierarchy. The thesis is stated precisely and argued systematically throughout the book and documented with a wealth of evidence.

The book is wise, civil, and thoughtful throughout, but especially in its conclusion. As the author suggests, “instead of mutual aid, the dominant social welfare arrangements of Americans have increasingly become characterized by impersonal bureaucracies controlled by outsiders.” - Roger Lotchin, Professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

David T. Beito

David T. Beito is Research Fellow at The Independent Institute and Professor of History at the University of Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin, and he is the recipient of the Ellis Hawley Prize. Professor Beito is the author of Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, and Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (with Linda Royster Beito).

An urban and social historian, Professor Beito has published in the Journal of Southern History, Journal of Policy History, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Journal of Urban History, The Independent Review, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Journal of Firearms and Public Policy, and other scholarly journals. And, his popular articles have appeared in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Perspectives, History News Network, National Review, Reason, and elsewhere.