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Young Man's Benefit The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in The United States and Canada, 1860 1929 Complete Book Download

The book 'A Young Man's Benefit' by George Emery and J.C. Herbert Emery explores the history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) and its role in sickness insurance in the United States and Canada from 1860 to 1929. It discusses the institutional history, membership demographics, financial soundness, and competition within the IOOF's insurance market. The work is supported by extensive research and acknowledges contributions from various individuals and institutions.

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177 views15 pages

Young Man's Benefit The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in The United States and Canada, 1860 1929 Complete Book Download

The book 'A Young Man's Benefit' by George Emery and J.C. Herbert Emery explores the history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) and its role in sickness insurance in the United States and Canada from 1860 to 1929. It discusses the institutional history, membership demographics, financial soundness, and competition within the IOOF's insurance market. The work is supported by extensive research and acknowledges contributions from various individuals and institutions.

Uploaded by

goongt.ynh.phuynhtach
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Young Man's Benefit The Independent Order of Odd Fellows

and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada,


1860 1929

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A Young Man's Benefit
The Independent Order of Odd
Fellows and Sickness Insurance
in the United States and Canada,
1860-1929
GEORGE EMERY
AND
J.C. HERBERT EMERY

McGill-Queen's University Press


Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
McGill-Queen's University Press 1999
ISBN 0-7735-18z4-x

Legal deposit first quarter 1999


Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

This book has been published with the help of a grant


from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, and from the
J.B. Smallman Fund, Faculty of Social Science, University
of Western Ontario.

McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the


financial support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for
its activities. We also acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Emery, George Neil, 1941-


A young man's benefit: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and sickness insurance in the United States and Canada, i86o-i9Z9
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-7735-1824-x
1. Independent Order of Odd Fellows - Canada - History, 2. Independent
Order of Odd Fellows - United States - History. 3 . Insurance, Fraternal -
Canada - History. 4. Insurance, Fraternal - United States - History.
5. Insurance, Health - Canada - History. 6. Insurance, Health - United
States - History. I. Emery, John Charles Herbert, 1965- II. Title.

HG9383-E44 1998 368.3'63'oo6i C98-9O1zi8-z

This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc.


in 10/12 Sabon.
For Richard S. Alcorn
28 August 1943-25 October 1997
A Pioneer in Social Science History
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Contents

Tables ix
Figures xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Prologue 3
1 The Historical Market for Sickness Insurance and the
Institutional History of the IooF 14
2 The Men Who Were Odd Fellows: the 1OOF'S Market for
Insurance, 1863-1925 26
3 The IOOF's Benefit System, 1863-1931 47
4 The Financial Soundness of the Lodges, 1890-1929 64
5 Competition in the I OOF'S Insurance Market,
1890-192.9 86
6 A Young Man's Benefit, 1856-1929 102
7 Epilogue 117

APPENDICES
A The Roman Catholic Church and Secret Societies 126
B Arrears for Dues and Suspensions of Membership 128
viii Contents

C I OOF Financial Statistics 133


D Grand Lodge Jurisdictions by Classification Group 136
E Technical Details for the Risk-Loading and Probability-of-
Ruin Measures 140
F Technical Details for the Calculation of the Hazard
Rates 148
Notes 151
Bibliography 170
Index 181
Tables

i.i IOOF Lodges and Encampments in the United States and


Canada, 1850-1930 23
2.1 Odd Fellows per 1,000 Population in Ontario, Selected
Communities, 1931 30
2.2 Blue-Collar Percentages of IOOF Lodge Memberships 33
2.3 Toronto, 1911: Occupational Profiles for Odd Fellows and
Men in the City Directory 34
2.4 Toronto IOOF Lodges, 1911: the Percentages of Members
in the Top Ten Occupations and Two Industrial
Groups 3 5
2.5 Occupations of Joiners for IOOF Lodges in Seven
Communities 3 6
2.6 The Occupational Distribution of IOOF Joiners in Ingersoll,
Ontario 3 8
2.7 The Occupations of Oddfellow and Masonic Joiners in
Ingersoll, Ontario 39
2.8 The First-Year Price of Membership in IngersolPs Odd
Fellow and Masonic Lodges 40
2.9 Cumulative Percentage by Age for Members, Initiates,
and Ceased Members, Ontario Grand Lodges,
1895-1914 41
x Tables

2.10 Odd Fellows per 1,000 Population by Rural/Urban


Category, 1911, 192.1, and 1931 45
3. 1 Types of Benefits Offered in Odd Fellow Lodges 49
3.2 Percentages of Members in Arrears for Dues, 1919-29 51
3.3 Estimate of the Non-Beneficial Membership in the
Encampment Branch 60
3.4 Constant-Dollar Expenditures per Member as a Ratio of
Expenditures for 1921 61
3.5 Percentage Distribution of IOOF Lodge Expenditures on
Benefits 62
4.1 Per-Capita Revenue, Spending, and Profit in Constant
Dollars: Yearly Amounts as a Ratio to the 1921
Amounts 68
4.2 Grand Lodge Jurisdictions: Benefit Status Groups by
Geographical Region 72
4.3 Status of the Sick Benefit: Grand Encampment
Classifications by Grand Lodge Classifications 73
4.4 Grand Lodge Trends for Suspensions by Benefit Status
Group, 1921-4 73
4.5 Grand Lodge Trends for Membership by Benefit Status
Group 74
4.6 Net Lodge Profit per Member by Benefit Status Group
(number with net loss shown in parentheses) 75
4.7 The British Columbia Lodges Selected for Study and
Official Reason (if any) for Closing 77
4.8 Estimated Coefficients for Compound-Poisson
Distribution 79
4.9 Predicted and Observed Dollars of Sick Relief per Member,
Average for Years of Operation 80
4.10 Mean-Estimated Risk-Loading Factors Calculated with
Net Dues Revenues and Net Total Revenues, 1890-1929,
and Percentage of Lodge Years for which the Risk-Loading
Measure Was Negative 82
4.11 Mean-Estimated Probabilities of Ruin, 1891-1929 83
xi Tables

5.1 IOOF and Union Membership in the United States and


Canada: Ratio to Peak Year 93
5.2, Number of Odd Fellows for Each Member in Other
Societies with a Sick Benefit 97
5.3 Ontario: Number of Odd Fellows for Each Person with a
Sick Benefit in Other Largely Protestant Orders 98
6. i Modes of Spell Termination for Initiates in Four British
Columbia (by 192,9) and Two Ontario Lodges 108
6.2. Age at Joining and Age at Exit for Suspended Members,
1856-192,9: Percentage Distribution by Age Group 109
6.3 Estimated Coefficients for Weibull-Gamma Mixing
Specifications (excluding lodge-specific effects) 112,
7.1 Grand Lodge Legislation on Benefits in Six Jurisdictions,
192,5-60 118
7.2 IOOF Sick Claim Rate and Sick Week Rate as a Proportion
of the Rates for 192.4 121
B.I The Percentage of Ontario Members in Arrears for Dues,
1919-29 130
B.2 Percentage of Members in Arrears in Ontario, British
Columbia, and Saskatchewan 132
C.i Summary Statistics for Revenues and Expenses in 192,4
Tables 134
C.2 Per-Capita Expenses on Relief, 1930-1 135
D.I IOOF Grand Lodge Jurisdictions by Classification
Group 137-9

FIGURES AND MAPS


Map 4.1 Status of the Sick Benefit in IOOF Grand Lodge
Jurisdictions, 1929 71
Figure 6.1 Estimated Hazard and Survivor Rates for All Six
Lodges 114
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Acknowledgments

Grand lodge officials of The Independent Order of Odd Fellows in six


jurisdictions gave us access to their records, and shared with us their
time, personal knowledge, and photocopy machines. Local officials of
IOOF and Masonic lodges also gave us access to their records and time.
For their assistance, we thank Denny Hubbard (British Columbia),
Wesley Nelson (Alberta), Marvin Johnston (Saskatchewan), Lloyd
Shelvey (Manitoba), Theodore T. Dusseau and Doris Kuhn (Michigan),
and Don Wright and Bob Howard (Ontario); Bob Carr (Ingersoll, Sa-
maritan Lodge, IOOF), Stewart Thurtell (Ingersoll, King Hiram, and
St John's Masonic lodges), and Harvey Murray (Harrietsville, Hope
Lodge, IOOF).
Our work has benefited from discussion of papers that one or both of
us presented at the 1992, 1994, 1995, and 1997 conferences on Quanti-
tative Methods in Canadian Economic History. These conferences have
given us an exceptional, supportive scholarly culture for undertaking
research in economic history.
We thank John Zucchi, Philip Cercone, Joan McGilvray, and the staff
of McGill-Queen's University Press for seeing this project through to
completion. We thank the Press and the Aid to Scholarly Publications
program for arranging two anonymous expert readers for our manu-
script. Their comments helped us to strengthen the work in several areas.
We thank Diane Mew for her meticulous copy-editing. The book bene-
fits greatly from her shrewd judgments about style and presentation.
xiv Acknowledgments

As a father-and-son research team, we have enjoyed collaborating on


this book and drawing on the insights of our two disciplines. The end
product, we think, is more than the sum of our scholarly parts.

THE YOUNG MAN'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I


thank Denny Hubbard who, as grand secretary of the grand lodge of
British Columbia, gave me access to its head office records over a pe-
riod of three years. Denny's cooperation made my doctoral thesis on
the IOOFBC'S sickness insurance arrangements possible.
I thank Angela Redish, Bob Allen, David Green, Ron Shearer, and
Peter Ward for their patience, guidance, and support in the undertaking
of my doctoral thesis at the University of British Columbia. I am for-
ever indebted to Harry Paarsch for stimulating my interest in empirical
economics and for what he taught me. Harry also provided friendship
and support through my time at the University of British Columbia.
Mary MacKinnon provided valuable comments, as the external exam-
iner for my thesis, and later as a discussant for conference papers that I
have presented. Alan Green has encouraged my work on the Odd Fel-
lows since its inception, eight years ago. My colleagues in the Depart-
ment of Economics at the University of Calgary have given my work
their interest and support. Finally, I thank my wife, Carolyn, who has
put up with this research longer than anyone else.
A SSHRCC doctoral fellowship supported some of my research for
this book. Other financial support came from a University of Calgary
short-term research grant.

THE OLD MAN'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As director of the Landon


Project at the University of Western Ontario (1976-8), the late Dick
Alcorn asked me to write a description of documentary sources that
voluntary associations generated. I responded with archival research on
the Odd Fellow and Masonic lodges in Ingersoll and accumulated a
large box of notes and photocopies. Once the research paper had been
written, the box ended up in a back corner of our attic. Twenty years
later, against my advice, Herb made the British Columbia Odd Fellows
his subject for doctoral research. On the completion of his thesis, he
provoked me into engaging issues that his dissertation raised. Some-
where along the way, his work widened in scope and became our work.
The box in the attic became important. Our work became my obses-
sion.
Through Herb I have come to know a remarkable group of eco-
nomic historians who are committed to each other, to the use of quan-
titative methods, the precise modelling of historical problems, and the
advancement of knowledge in economic history.
xv Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my wife, Anne, for seeing me through this project. I


thank Helen and Wilfred Ziegler for giving me a place to stay when I
was doing archival research at the IOOF'S Ontario grand lodge head
office in Toronto.
Finally, I thank my university for an internal SSHRC grant to support
archival research in I OOF grand lodge head offices at Litchfield, Mich-
igan, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver.
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