Tents, hives, camps and courts: the fraternal-insurance alphabet

1885 — 1921

The machine inside the mystery, at full strength: The largest part of the lodge world was not ancient at all — it was the fraternal-benefit industry of the 1880s and after, selling life insurance and sick benefits through lodge rooms because the law and the market of the day made the lodge the cheapest way to reach a workingman. Howard's 1907 roster and Polk's 1921 directory together give the industry's South Bend shelf. The Knights of the Maccabees kept South Bend Tent No. 1, Schiller Tent No. 20, and the Pixley Division No. 2 of the Uniformed Rank, whose officers Howard prints with military titles up to brigadier general; the Ladies of the Maccabees answered with South Bend Hive No. 4, Schiller Hive No. 84, and St. Joseph Valley Hive No. 900, and the rival Knights of the Modern Maccabees kept St. Joe Valley Tent No. 1108 and Hive No. 900.

The Tribe of Ben Hur — an order built, remarkably, on Lew Wallace's novel — kept South Bend Court No. 41 and Beech Tree Court No. 211 in 1907, and St. Joe Court No. 9 in 1921. Around them stood the Court of Honor's Liberty District No. 1167, the Protected Home Circle's South Bend Circle No. 276, the Royal Arcanum's South Bend Council No. 347, the Security Benefit Association meeting in the Woodmen's hall, the National Union, the Order of Patricians, and the Sons of Herman in their own hall at 610 North Walnut. Nearly every one of these bodies was an insurance company wearing a ritual: the tent, hive, camp and court were the sales force, the degree team was the retention program, and the assessment notice was the product. The industry's national consolidation and the coming of state insurance regulation thinned this shelf to nothing over the following decades; the directories' columns are its fullest surviving portrait.

Sources:

1. Howard (1907), societies chapter — the Maccabees' tents, hives and Uniformed Rank; Ben Hur courts; the closing roster of smaller orders.
2. Polk (1921), "Secret and Benevolent Societies" — Ben Hur St. Joe Court No. 9; Court of Honor; Protected Home Circle No. 276; Royal Arcanum; Security Benefit Association; Sons of Herman; the Maccabees' tents and hives with officers.