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The Rise of Service Clubs in the Early 20th Century FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH Peter Hall, 1997 BLOCK: [In the early 20th century] there's a rise in secular organizations like the Rotary Club, the Elks Lodges, the Lions, the Kiwanis. These organizations strike me as being very different than nineteenth-century voluntary societies. What's their role in social welfare services in the early decades of this century? HALL: The original purpose of the fraternal and sororal organizations is to provide help in times of sickness and need for the members of these associations. They're almost like insurance companies. Their purpose is to help their members, but quickly, they begin to evolve in a more community-serving direction. The economy is moving from being based on local enterprise to being based on national enterprise. Localities are losing control of their destinies, and these clubs become a means that help people understand where they fit into the national scheme. Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, the national fraternal orders are national entities. They are part of, if you'll forgive the term, franchises. When you are tied into such a structure information moves both ways, from the locality to the national level, and from the national level, back downward, and it helps people locate and situate themselves. It helps people do what I would call "domesticating change" -- taking big changes, having to do with economic inequalities or even physical disability and enabling these groups, to understand and deal with these issues in local community terms. |
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