African Americans and the Cultural Work of Freemasonry: From Revolution Through Reconstruction

This talk will explore the print, manuscript, art, and artifact culture that freemasons created in the late 18^th and 19^th Centuries. As a social institution, freemasonry was a private society governed by brotherly love and social harmony; underlying this social vision, however, was a vibrant material culture that provided the basis for fraternal exchanges. Such exchanges provide insight into the ways in which masonic culture—as opposed to the institution itself—function on a more personal level, promoting individual masonic friendships that oftentimes transgressed social divisions caused by race and class.