Graduate Students

Calnan, James - Ph.D

“A Home Not Made With Hands”:National Voluntary Associations And Local Community In Prince Edward County, Ontario, At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century - Dr. Catharine Wilson, advisor

         This thesis is an investigation of the associational movement of the late nineteenth-century, and the changes to national voluntary associations of that period in the context of small town Ontario. The town of Picton serves as a case study, and all of the men's and women's associations in that town are examined. The thesis argues that these national associations were fundamentally local organizations. Their development was conditioned by the connections, familiarity, and intimacies of small town life. This thesis begins by examining the change in fraternal orders, from a local emphasis on the creation of brotherhood, conviviality, and mutual aid to a centrally-directed emphasis on large scale benevolence. This shift in power and purpose was precipitated by difficulties in recruitment, discipline and finances encountered at the local level. Small-town familiarity, informality and the desire to maintain local social harmony inhibited efficient management of the lodge system and also worked against the strict operation of fraternal regulations at the local level. The resulting ‘crisis’ in fraternalism led the national fraternal orders to modify their public image and their organizational structures. For women, benevolent fraternalism offered the chance to broaden their public participation, and this thesis examines this little-known part of their associational development. Until the 1890's, women's auxiliaries at the local level had grown alongside men's organizations, often sharing the same networks of familiarity. In many cases, however, they had remained marginalized organizations, concentrating on matters external to their communities. Their own organizational challenges led them to the realization that some concrete focus was needed to keep their associations vibrant. Fraternalism's philanthropic projects offered women the chance to pursue local and popular causes that spoke to their own interests. By the end of the century, the process of centralization in the associational movement paralleled a larger trend toward centralization in the province as a whole. Nevertheless, in the location studied here, these changes encouraged community building at the local level. Voluntary associations had already cut across class lines, and now they cut across gender lines, to emphasize participation and inclusion. As such, they acted as a force for community consolidation.