Civil Society

James Smith Allen is professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of several books, including Poignant Relations: Three Modern French Women and In The Public Eye: A History of Reading in Modern France, 1800–1940, and the editor of In the Solitude of My Soul: The Diary of GeneviÈve BrÉton, 1867–1871.

“James Smith Allen presents readers with an engaging, kaleidoscopic account of the uphill and contentious struggle to include select women as full participants in the arcane brotherhood of French freemasonry.”-Karen Offen, author of Debating the Woman Question in the French Third Republic, 1870–1920 “A Civil Society is important because it connects the activism and writing of major figures in French women’s history with masonic networks and impulses. It accomplishes all of this by providing copious evidence presented with clarity.”-Bonnie G. Smith, author of Women in World History: 1450 to the Present “In this ambitious new study, James Smith Allen seeks to understand how masonic sisters and their fellow travelers contributed to a more liberal republic and open society and engaged civic culture in the Old Regime and modern France. A Civil Society is a welcome addition to all those interested in the history of sociability, progressive politics, and civil society.”-Kenneth Loiselle, author of Brotherly Love: Freemasonry and Male Friendship in Enlightenment France

• List of Figures List of Illustrations  List of Abbreviations List of French Masonic Orders / Obediences Introduction:  French Women in Public Space Freemasonry Writ Large  How Else Civil Society – and Freemason Women – Matter  Chapter 1:  Masonry’s Gendered Variations Before and After 1789 The Eighteenth Century’s Mixed Orders and Adoption Lodges  Freemason Women’s Social Networks in the Old Regime  Revolution: The Communities of Freemason Women Transformed Chapter 2:  The Craft’s Long March to Mixed Orders, 1799-1901 Variations on Mixed Orders and Adoption Lodges Freemason Women’s Changing Social Networks in the Nineteenth Century Revolution(s): The Successive Redefinitions of Women’s Masonic Communities Chapter 3:  Women’s Freemasonry and the Women’s Movement, 1901-1944 Renewed Mixed Orders and Adoption Lodges at Home and Abroad The Feminist Networks of Freemason Women The Communities of Freemason Women During Two World Wars Chapter 4:  Contestatory Imaginaries: The Representations of Freemason Women Serafina, Comtesse de Cagliostro  Pamina and Balkis Consuelo, Comtesse de Rudolstadt  Diana Vaughan and Others Conclusion:  Civic Morality in Modern France Themes  Between Theory and History  A Social Conscience Appendices Endnotes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index