The Odd Fellows

The Odd Fellows became the first American fraternity to admit women in 1851, nearly 70 years before women could vote in the United States. On September 20 of that year, the organization adopted the Rebekah Degree, formally opening its membership to women at a time when nearly every other fraternal order in the country remained exclusively male. The initiative was led by Schuyler Colfax, who would later serve as Vice President of the United States under President Andrew Johnson. That decision distinguished The Odd Fellows from groups like the Freemasons and cemented its reputation as a fraternal order willing to break from convention.

The fraternity's American roots trace back to Thomas Wildey, an English immigrant who had joined the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in England in 1804 before following the Manchester Unity split in 1810. After arriving in the United States in 1817, Wildey placed an advertisement in the New Republic newspaper seeking fellow Odd Fellows in Baltimore. On April 26, 1819, he and several men who responded to the ad gathered at the Seven Stars Tavern and founded Washington Lodge No. 1. Unofficial Odd Fellows lodges had already been operating in New York City as early as 1806, but Wildey's Baltimore lodge gave the American movement its formal structure. In 1820, Washington Lodge affiliated with the Manchester Unity and received authority to charter new lodges. That relationship fractured in 1842 over a dispute about authority, and the following year the American body formally adopted the name Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows grew into one of the largest fraternal orders in the United States, and its Triple Links symbol , representing Friendship, Love, and Truth , became widely recognized. The Rebekah Degree, created by Colfax in 1851, allowed women to participate in the fraternity's rituals and charitable work alongside men, a structure that endured as the organization expanded. The order's membership peaked in the mid-20th century, and while its numbers have declined since, the IOOF continues to operate lodges and Rebekah assemblies today.