1867-1877 ODD FELLOWS MAGAZINES. Rare Anti-Suffrage, Men's Rights, Adventure, Secret Society Publications.

Absolutely fascinating reading in these five complete years of rather scarce Odd Fellows' periodicals. 

Founded in the United States in 1819, the order promoted largely traditional Judeo-Christian values and was aimed at dignifying the common man. Its membership was predominantly working class and skilled trades. They promoted hard work, integrity, generosity, and wrote regularly about the dangers of gambling, drinking, cocaine, opium, and even [see below] hallucinogenic mushrooms. They were also firmly entrenched against the women's suffrage movement and feminism in all its forms. Men worked, worked hard. Women stayed home. The system as they saw it worked and they saw suffrage as a direct attack on maleness and the family.

Additionally, loads of content of interest to a male audience; travel, adventure, invention, magic and illusions, scientific developments, etc. 

No copies of a single volume on the market at present, let alone a grouping of five years. These were the copies of J. F. Van Nort, a long-time member from Elmira, New York. 

All half leather, rubbed, but solid. A couple volumes with minor tide marks here and there. One volume with reinforced front hinge and period pencil markings throughout the same year. Generally solid and clean. 

Orr, John W. [Ed.] The American Odd Fellow: A Monthly Magazine, Devoted to Disseminating a Knowledge of the Sentiments, Principles, Operations, and Condition of the American Odd Fellows. 1867. New York. John W. Orr. 1867. 542pp.

Contents include: Sketches of Pioneers of American Progress [Series]; Fenianism; George Washington as a Surveyor [Illustrated]; Washington's Prayer at Valley Forge [Poem, J. W. Bryce]; The Laugh of Women; The Meteoric Display of 1866; Rebekah Lodges [Female]; Secret Societies; Truth the Basis of Odd Fellowship; A Wife Worth Having - Or the Welcome Guest; On Gambling; The Misery of Novel Reading; Canine Comprehension; Character of a True Odd Fellow; The Lightning World - The First Great Telegraph Range in America and the World; Brief Glances at Central Park in New York [Illustrated]; What is Woman? Sherwood's Anti-Monopoly Railroad System; A Good Wife; Southern Tea Culture; Speak Gently to Thy Wife; Famine in the Southern States; Pioneers of the Order of Odd Fellows; Matrimonial Eccentricities [on California Widows, i.e. women left behind for the Gold Rush]; The Midnight Mission [to Prostitutes]; Russo-America Acquired [Alaska]; An Armless and Legless Member of British Parliament; Reconstruction and the South; Agassiz on Monkeys and Mankind [Series on Charles Darwin, Evolution, etc.]; An Odd Fellows Hymn; The Fair Sex; The Catskill Mountains [Illustrated]; Female Influence; A Woman's Answer to an Atheist; Salt Lake Correspondence [Mormons - Lengthy]; State Homes for the Destitute; Matrimony and Divorce; The Good Wife; Wonders of California; Full Page Illustration of the Point of St. Johns at New Brunswick; Outrages on the Laws of Nature - Slaughter of the Innocents [On tenement housing's effect on infant mortality in large cities, some seeming allusions to abortion, etc.], etc. [None on the market; none in auction record]

Orr, John W. and Edward P. Nowell [Eds.]. The American Odd Fellow: A Monthly Magazine, Devoted to the Order of Odd Fellows, and to Literature, Science, and the Useful Arts. 1870. New York. John W. Orr. 1870. 480pp + 480pp.

Contents include: Children at Church; Odd Fellow Gems; Woman's Rights [they're not a fan - attempts to debunk equal wages for equal pay, stating it is an aberration and not born out by the facts]; Step-Mothers by John F. W. Ware; Intoxicating Drinks; Secret Societies; Tribute to Woman by E. H. Chapin; The Beggar Woman; Hash [apparently there was suspicion of what meats were being mixed in; and not just one article - a series]; Woman's Obstinacy; The Curse of Drunkenness; An Odd Fellow's Colony; Advantages of Being a Woman [this is a snarky one]; History of Odd Fellowship; Friendship vs. Love; Truths for Wives; More Woman's Advantages; Women of the Bible by Lida Harris; The Rat in the Meal Bag; Marvels of California; Advice to a Young Wife; Marrying in Haste; A Model Business Woman [hint . . . she doesn't want to vote and keeps quiet]; Dignity of Manual Labor; What it is to be a Man; Domestic Economy by B. P. Shillaber; The Cruise of the Whaler "Congress;" Marriage Maxims; Siamese Women; A Christmas Chime at Sea by C. Porter Sumner; Happy Women; Model Wife and Mother; Port Wine; Danger from Tobacco; Can A Free Mason [ Freemasonry ] Make a Good Odd Fellow?; The Ark of the Covenant; The Past Duration of Our Race; Mammoth Trees of California by F. Botsford [Illustrated]; Educating a Husband; Motherly Talks by Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher; A Night of Terror, etc. etc. 

Orr, John W. and Edward P. Nowell [Eds.]. The American Odd Fellow: A Monthly Magazine, Devoted to the Order of Odd Fellows, and to Literature, Science, and the Useful Arts. 1871. New York. American Odd Fellow Association. 1871. 480pp + 480pp.

Contents include: Fine engraved frontis printed by John W. Orr; Dan Dillon's Double - A Story of Wall Street by C. Porter Sumner; Hash - A Fourth Plate [still on about the Hash Controversy!]; The Masonic Controversy; Suspension and Reinstatement - The Readmission Question by Isaac M. Veitch; The Household Shadow by B. P. Shillaber; Christmas Games; Man's Vs Woman's Rights; The Executioner of Kehl by C. Porter Sumner; The Law of Kindness by Elihu Burritt; The Odd Fellowship is Progressive by James L. Ridgeley; Full Page Plate of Central Park in New York. Woman's True Place; The Women of Quito; Marriage [Marriage is a woman's own career; let them rebel if they may . . . ]; Blue Dick. A Mystery of the Everglades by C. Porter Sumner; Cure of Somnambulism; Among the Mormon Saints. Important Revelations [original, lengthy]; Lecture on Marriage; The Guerilla's Revenge. A Story of Texas by C. Porter Sumner; Freemasonry and Odd Fellowship by A. B. Grosh; Full-page Plate of the Steamship Oceanic; The White-Star Line - A Revolution in Ocean Passenger Traffic; The Jealous Wife - A Pleasant Story by B. P. Shillaber; Early Odd Fellowship by Nathan Porter; A Stroll in Central Park [Illustrated]; The Benefits of Laughter; Uniform for the Patriarchs - How We Feel Out West; The Young Bride by Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson; Home and its Queen; The Best Woman; A Military Prison - By a Volunteer; The Mystery of Sleep; Past Grand Sires; The Literature of the Odd Fellows and Why it Should be Encouraged by Bro. C. Porter Sumner; Woman's Training; How to Treat Children - Eleven Golden Rules; Peg-Leg Peter. A True Story of the Plains; A Convalescent Camp; The Philosopher's Stone; Full Page Plate of The Mouth of the Niagara River; A Soldier of Misfortune, from a MSs Found in a Knapsack; Early Rising; Stimulants; The True Odd Fellow; Odd Fellow Gems; Past Chief Patriarchs; Letters from Under a Lamp Post by C. Porter Sumner; Troublesome Children; A Novel Cure for Drunkenness; Curious Sleepers; People who Should not Smoke; Accounts of Misers; Slave Shacks and Homes in the Swamps of the South; etc.

The Odd Fellow's Companion, Devoted to the Interests of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and General Literature. Friendship, Love, and Truth. August 1874-July 1875. Columbus, Ohio. 1875. 384 + 384pp [Original wraps bound in at rear, including excellent illustrations]

Contents include: Wonders of the Yellowstone Region; Theories on the Origin of the Chinese by Rev. Joseph Edkins of Peking [Lengthy]; Origin of the Moon - An Indian Legend of Washington Territory; Water-Clocks and Hour-Glasses; Odd Fellowship Elevating in its Character; Habitable Worlds [on aliens, life on other planets, etc.]; How they Lived before the Revolution by Henry W. Frost; The Crinkleton Mystery by Percy Fitzgerald; How Gipsies are Sometimes True Fortune-Tellers; The Sweetheart Wife, and Widow by P. G. Charles Burdett; Religious Sects in Syria; A Woman's Wish; Cinderella's Slipper [modern iteration]; The Snow-Shriek; Aubrey's Christmas Morning [lengthy]; Making the Dumb to Speak [on Deaf Institutes, etc.]; A Crocodile Hunt; Boggleberry's Wooing; The Anti-Secrets [on tirades against secret societies, etc.]; A Haunted Chamber; Penal Legislation; He Stoops to Conquer by Mary Cecil Hay; Middle-Aged Women; The Professor's Dream by W. Boyd Carpenter; My Real Turkish Bath. A Lady's Experience in Egypt; Odd Cures; A Gossip about Tea; The Mummy; The Mystery of the Tall Grey Man; Odd Fellowship and the Church; The Great Gold Secret; Nue-er Ching. A Classic for Girls in China; Russian Marriages; Golden Rules for Odd Fellowship; etc. etc. 

The Odd Fellow's Companion, Devoted to the Interests of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and General Literature. Friendship, Love, and Truth. August 1876-July 1877. Columbus, Ohio. 1877. 384 + 384pp [Original wraps bound in at rear, including excellent illustrations]

Contents include: Across Siberia; Natural Magic [On conjuring, including Herman Boaz, etc. extensive]; Maintain a Tranquil Temper; Letter from Bro. B. P. Shillaber; Contradictoriness by  W. M. Statham; The Flood of Years by William Cullen Bryant; The Chippeway and His Copper Mine by Charles G. Leland [Gray Wolf, Michigan, Upper Peninsula; Chippewa; etc.]; Human Brotherhood; The Religion of Odd Fellowship by G. T. Jackson; The True Pocahontas; A Tornado on the Mississippi; Suspended Animation; To Brothers Out of Work; Great Men's Wives y Phillis Browne; Narcotics [Opium, Indian Hemp - Marijuana - Hallucinogenic Mushrooms - Betelnut, etc. Extensive]; Artistic Errors and Anachronisms; Our Moral Temple - What is It? by M. P. Lindsley; How to Cure Nervousness - Anxiety; My First Cigar; In Pursuit of El Dorado; Homes for Widows Orphans and the Aged; The Indian Juggler [on Magicians, including The Wizard of the North - John Henry Anderson, Prestidigitateurs, etc.,]; On the Art of Making Home Life Happy; Only an Artist - The Story of Myra Clavering; Adventures iwith a Highwayman; Fire-Kings and Fire-Eaters; Hunting Gorillas; Ventriloquism; Emblems of the Odd Fellows; Hunchback Jim; Three Dunces; Seals and Seal Hunting; The Tree of Odd Fellowship; The Probabl Origins of Odd Fellow Emblems; Odd Fellowship not Sectarian; Homes for the Homeless; The Amusements of the Rich; Symbolism of the Hebrews by A. B. Grosh; Sarcasm by W. M. Statham; How He was Cured by W. Clark Russell; About Coffee; The Coca Leaf [Effects of Cocaine]; Zanetta - A Creole; Superiority of Christian Over Pagain Emblems; Elephant Catching; The Quangle Wangle's Hat by Edward Lear; Varieties of the Healing Art; A Demon; Going to the Devil's Jug, etc. etc.