Description
Through research gleaned from archives in New York, Philadelphia, Oklahoma, California, and London, Porter shows how Freemasonry's performance of ritual provided an accessible point of entry to Native Americans and how over time, Freemasonry became a significant avenue for the exchange and co-creation of cultural forms by Indians and non-Indians.
About the Author
Joy Porter is a professor of Indigenous history at the University of Hull, UK. She is the author of Native American Environmentalism (Nebraska, 2014) and To Be Indian: Indian Identity and the Life of Arthur Caswell Parker, the coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature, and the editor of Competing Voices from Native America and Place and Native American Indian History and Culture.
Reviews
"This elegantly written book has much to recommend it. It is meticulously documented and is based on archival and secondary sources housed in major Masonic libraries in cities on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The book serves as a metric for studies of Native Americans and of other minority groups who have participated in Freemasonry. . . . [Native American Freemasonry] breaks new ground and should be read by both historians and general readers."-R. William Weisberger, Journal of American History
"Thoughtful and sophisticated."-Alan Garrison, Pacific Historical Review
"Offers many clarifications and revelations about a previously unexplored aspect of Native American history and Freemasonry. It belongs in all university and public libraries."-Emily E. Auger, Canadian Journal of Native Studies
"Joy Porter's book on freemasonry among American Indians deepens our understanding of how an institution once seen solely as elitist and secret could be used to give meaning to native American spiritual beliefs and social activism. It joins a growing scholarly literature that is changing the way we view freemasonry as well as our understanding of Indian Americans. A triumph of scholarship!"-Margaret C. Jacob, distinguished professor of history, UCLA
"Native American Freemasonry provides an important insight into how Native and European Americans made use of Masonic space for mutual recognition, acceptance, and cultural exchange and how popular notions of "Nativeness" were exploited within the context of American fraternalism."-Bro. Robert Blackburn, Rising Point
Book Information
ISBN 9781496216625
Author Joy Porter
Format Paperback
Page Count 366
Imprint University of Nebraska Press
Publisher University of Nebraska Press