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