Torn between sentiments of exile, the search for new loyalties and passionate socio-political activism in their new homeland, German émigrés to the U.S. during a significant part of the nineteenth century experienced serious conflicts of interest. Based on a hitherto untapped fund of sources (both in manuscript and print), this project will map a generation of politically aware Germans negotiating a consistent cultural identity exposed to transatlantic tensions. By carefully reconstructing civil society engagement, their personal connections, collective biographies, networks and arenas of sociability will be illuminated. Furthermore, the project will investigate how German immigrants in the case studied conquered a voice and positioned themselves in the contemporary and contested societal debates of the period. Moreover, due to the nature of archival findings, it will be possible to reconstruct the personal motives and backgrounds of key actors involved.

1. The Borders of Masonic
Cosmopolitanism – Revolution and Race
in German-American Antebellum
Freemasonry
Andreas Önnerfors

2. Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076
Speakers program 2019–2020
Thursday, 19 November 2019: “The Borders of
Masonic Cosmopolitanism: Revolution and Race in
German-American Antebellum Freemasonry”,
inaugural address by Bro. Andreas Önnerfors
Thursday, 20 February 2020: “Sir John Soane and
Freemasonry”, Bro. James Campbell
Thursday, 14 May 2020: OPEN SESSION “The
Roots of the Hiramic Legend and the Royal Arch
and Ancient Semitic Texts”, Bro. Ola Wikander
(LDH)
Thursday, 25 June 2020 (Leicester): “PGM:s and
DPGM:s”, Bro. Aubrey Newman
Thursday, 10 September 2020: ”QC lodge and
Western Esotericism around 1900”, Bro. Henrik

3. Structure of paper
A “life-giving spark” across the Atlantic?
Freemasonry in New York / Establishment of lodge
Pythagoras
Territory and authority: the split with Grand Lodge of New
York and affiliation with the Grand Lodge of Hamburg
“Open the door to misrule and anarchy”: the conflict over
territorial jurisdiction
Racial segregation as an issue of trans-Atlantic conflicts
Hot-wiring Trans-Atlantic Masonic communications

5. A “life-giving spark” across the
Atlantic?
Consecration of lodge Pythagoras
No. 1 in Brooklyn 2 May 1851
”to facilitate this more intimate
union between our German and
American brothers, in order to
further the best of freemasonry in
general” and
“become the binding force of the
Arch uniting the basic pillars, the
Grand lodges on this and that
side of the Atlantic, or the chain of
union, through which the life-
giving spark flows from the one to
the other.”

6. Freemasonry in New York /
Establishment of lodge Pythagoras
PGL NY (Antients) 1781 => 1784
GLNY
1822 – 1827: split between country
and city GL
Morgan-affair 1826: decrease from
480 to 79 lodges in 1840 in NYC and
NY state
1837 – 1859, four GL: St. John’s
Grand Lodge (1837-1850), Phillips
Grand Lodge (1849-1858), St. John’s
Grand Lodge (revived, 1853-1859),
Willards (1837 – 1859)
Trinity No. 10 (1790s), L’Union
française No. 17 (1797), German

7. 1841: Mutual affiliation between
L’Union française No. 17 and
Pythagoras No. 86

8. Organizational development of
Pythagoras
1841-1851: Lodge Pythagoras No. 86 in GLNY (Willard?)
1851-1854: Lodge Pythagoras No. 1 in Grand Lodge of
Hamburg (GLH)
1854: a split in Pythagoras No. 1 leads to re-establishment of
No. 86 under GLNY (Willard?)
1854-(1884/1902): Pythagoras No. 1 in GLH
1853: Franklin No. 2 (GLH) established in Tremont in 1853.
1871: Zeton zum Licht No. 3 (GLH) etablished in Hoboken
1854-(1993): Pythagoras No. 86 in GLNY, united with Trinity No.
12 in 1993
GLH-lodges cease to exist in NY and U.S. at the end of the 19C

9. Conflict on voting rights and
representation in the QC of GLNY (city
vs. upstate lodges)
“liberate itself completely from the
machinations of the American lodges,
which it could not subscribe to, and as
German lodge [aim] to work for the
strengthening of German-ness
[Deutschtum] and relations to the old
fatherland.”
Affiliation with Große Loge von Hamburg
(1811/1737) as Pythagoras No. 1 in 1851
Exile and political activism (’48-ers’)
Constitutional culture of US-Freemasonry
”heart” vs ”form” of Freemasonry
Territory and authority:
the split with GLNY and affiliation with the GLH

10. “Open the door to misrule and
anarchy”:
The conflict over territorial jurisdiction

11. Racial segregation as an issue of trans-
Atlantic conflicts
”Freemasonry among people of
colour in
North America” (1859-60)

12. Monrovia – Hamburg – London
– Paris – New York – Saxony
GLH-affiliated freemason visits lodge in Monrovia/Liberia =>
claims constitution from Prince Hall GL => GLH investigates
the legacy of the establishment in an international circular =>
pouring oil on the flames in its ongoing conflict with the GLNY:
“it is sad but true that our American brethren have not
emancipated themselves from this prejudice [of racial
segregation].”
WM of Pythagoras No. 1 writes a passionate defense of PH
Freemasonry and admission of POC
CFC of GLNY writes a statement, GL of Saxony representative
reports back to his German GL
Masonic papers in NY and Europe cover the unfolding scandal

13. Der Triangel Oder: Akazienzweige Am
Lebensbaume Ächten Maurerthums
(1855-1866)

14. • The Trans-Atlantic Cable as a Metaphor of Progress and
Civilization
• Rhetoric saturated with imaginaries of Light and Darkness
• The Trans-Atlantic tension between GLH and GLNY
foreshadows other ideological conflicts of nineteenth-century
Freemasonry, not least the ’Great Divide’ of 1877
Hot-wiring Trans-Atlantic Masonic communicati