Talk:List of North American fraternal orders

Some basic notes
For this list I mainly relied on Preuss and Stevens. When possible I use the sources that Preuss gives in his entries. The edition that I use for Stevens is the first, 1899 ed. Preuss uses the 2nd 1907 ed. but failed to realize that aside from information on freemasonry the text is identical. That led him to some mistakes that have crept up in later literature giving membership numbers, for instance, as current for 1907 when it really was true approximately a decade early. In contrast to Preuss, Stevens rarely gives date for his membership figures. When he does not I simply put "late 1890s" the period in which the cyclopedia was being compiled. Preuss made attempts to contact many members mentioned in Stevens by mail, but in many instances did not have a response. In these instances I state "apparently defunct by the early 1920s", which was Preuss usual note in those cases.

As for the definition of a fraternal benefit society I have gone with a strict definition, listing only those that had pecuniary benefits. Ones that only had vague, mission statement like benefits like "help each other and the down trodden" ergo the Brotherhood of the Ancient and Modern America or Knights of the Ancient Essenic Order I have excluded. Some groups like the Iridescent Order of the Iris and the Knights of Glory are excluded because I could not find enough information on them and did not know if they fit the criteria. Ethnic fraternal orders and excluded because they already have a list - List of American ethnic and religious fraternal orders. Political, temperance, Neo-Hospitaller and animal themed orders will have their own lists shortly. Occult orders are excluded because they did not have pecuniary benefits (well, none of the ones I have been able to find anyway).

Orders that are listed, but do not have information on their entries on this page. I felt that larger orders with their own articles should just be bluelinked. Currently there are a few red links on this page without information 0 the Arctic Brotherhood, Knights and Ladies of Security and League of Friendship of the Supreme Mechanical Order of the Sun. This is because I am gathering information to create articles for them. A couple are linked to articles for their (former) headquarters that are now considered historical buildings and have their own articles already - Modern Brotherhood of America and American Insurance Union. This is because I am planning to add the information on the orders to the pages about those buildings. (Or is that Coatrack? We'll see.)

Like everything on Wikipedia this page is never "finished". There are orders in Stevens and Preuss that meet my criteria but are not here, there are major societies that have not yet been added and I'm sure there are more orders out there in other sources that I have overlooked. However, I believe the page as it currently exist is complete enough to warrant being being published on wikipedia.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 00:55, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Merge
I do not see how merging this with the ethnic fraternal orders is a good idea. That had some similarities, but also different functions - one sought to help and maintain (usually) new immigrant cultures and help fellow immigrants. The other was principally designed to facilitate financial help and fraternity, but had no ethnic or religious component.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 15:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)