We’re currently having an argument in Indianapolis about lodge dues, temple rental prices, per capita payments, and other similar topics. It compelled me to go back and update some of what the Knights of the North examined in 2004 in Laudable Pursuit:
“In 1897, the North American Review estimated that the average lodge member spent fifty dollars annually on dues and insurance, and two hundred dollars on initiation fees, ritualistic paraphernalia, banquets and travel; this at a time when the average factory worker earned just four hundred to five hundred dollars a year. “
— Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (Yale University Press, 1989).