Explores the American Masonic system and its strengths and failings
• Examines the history of Freemasonry in the United States from the colonial era and the Revolutionary War to the rise of the Scottish branch onward
• Investigates the racial split in American Freemasonry between black lodges and white and how, unlike French lodges, women are ineligible to become Masons in the U.S.
• Reveals the factors that have resulted in shrinking Masonic enrollment in America and explores the revitalization work done by the Grand Lodge of California.
Preface: Interpreting American Freemasonry throughout Time
The First Lodges and Their Context
Freemasonry, Founding “Establishment” and Power
Lafayette, Freemasonry, and American Independence
At the Order’s Origins, Once upon a Time in London...
Ethnology, Sociology, and Evolutions
The Morgan Affair and the Anti-Masonic Movement
The Specifically American Features of Rituals and Institutions
The American Masonic Administrative Structures Put into Perspective
American Freemasonry Expresses Itself through Social Networks
An Exceptionally Rich Architectural Heritage
Relations between White and Black Masons
The Para-Masonic Organizations
Chapter 7. American Masonry Confronted by the Initiation of Women
On the Close and Often Tumultuous Franco-American Relations
Quebec, Canada, and Its Masonic Environment at Its Beginnings
The Jurisdiction of the High Grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Quebec
Chapter 10. A Little American Masonic Perspective in a Changing World
The Demographic Pressure of Immigration and the Difficulty in Predicting Its Effects
Afterword: Freemasonry in North America
Appendix II: American Demographic Studies Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and the Washington Post
Appendix IV: Sacramento Seminar of 2002, Organized by the Grand Lodge of California
Appendix V: Geneva Declaration (May 7, 2005)
Appendix VI: Declaration of Basel (June 10, 2012)
Appendix VII: Declaration of Vienna (January 29, 2014)
Appendix IX: Letter of the Sovereign Grand Commander Alain de Keghel to the Northern Jurisdiction
Appendix X: Thirty-fifth Anniversary of the George Washington Union
Appendix XI: George Washington Union: A Progressive American Obedience