1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823842503321

Autore

Hackett David G

Titolo

That religion in which all men agree : freemasonry in American culture / / David G. Hackett

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, California : , : University of California Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-520-28760-6

0-520-95762-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (330 p.)

Disciplina

366/.10973

Soggetti

Freemasonry - United States - History

Group identity - United States - History

United States Religion

United States Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Colonial Freemasonry and Polite Society, 1733-1776 -- 2. Revolutionary Masonry: Republican and Christian, 1757-1825 -- 3. A Private World of Ritual, 1797-1825 -- 4. Anti-Masonry and the Public Sphere, 1826-1850 -- 5. Gender, Protestants, and Freemasonry, 1850-1920 -- 6. The Prince Hall Masons and the African American Church: The Labors of Grand Master and Bishop James Walker Hood, 1864-1918 -- 7. Freemasonry and Native Americans, 1776-1920 -- 8. Jews and Catholics, 1723-1920 -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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 1730's 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.