Ritual, Secrecy, and Civil Society is an academic journal that explores how associationalism and volunteerism have shaped democracy, politics, and history. Subjects have included labor and agricultural movements like the Knights of Labor and National Grange, Freemasonry, Eastern Star and Amaranth, Rotary, college and honor sororities and fraternities, religious groups like the Knights of Columbia, societies that expanded into insurance programs like the Woodsmen of the World, other aspects of freemasonry, clubs, lodges, labor unions, the place of ritual, ceremony and secrecy, and the implications for gender, race, religion, and political legitimacy. Equally welcome are considerations of how volunteerism in these movements contributes to democracy and political life.
