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Masonic Temple, 1111-1119 Eleventh Street, Altoona, Blair County, PA

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Masonic Temple, 1111-1119 Eleventh Street, Altoona, Blair County, PA

description

Summary

Significance: The Masonic Temple is one of Altoona's few remaining large red-brick buildings from the 19th century. Designed by Philadelphia architect, James H. Windrim, the temple's interesting exterior is complemented by a well-organized interior that is in virtually unaltered organization.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-314, FN-315, FN-316
Survey number: HABS PA-5518
Building/structure dates: 1889- 1890 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1953 Subsequent Work

Freemasonry's impact on America is more significant than anything that speculation would hold. A movement that emerged from the Reformation, Freemasonry was the widespread and well-connected organization. It may seem strange for liberal principles to coexist with a secretive society but masonry embraced religious toleration and liberty principles, helping to spread them through the American colonies. In a young America, Masonic ideals flourished. In Boston in 1775, Freemasonic officials who were part of a British garrison granted local freemen of color the right to affiliate as Masons. The African Lodge No. 1. was named after the order's founder, Prince Hall, a freed slave. It represented the first black-led abolitionist movement in American history. One of the greatest symbols of Freemasonry, the eye-and-pyramid of the Great Seal of the United States, is still on the back of the dollar bill. The Great Seal's design was created under the direction of Benjamin Franklin (another Freemason), Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Freemasonry principles strengthened America's founding commitment to the individual's pursuit of meaning. Beyond fascination with symbolism and secrecy, this ideal represents Freemasonry's highest contribution to U.S. life. Freemasons rejected a European past in which one overarching authority regulated the exchange of ideas. Washington, a freemason, in a letter to the congregation of a Rhode Island synagogue wrote: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens..." Freemasonry's most radical idea was the coexistence of different faiths within a single nation.

date_range

Date

1933 - 1970
person

Contributors

Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
Windrim, James H
Smith, George H
Marks, Charles
Shank, Henry
Finn & Welsh
Griffith, S M
Eaby & Son
Stone, George
Jackson, George
A. B. & E. L. Shaw
William Murray & Son
Wooster Manufacturing Company
Reinecke & Company
Wehn Paving Company
Cooley, Randall, project manager
America's Industrial Heritage Project (AIHP), sponsor
Deines, A, transmitter
Ames, David, photographer
Burns, John A, photographer
Hoagland, Alison K, historian
Spiegel, Nancy, historian
Anderson, Doug, delineator
Macharola, David A, delineator
Lay, K Edward, delineator
Jensen, Anette A, delineator
Anthony, Robert W, delineator
Price, Virginia B, transmitter
place

Location

Altoona (Pa.)40.51630, -78.39937
Google Map of 40.5162992, -78.3993677
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

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