A Young Man’s Benefit: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860-1929

205 Pages·1999·11.565 MB·English

by  George Emery, Herbert Emery

A Young Man's Benefit
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness
Insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860-1929
In the past a family's chief cost of sickness was loss of the family head's
earning, not expenses for health care. Since there were no government
programs, sickness insurance provided by friendly societies, commer-
cial insurers, and other institutions was important in partially replacing
the wage earner's lost income. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows
(IOOF) was the largest social society in Canada and the United States
and also the largest provider of sickness insurance.
Using cliometric methods and records from six grand-lodge archives,
A Young Man's Benefit rejects the conventional wisdom about friendly
societies and sickness insurance, arguing that IOOF lodges were finan-
cially sound institutions, were more efficient than commercial insurers,
and met a market demand headed by young men who lacked alterna-
tives to market insurance, not older men who had above average risk of
sickness disability.
George Emery and Herbert Emery show that many young men
joined the Odd Fellows for sickness insurance and quit the society once
self-insurance - savings - or family insurance - secondary incomes
from older children - became feasible for them. The older men who
valued the social benefits of membership and did not need the sick ben-
efit gradually became a majority and dismantled the IOOF'S insurance
provisions.
GEORGE EMERY is associate professor of history, University of Western
Ontario.
j.c. HERBERT EMERY is associate professor of economics, University
of Calgary.
MCGILL-QUEEN'S/ASSOCIATED MEDICAL SERVICES
(HANNAH INSTITUTE) STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
MEDICINE, HEALTH, AND SOCIETY
Series Editors: S.O. Freedman and J.T.H. Connor
Volumes in this series have financial support from
Associated Medical Services, Inc., through the Hannah
Institute for the History of Medicine program.
i Home Medicine
The Newfoundland Experience
John K. Crellin
2. A Long Way from Home
The Tuberculosis Epidemic among the Inuit
Pat Sandiford Grygier
3 Labrador Odyssey
The Journal and Photographs of Eliot Curwen on the
Second Voyage of Wilfred Grenfell, 1893
Edited by Ronald Rompkey
4 Architecture in the Family Way
Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870-1900
Annmarie Adams
5 Local Hospitals in Ancien Regime France
Rationalization, Resistance, Renewal, 1530-1789
Daniel Hickey
6 Foisted upon the Government?
State Responsibilities, Family Obligations, and the Care of
the Dependent Aged in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario
Edgar-Andre Montigny
7 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
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
This page intentionally left blank
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