Inventing America : The Role of Freemasonry in Early Washington
Ambitious claims are made by scholars for the contributions of Freemasonry in the creation of the new nation : 3 “... there was one place where democracy was being exercised , religious and political tolerance was being practiced , and men from every walk of life and political persuasion were governing themselves without going for each others ’ throats : in the lodges of the Freemasons . Freemasonry was the firstborn son of the Enlightenment , and it was a greater single influence on our Founding Fathers than any other .” 4
Recent research , notably by Margaret Jacob , 5 makes strong arguments for the Masonic contribution to civil society . 6 Notions that Washington began a Masonic city do have elements of truth , but that is with caveats that such influences have not always been deliberate , and certainly not covert . 7 That is an important theme : Masonry exerts an intellectual influence on many who then have directed how the city has evolved , whether Freemasons or not . Rather than looking all the time for how it has influenced Washington ’ s buildings , one is advised to look more at how it has influenced ideas amongst the city and country ’ s leaders , who found in its rituals a confirmation of their own desires for a free and open society .
That is not to discount the Craft ’ s influence on the architecture of the city . Belonging to a fraternity where a builder ’ s tools are turned into metaphors at every meeting might influence one ’ s sensitivity to the architectural environment and “... reflects the Enlightenment reformer ’ s faith in the physical environment as a powerful tool for the reconfiguration of society .” 8
The eighteenth-century prominence of Freemasonry coincided with the need to fill a blank canvas , both physically and ideologically , that was to be a capital . 9 What became the District
ties : contesting the national narrative ( p . xxxi ). Middlebury , Vermont : Middlebury College Press .
3 A claim to be the first chartered lodge in North America is made by St . John ’ s Lodge in Boston , warranted by the Grand Lodge of England in 1733 , and the lodge to which Dr . Paul Rich belongs .
4 Hodapp . C . ( 2007 ). Solomon ’ s builders : freemasons , founding fathers and the secrets of Washington , D . C . ( p . 120 ). Berkeley : Ulysses Press .
5 Jacob , M . ( 2005 ). The origins of freemasonry . Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press . Jacob , M . ( 2006 ). Strangers nowhere in the world : the rise of cosmopolitanism in early modern Europe . Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press .
6 For a survey of Dr . Rich ’ s writings about ritual and political life , see Griggs , C . ( 1994 ). The influence of British public schools on British imperialism . British Journal of Sociology of Education , 15 ( 1 ), 129 – 136 .
7 “ How I see this as relating to academia is that as more and more scholarly institutions start to come on line to study freemasonry , what they may see is the early contribution to civil society . I hope that academia will be able to pick up on that subtly and explore the internal mechanisms that generate its ability to make such a contribution to the creation of civil society .” Greg Stewart , Masonic Education versus Practising Freemasonry , Posted July 13 , 2010 , freemasoninformation . com , Retrieved January 1 , 2011 .
8 Luria , S . ( 2006 ). Capital speculations : writing and building Washington , D . C . ( p . 10 ). Durham , New Hampshire : University of New Hampshire Press .
9 Imagine for example if the founders of Washington had wished to shape it to reinforce a religion ,
3