Title
That religion in which all men agree : freemasonry in American culture / David G. Hackett.
ISBN
9780520957626 (electronic book)
9780520281677
Published
Berkeley, California : University of California Press, 2014.
Copyright
©2014
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xii, 317 pages) : illustrations.
Call Number
HS515 .R45 2014eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
366/.10973
Summary
Book Description: This powerful study weaves the story of Freemasonry into the narrative of American religious history. Freighted with the mythical legacies of stonemasons' guilds and the Newtonian revolution, English Freemasonry arrived in colonial America with a vast array of cultural baggage, which was drawn on, added to, and transformed during its sojourn through American culture. David G. Hackett argues that from the 1730s through the early twentieth century the religious worlds of an evolving American social order broadly appropriated the beliefs and initiatory practices of this all-male society. For much of American history, Freemasonry was both counter and complement to Protestant churches, as well as a forum for collective action among racial and ethnic groups outside the European American Protestant mainstream. Moreover, the cultural template of Freemasonry gave shape and content to the American "public sphere." By including a group not usually seen as a carrier of religious beliefs and rituals, Hackett expands and complicates the terrain of American religious history by showing how Freemasonry has contributed to a broader understanding of the multiple influences that have shaped religion in American culture.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: European American Freemasonry:
Colonial freemasonry and polite society, 1733-1776
Revolutionary masonry: Republican and Christian, 1757-1825
Private world of ritual, 1797-1825
Anti-Masonry and the public sphere, 1826-1850
Gender, Protestants, and Freemasonry, 1850-1920
Part 2: Beyond The White Protestant Middle Class:
Prince Hall Masons and the African American church: labors of Grand Master and Bishop James Walker Hood, 1864-1918
Freemasonry and Native Americans, 1776-1920
Jews and Catholics, 1723-1920
Epilogue
Notes
Index.