Fraser
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MARY CRAWFORD (MRS. HUGH), an English Crawford, sister of Marion Crawford, the novelist. She was born in Rome and was educated in that city and in England. She married Hugh Fraser, who was afterward Minister of Japan, and with him traveled throughout the East, and in North and South America. She wrote much, chiefly on Japanese life and characters. Her writings include "A Diplomat's Wife in Japan" (1911); "Letters from Japan" (1904); "A Diplomat's Wife in Many Lands" (1910); "Further Reminiscences of a Diplomat's Wife" (1912); "Italian Yesterdays" (1913); and "Storied Italy" (1916). FRATERNAL SOCIETIES. Many of the secret fraternal societies of the United States include in their obligations the payment of sick and death benefits, and fraternal care of the members when sick. Others are formed for the express purpose of insurance, the money for death payments being raised by assessments, the assessment rate either remaining stationary or increasing with the age of the member. The insurance is generally from $1,000 to $3,000. An other class of such societies is that in which the lodge principle prevails and which have the social features prominently kept in view. In these a stipulated sum is paid on the death of a member, and assessments are made on the death ratio. Among the largest of these organizations are the Odd Fellows, founded in 1819; Knights of Honor, 1873; KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS (q. v.) 1864; and Royal Arcanum, 1877. The insurance paid by these varies. There are numerous other societies conducted on the same principle.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Mary Crawford Fraser, whom Collier's listed in 1921 as a living author, died the following year, in 1922; her Japanese books, especially "A Diplomat's Wife in Japan" (drawn from the letters she wrote while her husband Hugh was British minister in Tokyo until his death there in 1894), have outlived her fiction-writing brother's reputation and are now read and reprinted as first-hand testimony on Meiji Japan. The second entry, on fraternal societies, describes a world that has since largely dissolved. The assessment system Collier's takes for granted — raising death payments by levying the surviving members — proved actuarially unsound as memberships aged, and state regulators forced societies onto proper mortality tables and reserves; the Depression, the spread of commercial life insurance, and federal programs beginning with Social Security in 1935 removed most of the reason to join. The Odd Fellows, listed as among the largest, stood near their all-time peak of well over a million American members around 1920 and today count only a small fraction of that; the Knights of Honor are gone entirely.
Written for this edition, 2026.