Between the time of the Revolution and the Civil War such fraternities as the Odd Fel lows and the Ancient Order of Foresters and the Ancient Order of Hibernian had been transplanted to America from Great Britain, and certain native societies, like the Tammany Society, the Red Men, the United American Mechanics, the Good Templars, Sons of Tem perance, and a number of others with clear political or moral objects, had come into exist ence, all of which afforded a measure of chari table relief to their members; but the credit is accorded to John Jordan Upchurch, the found er of the Ancient Order of the United Work men, at Meadville, Pa., in 1868, for the initia tion of the movement toward the organization of a new class of fraternal orders that was to make the provision of a substantial death bene fit their primary object. Upchurch's effort•was linked with a desire to bring together in rela tions of mutual help and good understanding the large group of workers that the rapid ex pansion of manufacturing industry during the Civil War had centred in many of the Amer ican cities. He sought to meliorate trade trou bles the while joining the new craftsmen in an effort for self-help, socially and intellectually, and against the one greatest certainty and un certainty of life, to wit, the contingency of death, which was apt to leave the worker's de pendents helpless in a strange place away from even the meagre living that the widow and phan could find in village and rural communi ties.
Characteristics.— In each decade since the dose of the Civil War period scores of new fraternal benefit orders have been formed, with differing plans of operation but with the same general character. Some have been spur ious and sought to make fraternalism a source of private profit. Many have •emained-local in stitutions, while many others have become gen eral and have extended over the United States and Canada. A number are sectarian or racial in their constituencies, being confined to Prot estants, Catholics or Hebrews. To most of the orders men alone are eligible; yet not a few are open to both sexes and a few are purely women's societies. Some of the earlier moral or political orders have in the interval since or ganization adopted a plan of death benefits, and most of the later organized trade unions have such a benefit. The genuine fraternal benefit orders use the lodge system, with the social and moral influence of its ritual and form of initiation and its fraternal bond, to carry out the object of co-operative insurance.
The earliest orders, in addition to certain moral and physical tests, called for a uniform contribution from each member to meet bene fit claims as these arose. This was pure char ity in essence if not in form and left the fu ture utterly without provision, under the as sumption that there would always be members enough and willing to meet demands on call.
The United Workmen in particular was organ ized under independent State jurisdiction. This proved a source of weakness to the order and disclosed the insufficiency of its financial plan sooner than with others which began with ageneral jurisdiction and so had the younger lodges to share the inevitably increasing claims of the older.
At this period scientific practice of life in surance had not yet been fully worked out and such business corporations as were operating in America did not cater to the man in moderate circumstances.% whereas the lodge appealed to him and met his needs for social sympathy and relaxation and for a warm helping hand in emergency, especially in our migratory Amer ican life. The movement toward fraternal in surance was strongly accelerated during the decade following the panic of 1872 by the fail ure of a large number of business companies that were insecurely organized or badly maul aged.
Learning from experience that was some times costly, even as the business corporations before them, the fraternal benefit orders soon passed from the first crude idea of a uniform contribution and came to depend on a closer medical selection and a contribution graded ac cording to the member's age at entry; but even so they fell short of a condition essential to permanence in not realizing that sufficient in come must be had for both current needs and for a reserve accumulation to meet future obli gations, since under a purely mutual scheme the members who pass away first must contribute to not only their own but to the benefits of those who pass away later.
Doubtless a better understanding with the students and leaders of actuarial science would have saved much confusion and loss, but fra ternal leaders in the end have profited by their experiences and the fraternal orders have been an acknowledged educational influence that has made America of to-day the best insured por tion of the world. A table of mortality built upon fraternal experience, adopted in 1899, has become a standard for rates and since that date a continuous effort has been made to bring fra ternal insurance to a scientific basis.
Development— Looking back over the less than 50 years of fraternal insurance, a steady improvement in plans and methods is to be noted, as well as an amazing expansion of the idea, as shown in the accompanying table. Ig norance and error may be freely acknowledged, but none the less it was an altogether natural event and thrilling now to contemplate that the great democracy of the West, after gaining a new consciousness of solidarity from four years of civil strife, should launch on a great co-operative effort touching that event of life which deprives the great majority of families of their chief support.