The Woodmen of the World was founded in 1890 as a fraternal insurance society for those over 16. It was absorbed in 1965 by the Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Company. This was the former female auxiliary of the Woodmen of the World. No membership figures were available in 1995. The fraternal veneer seems to be thin over this insurance company, which until 1970 published a magazine, The American Woodmen Informer. This group was founded on April 4,1901, in Colorado as a fraternal insurance company. The Royal Neighbors of America was the female auxiliary, but it became long ago an independent organization.
It also had a juvenile branch, with its own ritual.Īfter the schism that led to the founding of the Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World (see the following), the Modern Woodmen disposed of much of Root’s ritual, though local organizations are to this day called Camps and regional lodges are called Districts. The lodges worked four degrees, in which forests and Roman courts figured as symbols in the proceedings. Life insurance was always the principal focus of the group, and the main reason that there was a secret-society overlay seems to have been that Root liked writing rituals. The organization accepted “Jew and Gentile, the Catholic and Protestant, the agnostic and atheist.” Religion - or lack thereof - was not a bar to membership.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SCAM LETTER DRIVER
Also excluded were “railway brakeman, railway engineer, fireman, and switchman, miner employed underground, mine inspector, pit boss, professional rider and driver in races, employee in gunpowder factory, wholesaler or manufacturer of liquors, saloon keeper, saloon bartender, aeronaut, sailor on the lakes and seas, plough polisher, brass finisher, professional baseball player, professional fireman, submarine operator, or soldier in regular army in time of war.”Īnyone who took up one (or more) of these hazardous professions lost all coverage, but, provided he gave up anything to do with the sale of intoxicating liquors, he could regain some protection by filing with the Head Clerk an affidavit waving all rights to benefits in case of death or injury arising from the prohibited activity. His new organization was founded as a fraternal benefit life insurance society, with rigorous limits on who might be admitted.Ĭandidates had to be white males aged 18-45, from the 12 “healthiest” states (the Dakotas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin), and not inhabitants of large cities, even in these “healthy” states.
Joseph Cullen Root, who founded the Modern Woodmen of America, was an enthusiastic joiner he was or had been a member of the freemasons, Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, to say nothing of being the rector of V.A.S. There were 704,800 members in 1995, and the group published The Modern Woodman quarterly. The racial criterion was later abandoned. The Modern Woodmen of America was founded in 1883 at Lyons, Iowa, as a life insurance and fraternal benefit society for white men aged 18-45. In addition to the Fendeurs, the Foresters, and even the Carbonari, there have been several varieties of “Woodmen.” There have also been Wood-choppers (the Woodchoppers Association was a small beneficiary society founded as a derivative of the Foresters in Philadelphia in 1890) and an Order of Wood Gutters, which was a short-lived Masonic group of about 1847. The attraction of the forest seems to be strong for founders of secret societies.
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