Part 686: Meanwhile, in the Northern Jurisdiction
I am in the midst of examining the progression of Scottish Rite stage construction in the Southern Jurisdiction, before I return to the life and times of Thomas G. Moses in 1909. 1908 to 1910 is when Sosman & Landis reach their peak production period of fraternal theater production and Brown’s special system. There is little documented evidence of degree productions in the Southern Jurisdiction before 1896, with the earliest stages being constructed in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Oakland, California, much flew under the official radar.
The major aspect to the evolution of theatrically interpreted degree work in the Southern Jurisdiction is a systematic marketing plan by a relatively small number of individuals that included Bestor G. Brown as the spokesman for the movement. Brown created demand for a particular product manufactured by Sosman & Landis studio. The development of Brown’s special system directly increased the amount of painted scenery that was able to be installed in a Scottish Rite theaters. Although Sosman & Landis scenic artists and stage carpenter David Austin Strong (1830-1911) was credited by Thomas G. Moses (1856-1934) as the “Daddy” of Masonic design, the theatrical staging of degree work had long been occurring in the Northern Jurisdiction for decades before the Southern Jurisdiction.
Before moving forward with the expansion of Scottish Rite stages throughout the Southern Jurisdiction, from 1896 onward, here’s a brief recap of what was already occurring in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction (NMJ) of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Keep in mind that the NMJ is located east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River. At the time the geographical demarcations were established, the NMJ included many of the United States’ major metropolitan areas, including Boston, and Philadelphia. These were vibrant theatrical hubs during the mid-nineteenth century when the NMJ began staging portions of their degree work, not to mention the Masonic Opera Houses that were constructed during the time.
In the 1860s the Indianapolis Scottish Rite Bodies used movable scenery and a small stage in their 1863 space of the Yohn Building, before moving to the Baldwin Building in 1873. Increasingly elaborate stage productions of degrees continued until 1882 when the Indianapolis Scottish Rite purchased and remodeled an old pork slaughterhouse, installing two stages for degree work. Originally a five-story brick building, the back half was raised an additional story to accommodate a theatrical fly system. Theatre spaces occupied both the fourth and fifth floors and were of similar size, each including galleries on three sides with 450-seat capacities. The fourth-floor and fifth-floor auditoriums measured approximately forty by eighty feet. The fourth-floor auditorium included a twenty-eight foot proscenium opening that was primarily used for scenic effects in connection with the conferring of degrees. The fifth-floor proscenium stage opening was twenty by thirty feet and included a forty-five-foot high fly loft.
Despite the popularity of Scottish Rite stages, the Southern Jurisdiction did not follow suit because of Grand Commander Pike. The same year that the Indianapolis Scottish Rite building was completed, Grand Pike addressed the dissimilarity of degree work in each jurisdiction in his 1882 Allocution, stating, “The Rite in this jurisdiction is a Rite of Instruction, and not of scenic pomp and stage-show. We do not indulge in melodrama or pantomime. It is the firm conviction of hundreds of our zealous workers that our books are well worth being studied, and that the Rite, as developed in our Degrees, is destined by God to be in our future one of the chief benefactors of humanity…I can not conceive of a more useless occupation than the arranging and performing of degrees, neither the effect nor the purpose of which is to make men wiser or better, but which are acted as melodramas, to gratify an æsthetic taste and please the imagination, like the pageantry of cardinals and orioles. It is not Masonry.”
As in Indianapolis, Cincinnati also constructed a series of early stages before building a full Scottish Rite cathedral. Cincinnati’s first Scottish Rite cathedral was destroyed by fire during 1884. The New Scottish Rite Cathedral was described in the Masonic Column of Cincinnati’s Commercial Gazette on July 5, 1885. The article boasted, “When fully completed the Cathedral will constitute the most complete and elegantly fitted building devoted to any one branch of Masonry in the World.” It was competed by 1886 at a cost of $82,500. (Democratic and Chronicle, 16 May 1886, page 2). The Cincinnati Scottish Rite auditorium contained a three-tiered balcony and a thirty-two-foot proscenium opening. The entire scenic installation for their newly constructed Scottish Rite building was credited to E. T. Harvey. His scenery included a tomb, interior palace, palatial chamber, landscape, fiery underworld, ascension of Christ, and a cathedral interior to name a few. As an itinerant artist, Harvey worked at a variety of theatres throughout the region, including Heuck’s New Opera House where the Scottish Rite scenery had been painted. E. T. Harvey would create 18 new sets of scenery for the Cleveland Scottish Rite in 1901 too after they suffered the loss of a previous building to fire (Cincinnati Enquirer, 31, Oct 1901, page 3). Harvey (1843-1918) was an Englishman who immigrated to America in 1860 and worked extensively as a scenic artist in the east. He also worked at the Grand Opera in Cincinnati for 25 years. Harvey was a member of the Scottish Rite and Shrine, as many of the first scenic artists to create Masonic scenery,
In 1886, the same year that the second Cincinnati Scottish Rite Cathedral was completed, another one was finished in Columbus, Ohio. The “Fort Wayne Daily Gazette” included an article “Gorgeous Quarters. The Magnificent Scottish Rite Cathedral at Columbus, Ohio” (5 Dec. 1886, page 8). The Third Street Universalist church was purchased and remodeled for $12,000. The renovation included a stage and property room. At the time, the newspapers proclaimed the building to be “one of the most complete in the country.” Indianapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati were only a few examples of a wave sweeping through the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction a full decade before the first small Scottish Rite stages appeared in Little Rock and Oakland.
To be continued…
