Freemasons, Fairs and the Future

by Christopher Hodapp

There's an article this week on the Scottish Rite Museum's blog about an Order of the Eastern Star display at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1896. I love anything that combines fraternalism with my childhood fascination with World's Fairs. At the age of five and a half, my father took me to the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow. 

Flying cars, rocket packs, video phones, Moon rockets, robots - they were all there, and more. I glimpsed the future that weekend in New York, and I wanted in. The Fair succeeded at what world's fairs in those days were supposed to do - it inspired a whole generation of fairgoers about the exciting technology of the time, and the greater achievements we would make in the future that was closer than we thought. 

It's a shame that world's fairs lost their ability to do that in the decade after New York's, because we seem to have given up on our ability to be optimistically inspired in the last 50 years.

Freemasons used to think a lot about the future, too. They thought about their past achievements, but they also planned big for the future. World's fairs were a part of that big thinking for Masons. Back in April, the Whence Came You podcast featured a paper from the Illinois Lodge of Research by Alphonse Cerza about the Freemasons who brought the 1893 Columbian Exposition to life in Chicago. It also talks about the building of the Chicago Masonic Temple, the tallest building in the world and the 'Engineering Marvel of the Age.' 

Masons assembling at the Chicago Fair in 1893 held a 'fraternal congress' in the new Chicago Temple, a meeting of the world's Masonic grand lodges to discuss issues facing the fraternity. You can hear about it below. 

The Columbian World Exposition at Jackson Park in Chicago, Illinois celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. Organizers built more than 200 new, mostly temporary structures and pavilions that spanned over 600 acres on the South Side of Chicago. Nicknamed 'the White City' because of its gleaming white plaster, classical Greek-revival construction, the Chicago fair ushered in almost three decades of the City Beautiful Movement in America. Motivated by that architectural movement, Freemasons all over the U.S. embarked on massive building campaigns with magnificent new temples that remain standing to this day, unmatched by any buildings we would ever construct before or since.

Chicago's Freemasons had built the tallest building in the world

A decade later, the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, and that city pulled out all the stops just as Chicago had. (If you know of the old musical Meet Me In St. Louis, it is a story about a family and events around that particular fair.) The St. Louis Fair came at the height of the Golden Age of Fraternalism in the United States, and unlike the Masonic events at Chicago, some sought wider participation from all fraternal groups to demonstrate a global mission of universal brotherhood. Little could any of them know that the first truly global conflict, World War I, was only ten years away.

The Temple of Fraternity at the St. Louis fair was the brainchild of Charles Folsom Hatfield, who was an ardent joiner of fraternities. At the time of the Fair, he was a member of the Masons, Odd Fellows, the Knights of Maccabees, the Royal Arcanum, the National Union, Modern Woodmen of America, Woodmen of the World, the Tribe of Ben Hur, and several other lesser known orders. Hatfield's plan for the fair pavilion united not just the Freemasons from across the U.S., but more than 60 different fraternal societies with a combined national membership of more than 8 million. Consider that the population of the country was 82 million at the time.

Built at a cost of $62,000 (approximately $1.8 million today), the Temple of Fraternity contained 40 different rooms, two 600-seat auditoriums/assembly halls, and hosted 56 different national conventions of fraternal societies during the St. Louis Fair. A corner suite of rooms were specifically set aside for a general Masonic headquarters, York Rite bodies, and the Order of the Eastern Star. In fact, the entire pavilion was carefully designed so each fraternal group had its own private area, completely separate from the others. The combined Masonic grand lodges and appendant orders eventually gave $15,000 to the project ($432,000 today).

From a communication sent to all Masonic grand lodges by the Temple Association in 1902:

“The Temple of Fraternity to be erected is an adaptation of the Parthenon of Athens, the standard of Greek architecture. It will be 200x300 feet surrounding a court which will be decorated as a tropical garden. It will be two stories high, with porticoes sixteen feet in depth on the exterior and interior, ornamented with Doric columns. Rooms will be set aside in this beautiful structure for all co-operating societies, where they will make their headquarters during the World’s Fair, and maintain a place for rendezvous and refreshment for the members from all parts of the country. The immense porticoes will be free for the use of all. Rooms will also be set aside for reading, writing, smoking, toilet purposes, ladies’ parlors, lounging, etc. Telephone, telegraph and postal service will be supplied, and a check room for parcels, as well as a free dispensary, attended by a board of competent physicians. The site selected for the Temple of Fraternity is one of the most commanding on World’s Fair grounds.”

The Temple of Fraternity was a huge success. The fraternal organizations measurably brought more visitors to the city and Fair than any other group or association. It was even featured on souvenir boxes of cigars sold at the Temple.

When the Fair ended, most pavilions were destroyed, but he Temple of Fraternity was intended to live on.  It was supposed to be dismantled and shipped to New Mexico, to became the administration building for a new "National Fraternal Sanitarium for Consumptives" for the treatment of tuberculosis patients, supported by an association of fraternal organizations. But at the last moment, the Santa Fe Railroad turned over one of its railway resort hotels in Las Vegas, New Mexico for the sanitarium, and the Temple was demolished.

When plans were underway in 1960 for the 1964-65 World's Fair in New York, the Freemasons of that state had great ambitions, too. U.S. Freemasonry had just peaked in membership in 1958 with 4.1 million members. Little would they know that the fraternity had already begun its long, downward trend in a world that lost its desire to join voluntary social organizations. With great confidence and unbridled optimism, the Grand Lodge of New York erected a pavilion to tell the story of Freemasonry to the millions who came to the Fair. 

Just 60 years after St. Louis, the Masons were the only fraternal group represented at the New York Fair.

From the incredible New York World's fair website:

"The Masonic Center showcased Masonic history and memorabilia going back to medieval times. The Center, which stood across a reflecting pool from a 50-foot high model of the builder's square and compass, symbols of the fraternity, was sponsored by the Grand Lodge of New York. It included a hall for exhibitions, a lounge, office and outside patio. Dominating the hall was an 11-foot high statue, in Masonic regalia, of George Washington, first of 14 American Presidents (till 1964) who belonged to the brotherhood. Events from his life were portrayed in three-diminsional scenes, and the Bible on which he took the oath of office as President was on display. Documents on view dated back to the 14th Century, when the Masons were the cathedral builders of Europe. Among them was a Plan of Union for the colonies written by Mason Benjamin Franklin in 1754."

The three-dimensional scenes discussed above were two diaramas, one depicting General Washington and General Lafayette (both Masons) at Valley Forge; the other showed Washington taking his oath of office in Federal Hall, New York City, as first President of the United States. Also shown was his apron as Master of Alexandria Lodge (Alexandria, Va.), a tuft of Washington's hair, and the Square and Compass which he personally used in laying out the lands of Fairfax County,Va. There were also displays about Governor DeWitt Clinton, Governor and Grand Master of New York; Lewis and Clark;Admiral Byrd; General "Blackjack: Pershing; Will Rogers; and other distinguished Masons in history. A map of the world showing the location of all 112 recognized Grand Lodges was displayed.

The theme of the entire pavilion was "Brotherhood, the Foundation of World Peace."

(You can view the entire souvenir guide book for the Masonic Brotherhood Center HERE)

The monumental structures over the decades that have remained around the world after the fairs themselves have been scraped from the Earth always attract my attention, along with the bright and joyfully optimistic futures each of these fairs always projected - Paris' Eiffel Tower, New York's Unisphere, Seattle's Space Needle, Chicago's Grant Park and Museum of Science & Industry, and many more. But world's fairs themselves were always meant to be temporary, fleeting, making way for ever newer innovations and greater human achievements yet to be celebrated. 

Two items remain today of New York's 1964 Masonic pavilion - the top portion of the tall fiberglass square and compass that stood on the corner of the Fair's Avenue Europe and Avenue of the Americas beckoning visitors now stands in front of the Masonic Home in Utica, New York. 

And the bronze statue of George Washington in Masonic regalia created by the sculptor Donald DeLue stands today on the approximate site of the pavilion in Corona Park, appropriately surrounded by cherry trees. It alone remains in the park today to tell the world that the Masons once were there.

World's fairs were developed and flourished at the dawn of the Industrial Age until they limped to a shadow of themselves by the 1970s. Something changed and we stopped celebrating the dazzling, life-changing achievements of Mankind. 

But I've been back to the New York World's Fair site in Queens as an adult, and it all comes rushing back. That moment of standing under the mighty engine nozzles of the first stage of a Saturn V rocket that would soon propel Man to the Moon and beyond might just as well have happened yesterday, it is so vivid. But, to paraphrase Rod Serling, the optimism and wonders of the fairs have been pushed aside by the flow of progress, the passage of years, and the ferocious travesty of Fate.

G. K. Chesterton once said that the world would never starve for wonders, but only for the want of Wonder. The world is not a better place since civilization lost its sense of wonder and bigger dreams for more magnificent tomorrows. Maybe it's time we Masons took up that mission once again.