Secret societies, confidentiality agreements and documents that date back to 1847 are just a few things that some students majoring in historic preservation at Southeast Missouri State University are experiencing first-hand this semester.
As part of a new partnership with the Cape Girardeau Freemasons, St. Mark's Lodge No. 93 students in HP450: Problems in Historic Preservation are receiving the type of experience most undergraduates never see.
For many the term "freemason" may bring back memories of the many hours in school growing up or just spent watching the movie National Treasure, but the history involved is a lot more practical and a lot less Hollywood. Freemasons are a fraternal order, which has the history of being secretive, hence the Hollywood spin, but in reality freemasons are the oldest fraternal order that work with philanthropy issues in the hopes of building a better society.
"This is an opportunity for the students to actually do archiving.They're going to be working with a real archival collection of historical documents that go all the way back to 1847," assistant professor Dr. Lily Santoro said. "They have to do the hard work of problem solving -- how do we organize these collections? Once we've decided how to organize them, how do we house them? What is appropriate for preservation purposes and then the actual work of gently, carefully putting them in the correct kinds of housing."
Because the Mason's are so secretive it's incredibly rare for anyone, especially students, to get the chance to not only look at old documents but handle them as well. When Santoro and her students went to the lodge to pick up the collection materials for the semester, the students in the class were actually given a tour of the temple inside along with some basic history about the freemasons.
"It's a pretty cool, and it's usually just for members," Santoro said. "The freemasons are not this kind of knights' templar, secretly govern the world kind of organization, but throughout history there have been these conspiracy theories about them, which has made it at times difficult for people who are members of the masons to be entirely open about their membership.
"For example, in the past and even kind of today the Catholic Church is not very comfortable with their members being members of the freemasons. For this reason, many were not comfortable with everybody knowing they were freemasons."
The documents archived will range from obscure things like receipts to petitions for membership within the lodge.
"This is a very unusual project that they're even allowing us to look at these records because they are very concerned about their confidentiality. And certainly the people whose papers we are working with would have expected these papers to stay confidential," Santoro said.
The students in HP450 were actually required to sign a confidentiality form stating they would not reveal member's names or anything they see throughout the documents.
"This all excites me, we're not supposed to read every document, but I actually want to," Historical preservation senior Jen Schwent said. "They date back to like 1847."
Once all the documents have been archived students will then write a finding aid. This paper will help to support the masons in more ways than one regarding the care of the documents.
"The finding aid will not only say what's in each box but also give a brief history of the organization and collection," Santoro said. "It will describe any kind of preservation/conservation concerns for the collection. Most of this collection is very stable, but there are a few things we might ask that the masons to use very carefully," Santoro said.
